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Hello I'm back. Where oh where have I been? Hmm now let's see. 

 

Athens. Has cool bars. They love crepes. Who knew? 

Madeira. Apparently, I still qualify for parent-child holiday. I crashed my folks' holiday. If you are over 60 & like flowers, this is the place.

And now, back in Blighty, I have been wallowing in self-poverty & dredging up the remains of my bohemia. In other words, I have been forced into CREATIVITY, confined to my tower by lack of dollar on Oyster card.

Writing, writing music, making sweet music, making sweet...no no none of that. 

Maaaan, I feel like Dylan on Lucozade, Cohen with vertigo, Hendrix in Madeira...

NO SERIOUSLY. In a vain attempt to stifle my strong urge to jack it all in & go straight down to the Next sale & purchase a polyester, slightly-too-short-at-the-ankle trouser suit, I have resorted to my roots. Gotten into my time machine & landed back where it all began, all this creative nonsense. Read on, read on...

I hope you are sitting comfortably. Uncomfortably is also ok.

Once upon a time, there was a naughty, tomboyish, puzzling sort of girl who spent all her free time running wild in the heart of suburbia. She liked to think of herself as the rebirth of Joan Baez, the remake of Joni Mitchell, the rekindled Carole King. Secretly, she knew she was none of these, but didn't care to mention it in case anyone noticed. 

With her much-loved guitar sidekick & her quick ear for a double-edged lyric she would make up tunes, as many as time would allow. Tunes about boys, tunes about her, tunes about nothing much. 

Her hair was long, a bit matted, her nails always bitten, her mind always off somewhere, anywhere. She had a sharp wit, a mean one often. But for all her outer bravado, mouth & opinion, inside she was shy & thought the whole thing was a bit foolish. 

Her guitar playing too clumsy, the idea of it all hugely narcissistic, she certainly didn't want to make a fool of herself. So she kept all these tunes, songs, lyrics to herself & never told a soul. 

Eventually they were forgotten. That's what happens when you don't pass things on.

It was only when she had grown up a bit, experienced a bit more & a bit more after that, did she realise that her little head was too full. Too full of tunes, songs, lyrics, boys, herself, nothing much. She should release it all back into the ether where it belongs. 

It had been a while. But she began the long task of writing it all down, using different, better words, playing her hackneyed clumsy guitar so this time it could not be forgotten.