Feeling Old #57

A few days ago I received an email from somebody I haven't seen/heard from/spoken to in just under 10 years, which left me on a whole new level of feeling old. I've been coping quite well recently and joyously embracing my late-twentydom, including my (still solitary) white hair, despite feeling increasingly run down, and noticing my recovery time from excessively late/boozy nights is growing longer and longer with each passing month. I've let this pass, as, in my defence, because of the nature of my manically busy job, there have been an excessive number of excessive nights of late, and there's no near end in sight.

However, there's no escaping/excusing/justifying this one, as the email was an invitation to the ten (10) year reunion of my sixth form class. My initial reaction was to recount the years, because clearly there's been some mistake, and there's no way that much time can have passed. But indeed it has. So now I'm left with what I guess is the normal mix of curiousity/anticipation/dread that goes with the looming of such things. I've been horrifically bad at keeping in touch with my 6th form crowd, so I'm not going to have seen the majority of them for the full 10 years, which is a scary thought! But mostly I'm looking forward to it - will be great to catch up and compare lives etc...now I just have to figure out what to wear, buy hey, I've got til October!

An enoromous sense of well being...

Well, I survived my week at Download - riots n' all...! T'was a splendidly fun week, despite being insanely hard work, and somehow managing to not see the majority of bands playing...tho to be honest am not feeling this as such a great loss! The weather was fab, the hotel air conditioned and we've gathered an amusing anecdote or two along the way. The surrealness kicked off straight away upon arrival at the hotel, where B was asked by a man not dissimilar from the 'perfumed ponce' Irishman in Withnail & I whether he was 'not embarrassed to not have any badgers?' - or that's how we heard it anyway...the query became slightly clearer when we learned that the group we'd taken to be a party of swingers turned out to be a Kleeneze staff outing - rock n' roll!

But am now back in the throes of the office, with all our Hyde Park gigs looming large on the horizon, followed by nationwide outdoorsy stuff in various stately homes...

Fun as Download was, is also nice to be back in the lovely flat with its plethora of flatmates, all of whom welcomed me back warmly on Monday evening, aided and abetted by a couple of jugs of my secret recipe Pimms....

also been on feline feeding duty this week, which has resulted in daily walks across the park, which has reminded me how lucky we are to have it on our doorstep - the sun was glinting through the trees, ducks being ducky on the pond, children playing football and learning to ride bikes (ok, so a few of them were probably having a sneaky spliff behind a tree too, it is South East London after all, but you get the general idea....), so I have a renewed resolution to make more time for spending in the park.

And finally, it would seem I've become somewhat of a cult figure amidst one of the ticketing agencies we work with - they apparently love my name so much that whenever I send an email through they can't help but smile, and have written a song about me - I am awaiting my premiere audience of this when I meet them (for the first time) on Saturday...I'll keep you posted!

Much hecticness

It's been somewhat crazy over the past couple of weeks, and I've been having trouble finding time to fit everything in, let alone blog about it! Have been to a number of cool gigs, the best of which was Rodrigo Y Gabriela on Sunday night, (and one uncool one, that shall remain un-named!) and the Grand Designs Live show where lots of fun was to be had! Also went to the aquarium, which is especially fun when you have a small person in tow (a young child that is, rather than a dwarf/midget...although I'm sure that would be fun too.....) We're heading up to Donington later on, where I shall be spending the next week working on the Download Festival - rooooooooocccccccckkkkkkk!