31st July 2011

The first Friday of the month, with Gareth and Joel playing some tunes by Longshanks and friends…. I though of Egan and his Skilled Helper model…. I defended myself to the challenging notion of being a counsellor…. Memory aides…. Moments that help…. moments that hinder.

Saturday. Jordan was Morris Dancing in Bellevue Park and Janet took herself and a few of the kids to watch. It was a scorching day with a threat of cloud and rain from the late afternoon onwards.

I had to force myself out of the house for the evening. We had been invited to a couple of parties, a 50th and a 40th for Tina and Lee respectively. I looked over to the Cheshire plains from the back garden in Coedpoeth. Village people heading downtown.

Making mental notes, I continued sopping it all up in my mind, like the old soak that I am…. waiting.

Independence Day. I hadn’t even given it a second thought until I was playing some music on the Sunday. Alt-Country, American style, kicking back with a jazz cigarette. Lovely night.

Travelling songs, about poverty and kids looking happy, their passionate faces filled with nothing …. days can only get better. What are we left with ? The faces of those who think the days aren’t what they used to be.

I spent the early part of the week devouring the new Fleet Foxes, by way of preparation for the new Bon Iver. When I listen to these idiots talking about how the Internet is killing music…. What bollocks…. The Masterbakers are a perfect point and example. The amount of good, different, heartfelt, exciting music…. without looking for a chart…. it has become democratic and people are talking about music as a way of making international dialogue…. a sure fire recipe for change…. whereas, the denial of Europe and the fear of dialogue continues to make GB more and more isolated….. call for The Wallpaper Service, we will cover the cracks.

Will Hutton and the new breed of journalist…. The Work Foundation…. cuts in BBC pay…. Andrew Murray so near and so far….  Counterpoint/Counterpane…. This weeks unlikely themes, Nationality Childhood Obesity and Dementia.

Who makes for a Motown Stranger.

….Thai ladies in PM shock…. Cambridge in Canada…. Department for Communities….40,000 Homeless because of benefit changes…. Liverpool Everyman to close and re-open…. The Ombudsman for Supermarkets…. what a job…. Dominic Strauss Kahn and the IMF…. Significant disturbances a spokesman for the PSNI reported…. Gaddafi to sanction attacks in Europe …. ratcheting up the propoganda…. Liver disease in Y/P’s….

The heavy evening rain rattled on the tarmac, echoing around the cul-de-sac and running down and sinking into the lower ground. The news of NOTW has been breaking and cluttering the conversations with it’s brutish shape. The lowering sun refracted through the strong light. I recalled the couch in Llay, watching the light die to my left and rise Lazarus like to my right, feet facing north like a body, ready for escort out of the house. I thought again of the madness of some of those years. Thoughts that come back again and again, like a float bobbing on a remembered pit, full of carp and tench and perch. Glum buzzards, with our glass both half full and half empty.

Atlantis…. 30 years has gone so quick…. people are quick to mock but what a machine….

Kate Adie eloquently described how for the starving, it is better to walk to nowhere than sit and watch your children die, a sad observation in The Horn of Africa famine.

Ofcom…. fit and proper person to hold office…. Jan gone to sewing club…. Elika and the Hair do’s…. Amanda got it mixed up but left us some chilli on her travels all the same….Mmmm…. Vera and the Xmas jumpers…. Paddy trying to get his afternoon sleep…. Elton J…. Don’t shoot me…. Loretta….

AC released on bail…. until October…. Cameron…. Daz rang as Gareth was leaving.

Like Dickie Dark…. Teasing Kian a little. He is great company as he gets older, happy enough to take a joke or a little kidding.

The rain powered down and between strafe like showers I got all the house plants in a huddle for a welcome drink on the back step. Elika has gone on a trip to the races in Chester. Every fathers nightmare…. anything could happen. Especially if they bump into Tracy and Deidre.

I think I will bury the Sundays altogether. Full of Lifestylers…. Give me a daily any time.

The Cardio-Conversion went well it seems according to my ECG. It felt much more physical this time around, leaving me with a bleeding lip from a bite, bruised arms and a sore spot on the pressure points below my ears. The dream I often have, of waking as a five year old, not a grown man at all and still in the bed after an operation on my foot, came back again.

I worked out that I was a couple of minutes younger than I used to be.

So I got fucking drunk. Well if you can’t kick back after being dead a few days ago…. Well !!! I ask you….

It’s a nice conversation piece… ‘ Do you know that I am a little younger today than I used to be’ ?

I wonder what they think when they look at you when you are rolled out on the slab…. wondering to themselves if Paula will ring or ….Did Andy remember the apple sauce…. or, I hope I can get away early tomorrow night.

The debate about the Red Top wallahs is devouring the news, a neverending rolling nightmare…. Murdoch is due to face the Culture and Media committee…. The enormity, range and volume of the tick tock of popular comment, convinces me again of the seriousness of the Information Age…. As serious and important in its own way as the Agricultural and Industrial revolutions…. I have began to think of it as ‘The New Age of Reality’ – Every sinew straining with desire for a place in the new hierarchy of attention…. Hackers…. Where will we find a voice of reason.

I took a couple of days off for recuperation and was pleased that Welshy called down for a brew and a smoke.  

We chewed through the drug gossip and I couldn’t help thinking of myself as a variant on the concept of poacher turned gamekeeper.

We continued our travels through the D and D conundrum turning the whole thing around in our conversations. D has decided to reject some options for a flat, leaving our main man in the Council in a bit of a tight spot….

Dave eventually left, disappearing into the sun on his pushbike, having sprinkled his welcome mark on my mood.

After he was gone I busied myself with a few sides of reggae…. Garveys Ghost and Forces of Victory…. it has to be said, a little lick makes the tunes take on another dimension.

I paid a visit to an old friend Terry White….

Taking a half day off in Lieu on a friday afternoon, I busied myself with a bit of shopping for Jan for our Anniversary…. our 5th…. Wood. I bought a nice miniature chest for storing more jewellry, some chocolates and some flowers…. Lillies, our favourite…. I treated myself to a couple of pints of Snecklifter to celebrate my purchases…. a dark and powerful variation from Jennings. I recall drinking it for an evening in a pub I used to frequent in Birkenhead, The Crown in Conway Street, which was always stuffed full of Cask Ales.

We managed to secure a Saturday night to ourselves and relaxed and bathed and ate and drank and drifted off to a movie. Toptastic.

The collapse of the News of the World continues to shred the media into strips. Murdochs, both Senior and Junior, as well as Rebekah Brooks, can’t apologise enough. They are all hopefully, fatally wounded, snapping and splashing like sharks and fatefully gorging on their own innards as they spill out into the quagmire. A putrid mess.

Rupert himself, met with the Dowlings, in an attempt to paper over the damage to the victims. Step up Baroness Wheatcroft.

The full page apologies to the keepers of the word, not just his own…. Head in hands saying sorry.

South Sudan established itself as a new country, while at the same time Rory finally got his hands on the silverware. I was reminded during his final round of the old adage, ‘Drive for show – Putt for dough’…. I was brought back to earth by news of a dawn probe finding its target in the heart of Libya…. Karzai equally, mourns his brother…. A female jockey wins a classic for the first time.

The Angels Foundation….  

Rebekah is finally arrested and the turmoil brings the downfall of the chief of the Metropolitan Police and his deputy…. The Queen is dead – Long live the Queen….

We were heading fast towards a weeks camping over in Criccieth. We were packing, trying to remember what we had and what we might need and generally getting our stuff together, when the news came of the bomb and massacre in Norway. I feel a certain affinity with Norway, not least because I have an uncle who lives there, as well as my treasured friendship with Jon Arne Madso, owner of a well respected music website of which he is the webmaster.

Andy R joined us for the first time in a while, for the usual Friday Night Club. Andy is a former priest, with a huge appetite for music, particularily reggae. We first met when Gareth was sharing the flat in Hightown with Martin. Andy lived in the next block. We would often sit in the kitchen, looking over to Minera Mountain with a cup of tea and a funny fag. We have been friends ever since and don’t really see enough of each-other. Gareth rolled up, on the eve of the camping trip, on the outside of a bottle of Glenmorangie. It is rare for him to drink these days but when he does he does it in style. He phoned the next morning to finalise the travel arrangements, quietly curious as to whether he had been a nuisance. None whatsoever, I was happily glad to inform him.

I sent an e-mail to Jon Arne by way of our condolences.

I love the Criccieth trip, we have done four or five years there now, both in Daisy and previously with an old trailer tent. Just a field, a river and all the good company you might need. Before the week was out we had accumulated a grand total of 26 to our number, as well as a few visitors here and there. Some stayed a few days, some the whole week and Brynage managed just the one night.

No sooner had we settled in than news came of the death of Amy Winehouse. We were saddened. We had managed to see her back in 2008, finally, as she had cancelled the first show through ‘ill health’. Another addition to the ’27 Club’ conspiracy that includes Cobain, Hendrix, Morrison and Joplin amongst others.

I had to return to Wrexham to keep a hospital appointment on the Tuesday, pleased that my irregular heartbeat was back in rhythm but, quietly disappointed that the Amiodarone trial could not continue. A magnesium deficiency. Nothing to worry about but a shame all the same. The drive back and to was a joy as I pushed the Nissan along the roads through Llangollen, Corwen, Bala, Trawsfynnydd, Portmeirion, Porthmadoc and Criccieth.

We had the weather that’s for sure, with only one nights rain, an overcast afternoon and a little drizzle on the last day. We managed to pack away nice and dry. In between, we had a day on Pwllhelli beach – Gareth and myself chancing a few Guinness and Cask ales while we waited for the ride back to camp – numerous trips to the shops for food and drink, visits to the woodyard for pallets to burn for the fires and the obligatory run down to Porthmadoc, to buy some CDs from Cob Records. I treated myself to some Kevin Ayers, Big Star, Go-Betweens, Grateful Dead and REM. What a haul for less than £30.

Alison and Ian the proprietors, paid us the occasional visit and the whole camp was efficiently facilitated by DazLav, the Site Warden and his incapable deputies. Hurrah !!!

What a glorious place this part of Wales is. I have said it many times before but it remains true, I would move to live there tomorrow.

Daisy and Mojo both ran like a dream, delivering us home for Saturday evening. Little Darlin’s.

We emptied the washing and bags from inside the camper and Jan managed to find the energy to clean Daisy inside and out. She looked gleaming. I busied myself with a bath, read through my e-mails and chanced a few bars of ‘Bertha’ from the Dead album I had bought. I was weary. The bed was lovely and I drifted into slumber with my thoughts filling my head. 

Sunday may have delivered a Road to Damascus moment in the history of recent Syrian deaths…. 140 at least, more than on any other day in the ‘Revolution’ ?

The USA is finding the housekeeping money is not going so far just now…. 14 Trillion dollars in debt…. Phew, in the words of one former President, that is a lot of peanut butter.

Joel and Tina called with young Joey, pushing his new train through the imaginary Alps in his playspace. We had a late brunch and I tuned in to the radio to try and catch the end of the cricket.

I settled myself down to try and finish my own imminent chores while Jan grappled with the iron…. an evening of Blogstuff…. a bottle of red…. and so to bed.