A Problem Like Ava Vidal

Remi

Hackney Hive founder, publisher and contributor. Hackneyite and all round Girl Friday who couldn't wait to leave Hackney and London behind her. London born but raised in both UK and Nigeria, she never never felt UK was home. After hitching her wagon in California, Texas, New Orleans, Louisiana for 18 years, with a brief spell in Mexico, the prodigal daughter returned to London, happy to put an unconventional and risqué past behind her. It sometimes feels like she’s still at war with herself. This often leads her into a whole lot of trouble, although it’s fair to blame it on some of her best qualities: intelligence, original thinking, willingness to take risks, skepticism, rebelliousness, independence, and creativity. But you know what, much of the trouble she gets into is because she can’t help pointing out that the emperor is naked. Remi still lives by her own rules, nobody else’s. She is owned by her two dogs Deffer(a Jack Russell ) Darcy (a Jack Russell/Pomeranian mix now deceased but can’t remove their names) and two Short Hair British Domestic Black cats she adopted December 2021, Desmond and Tutu and Dixie, a Tabby she rescued in 2023 who had been a stray kitten, two kittens who were approximately 3 months old, when found in a taped up cardboard box in Bethnal Green. They are named Fred and Ginga. In October 2025, another stray cat joined her family. Her name is Suzie Q. She is proprietor of London’s finest and long established pet sitting service. The big smoke is home for the moment, but she desperately yearns wide open spaces, where she hopes to call home in the near future.