Today the long-awaited (but not actually wanted or asked for), From Trash T-shirt has arrived. With it I feel comes an obligation to attend the November gig to which I have vociferously objected in public and on the forum. One is going to have to go along with egg on one's face. Not that I'm complaining - quite a birthday present! Especially when you consider that in the same package lurked a CDR bootleg of the Tiny Colour Movies presentation from Brighton last year, complete with the Q & A session at the end.
This will be my next transcript project, as soon as I have completed the DagensEtc interview podcast from April. Quite a long piece this one, and some very insightful answers from the Foxx despite the broken English of the interviewer and the random order of some of the questions.
Made me realise that I have made quite a good job of the research and the ordering of the questions I presneted to JWB. Unfortunately, he hasn't found the time or inclination to reply fully yet. But I am hoping the logical sequencing of the questions will allow him to elaborate more fully on some answers without his line of thought being broken. Martin Hallin, in poor English, does rather jump from one subject to the next and you can feel John's frustration at times as he pauses to gather his thoughts.
Suggests that the questions were obviously scripted, which you would expect, but they should have been ordered more effectively. This exercise has successfully inspired me to recommence the whole transcription project that I began a year ago and have rather let slip since Easter. The natural course of things has lead inevitably to me getting rather bored with the sam einformation presented in so many different ways, but now I am feeling fresh again I can approach it all more positively.
My 'reward' it seems for the thousands of painstaking hours is to be in receipt of these random packages of 'stuff'. I reluctantly acknowledge that the presence of all the rarities that exist (and many that officially don't!!) in my CD library, as well as copious signed things, photographs and other paraphernalia is totally fantastic, but what would make it all even more worth while is the one thing I cannot seem to get. And that is to have some of my work published online. So that all the research and information I have gathered can be shared with everyone else. Ultimately, that is my goal. The material and anecdotes I cannot share, but the research I really would love to. But I am blessed with patience, and this supporting role is very rewarding and will, in time, be recognised and all my efforts (and all the generous contributions others have made to my work) will become available to a wider audience.

I want to stay where the summer goes
Change my name and change my clothes
Stand in the light of forgotten windows
Out of reach down the corridors

The hidden man

© John Foxx 1983

Stan's got it now. We made a joke and said it might take him half an hour as he has been rather hesitant since smashing himself against the handlebars last time out.
It actually took at least ten minutes, but Down in the Park this afternoon I walked round the track with him once and then let go a bit, and then a bit more. Third circuit he was screaming at me to let go and now he's off.
Big cheesy grin and a grazed knee (one fall) and suddenly he's as pleased as punch with himself.
Very exciting for all of us - the girls have got so much out of their own learning experience and now he can join them that's basically it. Stabilisers fitted for LC soon and then it will be her turn. She's only three, but the others might just inspire her.

Sitting watching them and the swans, and the trees, and the trains in the sunshine was the perfect antidote to the stress and challenge of the Church Family meal. Very disappointing attendance (only 28 people) and NONE of the fourteen Cathedral Camp Volunteers joined us.
Stew and Dumplings for 40, so there is plenty left over to be shared around the parish. As usual everyone was very complimentary, which is rewarding as it is difficult as a veggie of 25-years to be confident cooking even the simplest stewing steak. Cn ask for no more than clean plates all round :-)

It happens so infrequently that the feeling fascinates me. I have just played the "Ventoux" EP by Sunset People to be one of the most irritating and disappointing pieces of music. I don't actually DISLIKE very much if any of the music that come smy way, but this really doesn't work. Theremin it maybe, but no images or feelings were induced and it didn't even leave me feeling flat.

I am only marginally more impressed with Device's debut album "Obstacles and Playgrounds". the vocalist s weak, seems out of key to my untrained ear, and the songs, though well crafted and well performed, are unoriginal, thrashy and bland. The sound quality of the disc is p*ss poor too

Third time lucky, and while I'm not big on chillout, Kink's "Blue Skies and Umbrellas" compilation for the Summer Burn project is effective enough. Mostly I must thank her for introdcuing me to the very wonderful Deerhoof. Bjork, Goldflaps, Moloko, Echobelly - and barking mad. As a fish.
I love it

http://www.atpfestival.com/atp-recordings/deerhoof/

Cell tonight.
The lessons from Paul's first letter to the Corinthians. A timely study and something I would quite happily bash D over the head with right now. All about recognising that each of us is a part of, but only one part of, a bigger whole the depends on each of us equally.
Our little company is so much more than he and I now and what we want from it. We have a lot to talk about as his relationship with J continues to deterioriate because of, ultimately, his lack of respect for the part she has to play in the whole. The scale of measure is very narrow, being limite to 'value for money'. That is not what her role is, she does not have to be value for money, but has enormous strength in helpinng others (like him) be more profitable and higher 'value for money' which of course then covers to financial 'cost' of her employment. Like everyone else. By what do you value someone's value?
but the message from 1 Corinhians is clear, strongly worded and entirely in lin ewith my increasing holistic and observation role in it all.
There are so many anecdotes in scripture and life that illustrate this point I am sometimes amazed that he can't see it.
We are supposed to be talking tomorrow, and I know again that he will bring this up. It's getting almost funny his obsession with her and his opinion that we are carrying baggage. Yes, of course we are. if we didn't, we would be whizzing around out of control with our head in the cloouds.

Every kite needs a rock to wind its piece of string around...

Did I write that my claim against Lloyds TSB is progressing?
I have been given that £750 that they send to all those people suing them for unfair charges.

Not sure why, because it sthis action that becomes regarded as an 'admission of liability' and sets them up to have no alternative but to pay the remainder of the claim.

if onl i couldbe bothered to take it onto the next stage and actually send off the claim form I have filled in that sits here looking a me.
I suppose that's what they rely on.
The really annoying thing of course is that the b*ggers STILL make the same charges! £80 last week for two unpaid DDs. I'll be adding that to the form.

Wish me luck. The amount I'm due will, finally clear the credit cards. I'm so pleased to have managed to pay off £8K in the last three years. the end is in sight, but I'm so tired of it now…

More tired than is good for me.

I have three weeks 'in charge' at the church coming up, and I am seeking His help and guidance. Both vicar and fellow warden are taking holidays, and we have three visiting preachers to sort out. It will, of course, work out fine but I have some worries buzzing aroound in my head that won't settle just yet.
Complicated by the rather sudden and quite painful breakdown in communications somehow between me and Tx.
One of those things that has gone so far beyond what it started out as that I can't even remember what exactly happened.
Discussion of our prolonged sexual abstinence had something to do with it, and her expression that it has been going on for solong that she's becoming paranoid.
Apparently, I never used to be like this.
of coourse not, few of us ever remain as we always were. I'm not sure why it's suddenly my fault.
I feel strangely uncomfortable, which is harder to understand because we are so rarely distant. there is tiredness with the holidays, frustration with the finances not quite coming through - a million things.

She has suggested that I 'avoid' bedtime?

She's right.
That's when everything goes pear-shaped and our otherwise comfortable happiness disappears behind a cloud.

Usual housework chores and stuff this morning, and then an inspiring service and great post-church conversation.
Lunch in the garden with honey, cheese and homemade bread.
A long walk in the sunshine this afternoon, enjoying the beauty and peace of Acres Down.
Two hours strolling through the woodland and exploring the squidgier bits by the stream getting filthy. But we prepared for that, swapped them all into clean trousers and sandals for the well-deserved Cream tea in at the farmhouse garden. Such a fantastic, quirky, shabby and VERY POPULAR place that has survived now for over 20 years.
Then this evening, after I cut the grass, we've had a cup of tea in the back garden watching a couple of baby hedgehogs snuffling around.

Reading "The Children of Hurin" at the moment, and it is somewhat turgid. Slwow to start and far too heavy with names and ancestry. Three chapters in and a story is emerging, so I will read it all but its not one of Tolkein's best. His mastery of the world he has created though is incredible and this is a great example of the depth of his commitment to Middle-Earth.
I'm just not really surprised it wasn't completed or published before.
One for the fans, as they say. A bit like home demoes and unreleased songs. Fascinating and relevant, but you can understand why they are not 'out there'. Part of the thought process, so interesting from that point of view at least

People comment on my throw away HP entry, but won't tell me whether my own narrative prose bears reading. Its indulgent I know, and we all write stuff that doesn't always work.
Guilty as charged tho, I am the world's worst poster of comments, though I read blogs for hours some evenings!!

Oopsie

Last night, well into the earlyhours, a special one-off performance by The Young Brothers ably supported by The Velvet Doonicans (aka Arnie and Tim).
Made me think what a proud moment that would be. To be one of the city's best loved musicians (Southampton's version of Ian Dury) and on stage as a support act to your son's excitng and talented new band, seeming for all the world that they are on the brink of something really special.
Seen the boys six times now, and they just get better. I've watched Foxx play in small venues to smaller crowds.
Late to start though - they didn't appear on stage until nearly 11, but then played on till well after 1am. Superb stuff.
During the evening, the invisible woman that floats around in the corner of all our lives took on the kookie form of Kayleigh on the door. Sat just behind us (myself, matt, AB, DR, C and Mr B, Mr and Mrs Vicar) mostly by herself.

Red hair and red lips
Red eyes and breasts of snow

I've always had a taste for that gothic look, which is decisious combined with the beautiful light of madness. On the knife edge of eccentric. One hand on the handle of the mad/sane door.
Once I decided to speak to her she would not shut up. I have this curious effect! Cock your head to once side, nod and listen. Smile appropriately and engage with her eyes.

Features merging
faces blurring

Gone now as a specific, but always to remain as a shadow. A crease in my shirt sleeve, dust on the back of my hand.

We all host Invisible Women whether we admit to their presence or not.
Oftentimes it is our mother, then occasionally someone between an 'ex' and the 'next'.
Our daughter's sister or a distant friend. Frequently someone we have never met, and yet always somehow known to us in one way or another.
These people, the Invisible Women and the Hidden Men with whom they dance, form the essence of our personalities, or histories and our future.
I believe all meetings and partings are within each of us at birth. As we move through live they begin to take some form and order, and we drift or slide from one to the other, confusing them, separating them, loving and leaving.

Some of them have names. Like Sally.
I wonder now if her time has gone in the frame, and who will come along next to wear that dress. Missed a week at the pool while we were in Devon, and I felt her abscence last week too at the last session of term.
Perhaps she has passed my number onto KD, who texted me some days thanking me for the recent email. And then this morning I get in the post two copies of the Fulham programme from her (I left my five on the bus, along with all the contact details I collected!!) and some great pictures of Marc's recent performances at Shepherd's Bush and Wilton Hall.
Of all the gigs I have not attended, that one will be forever special.
RadioBeach has sent me three of the same programme, and k-punk has offered a copy of his wonderful 'london under london' piece.
So much is happening, so many threads.

Inspired to write now, the biography from the beginning.
But where is the time going to come from?

I've just got back from doing big shop at Tesco.
There are multitudinous skwillions of copies of the new book on the shelves, price £10.

Some people have been led to believe u that stocks will run out before breakfast and have pre-ordered and camped overnight in the rain to avoid disappointment.

I don't quite understand...

Tuesday 10th, 6.15am. Walking with Baggins

Feel the rain of an English summer

Trees heavy with rain. Roads damp and not yet glistening. Mist not yet lifted. Droplets fall steadily from awakening leaves onto the lane, and "A Stream with Bright Fish" begins to form in the morning's first hours. You can the effects of a stream in the background, subtley introduced by Eno behind the pianist's melody line. Birdsong shivers in the woodland beside the road, and just for a moment its as if we've been sleeping in the garden. That garden.
Looking down from the wooden gate beside the track, that leads to a sleeping house, I have come across a lake. Almost surreal in the dim light. A large pond, with a freshly painted boathouse and a small wooden boat tied up in the reeds on the bank.
In the still water, silent fish glide among the lily pads, and the figure of a young woman floats just below the surface. White skin like a fallen statue, graceful and serene with fragments of water weed caught in her spectral hair. Radiates like living weed itself from her beautiful porcelain face. There are foxgloves on the other side.
I recognise her now, vaguely, from an earlier story. It is the girl who descended the staircase, stripped of her batchelors, and walked into the carpet. The one who dropped that book, whose pages dissolved when she tried to pick it up. I wondered what became of her once she disappeared beneath the water in that room and went wandering around between the rusted cars parked in that submerged cathedral.
She's dead now of course, but that is of no significance. Her preserved body has become living art. A garden ornament for us to gaze upon. Floating like that, in the lake, gives her, and the garden, a sense of movement and growth. There is and will be no sign of decay. Those who pass this way will see her there, admiring the idea, but take no more notice of her presence than they would a large fish.

Daughter 1 was here when we got home, pretty much on the button at 6pm on friday. We couldn't be late if we tried! This is despite the journey being longer round than I expect and chugging thru the apparently usual traffic delays past Stonehenge.
Only my second experience of 'the stones';, and my first approach from the west. Strangely evocative and moving, even from a car in a traffic jam on a sunny afternoon. What IS it all about? I love the mystery and enjoy the fact that understanding the henge is way beyond my comprehension.

She was here, but not exactly here. Despite knowing our expected arrival time and having promised to get dinner for us as a thankyou for letting them stay in the house, she was actually at Tesco when we got home and didn't come back until after 7. So it didn't start well.
Them? She introduced us all to her new 'friend'; the very gorgeous Leylah, prospecting for Uni digs here in September. I know, I know. But I don't. My daughter's sexuality is something else I am quite happy not to completely understand.
Hey ho - what do I know.

It was the start of a manic weekend tho. She left photos, CDs and all sorts to go through and Leylah left an envelope stuffed with cash which I offered to pass on to her new landlady as a deposit. No call from her yet though, so its just sitting here beside me. Nice to be trusted.

Made the offer we also put to Daughter 2's boyfriend as well. Don't ever be lost or in difficulties when you start down here. Here's the number. Ring us, call in etc. He has twice already in his first year. Kind of cool to be there.

So they left in the morning, and by 8pm the car was back with her sister at the wheel, down here for the Race for Life last Sunday.

Why this had to take place at 11am I don't understand either.

Not doing too well on the understanding things front tonight am I?

I was on duty at church, so we couldn't go. She was a bit pissed off, but then had she thought to check details out first it would have been at least somethng she knew couldn't happen. Easygoing enough tho, so its all OK. That kind of thing could easily upset someone, and family's have to deal with that kind of shit all the time.

Being away helped me to see what a wonderful family I have, and how infrequently shit happens.

Seems so long since the holiday. Already. Hasn't taken long at all to get right back into it again, although with the stress bucket starting on empty I'm hoping to manage things a bit better and continue the wonderfully chilled feelings I brought home with me.
Thanks for asking it was a lovely, lovely week. So much so that we are booking again in October 2008 - this time with a whole bunch of others.

Seems this next couple of hours will be the peaceful lull between the usual periods of frenzied activity.
I'm catching the 1608 train from the Airport up to Clapham Junc, and then planning to walk the couple of miles via Wandsworth up to Fulham Palace. I am expecting to meet at least three threre, but as yet I haven't made contacted with Ris. Usual dilemma - do I spent the time with him, Sm and the inner circle, or should I sacrifice this to mingle with the rest of the fans.
I'd like to arrange to eat with Ris I think - always good company. Nervous though - the whole area is an unknown to me. And this is not just 'going to the gig' this is a VIP/Press preview night by nvitation only, so I am wondering who else might be there? I don't know faces, but hopefully through the research I've been doing, I should at leats be able to recognise names on badges...
people have suggested I am crazy to walk, but it seems appropriate in the circumstances of the artists present.

I will no doubt get a tube from Putney Bridge to CJ later on. I expect to be getting the 2312 home again

Collected the roofbox this morning, which I have more or less now stuffed with sleeping backs, sports equipment, coats and bed linen. That was picked up en route home from the bank where I deposited over £2K in loose change in the church account. Three heavy backs. I think little and often is definitely the way to go. ALso ID'd myself as a signatory now on all the accounts.

Typical manic Wednesday too. We have realised that by some administrative oversight Stan's swimmin glssons this term haven't been paid for! I expect he will stop at the end of term anyway as he wants to do kartae with his mates instead - but not having paid is quite a bonus. We got back here just after 5, all starving and expecting dinner as usual to find Tx had company - one of her best friends who emigrated to Australia two months after our wedding just turned up here on the doorstep with her husband about 4pm!!!
Great to see her again, but what a chance she took. ANd of course very bad timing for us.
Looking well, mad as ever, and doing the rounds in England before a family wedding next weekend. Crazy crazy lady.

So it was fish and chips all round and then a hasty goodbye as I whizzed F and her mates over to Guides. Straight round to Rumbelows then for a distracting and uninspiring meeting of Cell Leaders. I'm not so interested inthis - it really doesn't move me the way it should.

Don't seem to have stopped since this time, so now I feel a bit lost and wandering. Tx and LC are packing clothes, I've got some music on and the office are trying to get hold of me for some book-keeping information.
Sorry guys I'm not here.

Mobile upgrade arrived yesterday.
Over-packaging, or what? Oh, but we have sent you a nice bag to recycle your old phone in.
That makes it alright then...

Work is done with now for an incredible 12 days!
Busy of course to wind up today, but on a high after a very interesting visit to New Milton.
After similar recent converstaions in Hythe, Ringwood (and Wickham) it is becoming clear that there are a numbe rof Market Town Initiatives trying to happen around the edge of the National Park. The focus within the park by NFDC and especially their tourism unit is quite shameful - groups trying to get visitors to the surrounding area are finding their options very limited and support from their council non-existent.
Which could potentially be good for us as this negligence is creating a frustrated market looking for opportunities to get signage, mapping, and general destination marketing projects under way.

Excellent diversion for lunch to Pebble Beach at last, one of the area's hidden gems. Highly acclaimed restuarant on the clifftop at Barton on Sea, overlooking the Needles. Took a client and met the owner. Could be a key player in the sponsorship of a project in the area, but (like so many others) is sceptical of the NFDC and reluctant to get involved in anything that involves them.
So I think we need to start distancing ourselves from them. And one person in particular, who recently got an OBE for servcies to his own ego it seems.
Some thinking ot do and decisions to make regarding business direction, funding options and the like.
But not now.

Thoughts turning to a week in a farmhouse in Devon.

B and S have now gone home.
I really did not enjoy their visit this time, and everyone else seems to be equally jaded by it. they have literally done nothing but sit on the sofa since Saturday night.
"Babysitting" for Tx and I yestrerday so we could take a very rare together walk to the pub for a couple of beers, but otherwise they have showed no signs of interecting withthe rest of us at all. Must be especially difficult for him, who I can only assume was bored out of his head.
Awkward leaving too. I was at work, and Tx left the house at 10.oo for playgroup. So when his Mum arrived to pick them up (and deliver furniture to his new house) there was only K here to make tea and stuff. Perhaps best though - I know Tx didn't exactly look forward to meeting her.

We've arranged for Kink to stay here a couple of days next week while she attends the opening and preview of the artvaults this year. With her new girlfriend.
Its all so complicated - I would hate to be her.
She lives with a boyfriend, but has irregular and occasional (when she's here by herself) liaisons with two different girlfriends down here. AT least one of those is sexual.

Could easily confuse a stupid person.

Time for some dark music.

The Drift, maybe. Or some less familiar Nick Cave.
Obstacles and Playgrounds just doesn't inspire me, though I did promise I would listen this week.

Despite the piss-istent rain of the last three days, broken now by the blackbird's song (AND I'm playing Aerial again as I write this - which is kinda spooky) we had a successful fiete over the church yesterday.
By successful, I mean that it went as well as we could have hoped. But that's all. I'm a little disappointed that everyone's hard work on the day was rewarded by only a taking of £700, which I don't think is nearly enough. The amount we take on the day really needs to reflect this effor tmore, and is usually up over £1000 But this year we had virtually no organising, no advertising and crap weather.
I still enjoyed it though, but being so heavily involved in setting up, clearing up and counting up does rather tarnish that a little bit.

It was exhausting, and I hadn't planned for my mercy dash into the Forest at 10pm to pick up Biscuit and Sc after their D of E excercise was cancelled!
HArdly surprising, and they all looked like a sorry bedraggled bunch when I arrived at the HQ in the darkness to rescue them froma third night of mud, rain and general dampness.
She's lucky to have this get-out option. the rest of the company had no choice but to spend the night under canvas and return to Northampton the next morning.
So they are here now, a day earlier than expected. But they are not eating much, or talking much, or moving much. In fact, not really at all.
I fail to see how two people can so effectively do absolutely nothing at all.

We left for chuirch at 11 and there were still asleep, and hadn't even woken when we came home at 2.00. Fantastic effort.
Took Stan and his mate jack to a party, and then came home to find they had stirred as far as the sofa.
F, A and LC were happy to be outside at last, in the sunshine that kicked in a few hours ago.
A insisted I took the remianing stabiliser off her bike and duly proved that she can ride it after all!!! Fantastic - it has been a little embarrassing that none of my kids can cycle. ANd not to be outdone, big sis then came down from her birthday Globe Jigsaw (which she has nearly built already!!) and decided that she too would brave the bike we picke dup for her before Easter.
Having previously decided that she can't ride it and therefore won't ride it, she jumped on, wobbled for a few miinutes, and is now whizzing about as if she has always been able too!

So a great day. So proud of them.

Emotional too. My first in the role of Minister of the Eucharist (or whatever you call it) Challis - Bearer etc. And Tx's first communion. Adminstered by me.
We have both shed tears over this since. Beautiful moment.
It was very surreal being the other side of the rail. So many of my friends there, kneeling before little me, expectantly and humbly receiving the blood of Christ, shed for all. I am genuinely touched by this opportunity - it really is as special as everyone said.
ANd, because we had so many visitors today (being our Renuion weekend) Mr Vicar was cooking a barbecue so we had a visiting priest. Which meant that our vicar was able to come to the rail for communion. Wine administered by me. Strange days.

Still feeling it now. very humbling, genuinely emotional.
Once I got over the nerves I thoroughly enjoyed it and look forward ot next time. I'm even going ot email Vic and tell him so. He's an inspiration.

AND…
Having sent out an email to all our musicians complimenting them on their skills and servcie, with the suggestion they ought to write their own songs now and then, I have been handed a CD with three tunes on written by one of our occasional guitarists! he's not at all happy with his lyrics, and has invited me to read over them and try to come up with something better.
Not soemhting I had anticipated, but who knows what will happen once you start the ball rolling.
A gentle poke now and then, and a whisper of encouragement, may be all people need to start growing.

Positive feelings. Action and reaction. Added value they call it.
Directly improportional to financial return.

What's in it for me?
The beauty of it is that the answer to that is probably nothing at all.
Which just makes it even more worth while