I met an old friend for coffee the other day and was extolling the joys and virtues of blogging to him. I told him how it stretches my mind and how writing it takes me along pathways I don’t even realise exist, until I put virtual pen to virtual paper.
At its absolute best that’s what blogging does for me – takes me on surprise journeys through my own mind, creating links where I didn’t realise there were links and taking me along avenues of thought I wouldn’t otherwise visit. Nothing profound you understand, I’m not smart enough for that, but meandering, ambling strolls that I enjoy and always hope others will too.
It’s amazing how the act of writing a few particular words at a certain moment can take me off down a certain little track. And had I written different words at that very moment then the pathway would be completely different. Without getting too deep and meaningless, it makes me think that maybe I should be able to influence how I feel and react to stuff that happens in life by crafting my response to it. But that’s a post for another day…
After I left the coffee shop and my friend Jon, I thought to myself, so if it’s so great why haven’t you written a blog post for ages, missus? I could contemplate my navel here and come up with complex reasons why, and indeed there are some questions in my mind about audience, expectations, hopes and self-doubt, but in the main, life’s just been too busy, so I lost sight of the blogging thread for a while. Anyway I’ve found it now, it was in a corner, peeping out from beneath some must-do paperwork that I still haven’t done.
So what busy-ness is that then? Is that where the word business comes from by the way? Well; husband absent for over 3 weeks, a loooooong weekend at Glastonbury and then friends staying with us for nearly two weeks out of three (they arrived on the doorstep 30 minutes after I downed my Glastonbury backpack!) and now a cling-on ride on the ‘end-of-term-comet’ that we parents board before the Summer holidays.
All this has meant I’ve had my head down for several weeks now, pulled along by everything going on around me. Mostly it’s been okay and sometimes great, but at other times I’ve felt like I’m being dragged along. So I fight against the tide. I’m not sure why really.
It’s true that it has been tricky at times, with all this stuff going on, but it’s also true that I have a tendency sometimes to make life harder for myself (and no doubt others) than it needs to be. I find that if my hopes and (high?) expectations aren’t met I’m crestfallen, dismayed and upset. Not sure why. And of course this takes me back to the first paragraph. Couldn’t I change those moods and influence those feelings by choosing how I interpret events and happenings; choosing which path I follow. Certainly in principle, but in practice…?
In any event it’s been full on and I do feel like I’ve been down the proverbial rabbit hole for a bit too long. So it’s nice to be back in the fresh air, especially as I can see that with all this sunshine, the lettuces are doing rather well up here. Mmmm…
Before the crowds!
At Glastonbury we were literally down a rabbit hole, well not literally, literally you understand, but in a weenie club called the Rabbit Hole where we witnessed one of my aforementioned wished for festival highlights. In this instance Keith Allen and his famous-actor-y mates performing “Hit me with your Rhythm Stick” in Japanese and Welsh, though not at the same time. They made a fine job of it and such is Keith Allen’s charisma and joie de vivre that the tiny audience of about 40 (out of 170,000 Glasto punters) enjoyed themselves very much indeed.
Down the rabbit hole with Keith Allen and friends
I could talk about Glastonbury for a loooooong time, but I’ve been so remiss in filing my report that it is most definitely yesterday’s news. In fact that particular newspaper has been used for chips and recycled into toilet paper by now.
But while I don’t feel a blow by blow account is in order, I will give you a taste of my Glastonbury Festival; which was bigger, bolder and brighter than I imagined it could be. As it’s 13 years since I last went (B.C.), the sheer scale of it now is mind-blowing. And yet while there are missions and must-see moments to pursue and long journeys to make across field and hill, there’s also (if you allow yourself) plenty of opportunity to hang out and just be; watching the Glastonbury World go by; dipping in and out of the madness as you see fit.
Board man
I think so long as you don’t try and see it all then you won’t be disappointed. Danny for one refused to go to the John Peel stage because it was just too far away, but with about 99 other stages to visit, stumble upon or avoid it’s probably good that we struck one off our list!
I daresay we missed some cracking music there but we had our own musical highlights including Alt-J (twice), the Hives (with a frontman who knows how to play a festival), daily breakfast with our friends Foghorn Leghorn on stage, the glory of Nick Cave on the Pyramid stage (who needs the Rolling Stones) and our finest musical moment of all: Nile Rodgers and Chic.
If I could write ‘Chic’ in sparkling, glittering, shimmering colours right here and now, I would, but I can’t, so instead I’ll just tell you: Chic were amazing and fabulous and wonderful and had the whole crowd dancing and singing to their parade of endless hits.
This long weekend was peppered with weird and wonderful sights, sounds, tastes and experiences to behold, but for me the bestest part of all was Shangri-la – a mind boggling world of fantastic clubs set in a post-apocalyptic World. Each club was crazier than the last: try the Horse Meat Disco with obligatory ‘taches for all and a transvestite catwalk show in which half the contestants looked like they’d spent all day creating their look while the other half looked like they’d backed out of their tents and were wearing whatever got attached on the way out.
Danny taught them the bus driver dance. Their repotoire is complete.
Then there was the Copper Dollar club with Day of the Dead dancing skelis whooping it up to fine electro-swing tunes. Of course obligatory in any post-apocalyptic World there was also Heaven, Hell and Purgatory to visit. We spent Saturday afternoon in Hell, except it was heaven: dancing to Norman Jay tunes in the sun. That was the first real day of scorching sunshine, it felt amazing and special – little did we know!
Heaven (you had to win to get in) was entirely white inside! Wellies off at the door please! And the piece de resistance: a row of white porcelain toilets right in the centre of the club. Heaven indeed in the middle of Glastonbury!
The London Underground club in Block 9. Glad we missed the last train home.
And after another dance, some tea and a cheese toastie at the House of Ideas (Jules Verne rusting submarine-ish club complete with tunnel to the bar and leather wing-backed chairs should you want a nice sit down!), guess what? Non-drinking, non-smoking, non-anything me was the one still dancing and whooping it up at 4.30 a.m… Woo hoo!
And I can’t tell you how wonderful it was to wake up each day knowing I wasn’t going to have a hangover. Do you know that moment? The one when you first come to, where you first check out the state of your body and mind, before you actually wake up. Too often in the past, that moment has been defined for me with ‘oh no, I’m going to have a hangover’. Well not any more! I can so recommend it. I know I’m getting all evangelical here, but I hope not preachy – it wouldn’t do any good to preach anyhow, would it. All I can just say is that for me life after drink is a lot easier and better than life with it.
Cloud 9 indeed
Ironically what one might do here is offer a toast, a ‘cheers’ to that! Because that’s what we do of course, celebrate everything with a drink! Ee gads. Well instead I shall celebrate with cake.
This is a ‘cake’ I invented, that you can EASILY reproduce, providing you have access to a watermelon. It’s perfect for this beautiful summer weather and best of all it requires NO BAKING whatsoever. Who wants to bake in this heat? Me sir. I want to bake myself, but I don’t want to bake cakes. No sir.
What could be easier!
So get making, not baking and allow your creation to cool in the fridge before you cut yourself a large slice, pour yourself a glass of lemonade and enjoy this wonderful sunshine. Cheers!
Happy sunny weekend one and all!
eethree 