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Saturday, October 12, 2002
A bumper year for Apples Sitting listening to the first of the glorious Conference of Birds CD set, the sun is blazing through the window and reflecting off the Stockhausen postcard resting on the ledge. A brisk westerly wind has picked up since the start of the morning, and clouds have appeared in what was, a couple of hours ago, a clear sky. It looks colder than it has been for weeks. This week saw the weather change. Suddenly the air was chilling, the sides of the road up through Stoke woods cluttered with fallen leaves. Apples were bundled in a lay by near Bickleigh and the Fishermans’ Cot. They say it’s been a bumper year for apples. For weeks I’ve been thinking that each weekend will be the last for riding in shorts and short sleeves. It seems that last Saturday’s ride up through Willand and Halberton and back through the Exe valley was indeed that last ride. The long shadows cast from the low slung sun made it look like Fall but the air was still warm like summer. Strange indeed. I suddenly remember passing through an orchard just outside of Taleton, where the air was suddenly rich with the scent of ripening apples. Already it feels like a lifetime ago, and it was only seven days. As I mentioned, they say it’s been a bumper year for apples. My bicycle lighting system is recharging on the floor behind me. My new Fall cycling kit is laid out in the back room, although my new gloves and arm warmers have yet to arrive from my mid-week on-line shopping spree. I did get the thermos drinking bottle, however, which I ordered with the vague notion of going out on long Sunday Runs, stopping for a flask of hot soup on cold December afternoons. This brought about by the recollection of such Sundays in my youth, out riding for miles with Alan McGibbon and a few other of the Ayr Roads club. We would stop by an old abandoned cottage in the hills and build a fire, on which we would cook tins of baked beans and brew tea in water from the stream. It’s a memory I had lost for a long time. I’m glad I got it back. But still, I don’t know if I have the resolve to force myself out into the wind this afternoon. I know deep inside I’ll feel the better for it, but we all know that such knowledge is not always nearly enough. We shall see. Friday, October 11, 2002
Excellent new Felt site has come to my attention at http://planeta.clix.pt/felt/default.htm Lots of info and good sleeve scans etc. A must for anyone remotely intrigued by the great band. There's also pages on other Felt related acts like Denim, Go-Kart Mozart and the excellent Fly, who I just discovered have an album out now. Something else to add to the list... Of course this ties in nicely with William's excellent recent missive about Lawrence and the band... I'm also thinking of dragging my old 'The Man Who Was Not With It' retrospective out of the vaults for another airing. If i do it'll come complete with a few new words (I'll do a 'spot the changes and win a prize!' thing if I do get around to it) and some new pictures. Should I add it to my 'to-do' list? Oh there isn't enough space on the notebook page. Oh well. Thursday, October 10, 2002
Can you catch a minute to breathe? If the answer is ‘yes’, then you’re better off than me. Piles of CDs (including the briefly skimmed and already sounding lovely Conference of Birds 4 CD set, a Lee Mallory reissue, couple of Ludus reissues, the new Cath Carroll – glorious – and Delgados – wondrous – and the new Yeah Yeah Yeahs single – sexy as fuck), stand on the desk beside me. Books and comics sit restlessly in another on top of the filing cabinet (ex-school issue, spray painted dark blue and with a nifty ’78 Records’ sticker on the side). Some videos (including ‘Some Kind of Wonderful’ which I actually did manage to watch the other week, and ‘Harper’, which I haven’t yet got around to) teeter precariously on the window sill next to the three quarter empty stack of blank CDRs. I feel like I’m drowning in media. Didn’t Douglas Coupland say something in ‘Life After God’ about us being addicted to information? Or to Media? Well that’s kind of how I feel right now. There’s so much of interest to check out, and so, so little time in which to do it. I want to switch off, take a break, but I … just … can’t … do … it… |
