Well here I am, many days later – time has been against us once again. Now I’m at work, all stirred up caffeine wise and about to briefly run down some of the stuff that’s been going on this week.

I must mention the Danish hitchhiker I picked up. A real relaxed cool dude who told me of his travels hitching across Europe, Russia, Siberia, China and into Tibet. And going to places where they’d never seen white people before, camping under the stars and spending days in countries with nothing to do except watch the world go by in all its beauty (can you imagine me doing that!!). I asked him what started him off travelling and he said it was an English sunset. Time and travel had turned him into a beautiful person, not craving after the greed of modern life. A balance I would find difficult to cope with what with my possessions which I love so much, although I know they are meaningless in my heart and in my soul. Much respect to that dude anyway and he showed me it back. We understood each other and knew we were both good people.

At the end of the last piece I wrote we went to Southampton and we saw us some bands. One from Belgium called Byetail, their drummer later purchasing some of my beloved records. When they played they impressed me enough to donate the Mission of Burma album to him too. He was pleased! (He was a cool guy too). And back home, intending to pack some more but knowing it wasn’t going to happen.

And then, Monday out for a meal at Rosemary’s. She is a fellow speech therapist friend of Broni’s. One of the few who is okay and works hard and is friendly. Some of the stories I hear about the others are incredible. Real typical social climbing stuff and putting themselves into positions where they don’t have to work so hard and when they do do some work they make sure they get the really well-paid jobs. It seems whatever your profession there’s always some of that bullshit going on. Well, we had a great meal and lots of wine which meant we had to stay over the night (night four of being drunk!).

Tuesday, Broni went out with Danny, Joe and Stella (over from Amsterdam) while I did some packing up and crashed out fairly early, all the late nights are catching up (but I think Broni got in at about 2!).

And Wednesday more packing before racing up to Newport via Southampton to see the excellent Wholesome Crack, okay Swine Flu and the fucking awesome Drive Like Jehu, whose music just took me away and made my body jibber and twitch that my head nearly fell off. Unbelievable!

Back to Simon’s and to sleep about 4.30, me and Broni in the hallway, Rob, Rich and two Irish guys in the front room. Of course with Simon’s kids we were up at 8.30. Young Elliot first shy but then running around shouting and screaming. A real cutie! We hung around Newport so long, a planned game of golf went out the window. Eventually driving back zombiefied and home where I slept for an hour or two as Broni continued packing stuff up. I woke up for a couple more hours to eat some food but couldn’t keep my eyes open so once again went where the Sandman walks.

Friday, we moved a ton of stuff down to Kerry’s – I think that took all day, I can’t remember. And then went up to Wimborne to show Kerry another nice Tandoori, suitably stuffed and we went back and crashed out – a small day in descriptive terms but a huge one in reality. Our old house now empty of all possessions.

It’s Saturday, up at 5:30 to take Kerry up to Heathrow to catch a plane for Helsinki to Tokyo. Had fun watching people from a hundred different countries go by, hustling and bustling! And back to make preparations in our old house for the party later that night. We hired out a big disco and set it all up and decorated the house with balloons and streamers and spray string. And waited for the masses to come and slowly but surely they did.

Later dudes!

Searching for pictures to use on this post led me to this page: https://abstractanalogue.tumblr.com/post/167514322499/drive-like-jehu-uk-tour-1994-press-clippings
which, would you believe, is written by one of the Irish dudes who stayed with us all at Simon’s house!