Today is the day that I sever my ties with Rivergreen, the modern office complex near County Hall which was my base when I first started in this job. It is a shame because it is a building with a lovely feel and is set in a great location, surrounded by grassy fields and broadleaf woodlands where the squirrels dash between the trees to avoid the dogs that are let of their leashes to frolic in the undergrowth. Yet it’s only twenty minutes walk away for the centre of Durham City. It is such a nice place to be that we often refer to it as Rivendell, in deference to Tolkein.
It is a building that had been designed to have a low environmental impact, with open wooden beams in the roof and walls made from compressed earth that keep cool in the summer and retains the warmth in the winter. There is no air conditioning but there are solar panels on the roof to heat up the water, a roof that is hidden under a blanket of vegetation. All in all it has a modern but relaxed feeling, like a holiday home in Centre Parks and it is a shame that I won’t be working there any more.
By next week all of the team will have moved out to a new location which means that I won’t have to use the back path and climb the forty one steps up from County Hall, or I won’t have to clamber over the muddy fields where the police sports centre used to be. I will lose (or gain) that fifteen minute gap in my day when I could get a bit of fresh air between sites. I will no longer have the excuse to take the path above the railway line and through the woods that skirt the museum and I won’t be able to sit in the café and sip on a cappuccino.
I enjoyed my time at Rivergreen. It was my first base when I started this job. It felt different and good to be a part of something new, part of a something dynamic and forward thinking. Its modernity set the tone for the kind of organisation that we wanted to become and so I guess I have a lot to thank the place for. But all good things must come to an end and so next week it will be somewhere else that I will be heading to, another place in which to meet and work, another place to get to know and grow fond of, as fond as I have been of Rivendell.
Thoughts from a Guerrilla Worker 