Hello Everybody
I am writing this sitting next to a huge oak tree in the park at the end of my road. It's an Indian summer here in England this year and the sun is beating down on my face and hands. I can hear a crow above me in a spruce calling and calling and now suddenly it has stopped. There are leaves beginning to fall from the trees and they catch the sunlight as they drift towards the park. There are small children and mothers negotiating play with each other on the swings and roundabouts and I'm at the top of a slope of grass looking down over them.Two lovers entwined pass me by but I don't feel miserable at all.
I've been to this park a few times now and it's good to get out of my room and feel the breeze. I can take my shoes off and it's a kind of lazy place here where you can drift into reality. I spent a lot of time in parks when I was drinking but it always seemed to be slightly raining then and I can't really remember anyone else being there. Anyway if they saw me they were off.
This morning and over the last few days I've been practicing for the concert at The Cube Cinema on the 17th. I'm really looking forward to it now. The nerves start going when you actually start playing the songs. For this concert as well as performing songs I'm also going to be telling some stories from the archive pages of this site as well as some I haven't written about. The gig is a celebration of the launch of this website. I'm also going to play some new songs no one has ever heard before. My friend Juan has made a short Super 8 Film that will be projected on to the cinema screen.
Those sycamore seeds that fall down like helicopters are descending across the park now and the children are coming out of Cotham School. The whole atmosphere of the place has changed and it's alive with shouts, screams and laughter and groups of sullen boys under the trees smoking dope. There are red and white roses still blooming in the flowerbeds near where I am lying and a hippy girl walking across the grass in a long purple dress carrying a beehive. She disappears into the shadows and I can hear the squeaking brakes of the train as it pulls into Redland Station. I can see a little baby trying to put the whole world into it's mouth.
I've pretty much decided on the songs I'm going to play at the gig now. It's always a little sad for me these days as there are so many songs I want to play and some of them always have to be left out because of the time. I've been thinking about that and also which stories to tell and trying to link them in somehow with the songs but I don't want to plan things too much. I've learned that you can trust the spirit of a gig and anyway I've never been a person who felt that comfortable with too many plans for myself or anyone else for that matter. The gig is going to be great.
There are a group of schoolgirls aged about 11 or 12 who have just come and sat down near to me and they are noisily talking nineteen to the dozen. I just heard one of them with blond pigtails say 'I love that feeling when you scratch stuff off your skin and you can feel it underneath your nails' and then she says 'Do you want a mint humbug?' They are all swearing but it doesn't sound right yet. They haven't quite learned how to do it properly.
Now one of the little girls,the one with the blond pigtails, just shouted over to me and said ' You look like you're concentrating really hard on something, are you an artist?' I look up from my writing book and say 'Yes' 'OOOOOHHHHHH' they all say 'I'm amazing' says the one with the pigtails 'I said you were an artist' 'Can you draw us' says one of her five friends and strikes a pose 'Well I'm not drawing I'm writing at the moment' I say ' 'Oh' she says Then the one with the pigtails says 'You look like a very arty sort of person' Thankyou' I say.
I walk back to my house and then I have to go shopping. I see someone who was once,and still is in some ways, what people call a big name. A widely published author and a person who shook up the whole field he was involved with as a young man. He's wealthy now, we all know that, but he needles along the street with a bright red face and he's swigging out of a can of Tennants super. He catches me in the corner of his eye and I can see his irritation. He stands swaying by a bus stop trying to light a cigarette and I have to make myself look away as I realise I'm fascinated by him but it doesn't feel right to stare and I don't want him to become too aware of me. I'm in a cafe eating a sandwich and 'There's a ghost in my house' by R.Dean Taylor is playing on the radio. As I walk home the sun is shining in my face and I'm singing a new song in my heart. See you at The Cube if you're able to come.
Love Patrick x
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