withycombe shade by katharine eastman
I'm not in the mood for hearing/enjoying this one but I'm not that embarrassed about putting it out there where people are going to be even less tolerant of such a stroppy little monster - high volume or nothing, drunk or nothing - those are my two bits of advice. And obviously all the clicks and bangs and moments (48 mins) when you think God This Is Sooooo Amateurish are the moments I aimed for
[ LATER - actually this has been playing quite loudly while I was typing the stuff below and it did grow on me a great deal. And yes - always a typist, never a writer. And never a musician ]
Yesterday my favourite ex and I didn't go far - we parked up by Beaulieu Road Station and wandered about. There was the "colt grading" going on at the place there where they usually have the pony sales and all that stuff. I was brought up in the country and mainly lived in the country and got bored of the country and this event reminded for-why. My favourite ex is a city-girl and still gets excited if we see a deer - which nowadays is about ten times per minute and I think it's only a little while till they invade the cities the way foxes have.
I was geared up to walk right past the colt grading and head off over the heathland as far from other people as possible. But no, my favourite ex was fascinated and because I am polite (probably another word for weak) we went in like we belonged there and we stood on some stand and watched about two colts running round the ring and I did nothing to hide my boredom - turning my back on the whole shaboom and preferring to stare at the blue-white horizon - god the places I could be walking, alone alone.
And though I love her company more than anyone else's and possibly even more than my own, I know that from now on it must be a solitary life for me, if only for my lack of an "interested" gene. I think it should be classed as a medical condition. I think those with(out) it should be protected. Or at least that people should stop calling us boring and stupid and awkward. Though actually I am happy to be described as all those things.
I've never been interested in anything. My favourite ex will turn round and say "well you're interested in insects". And I know what she means. Except I wasn't - it wasn't an INTEREST IN insects - I just loved seeing them appear out of nowhere in the country and scuttle and flap about and then disappear. I know that Mankind thinks that by naming something He immediately understands it - but I'd've been happiest in a world where nothing had a name and there was no interest in what lay behind things and where everything stayed mysterious.
Ah I'm exaggerating. We were only at the colt grading thing for about five minutes before even my favourite ex got bored and then we wandered off. We went downhill (yes how we laughed) and wandered about and even though it was apparently the most beautiful sunniest warmest April day ever and even though it was a Saturday and even though the roads had been fairly busy and even though this place is so accessible and so close to the city (you can often see the cranes at the docks above the treeline) we barely saw anyone.
Some things buzzed occasionally. My eyesight is too blurry to see what's doing all this buzzing, but it was good to know it was happening. Lots of birdsong - lots of larks doing their fluttery hovering thing. I know the Forest so well and it has become so crowded and regimented and "explained" that to me it feels about as "wild" as Southampton Common, or even the sterile parks. National Park indeed.
But god has there ever been a drier April ? I'd been holding off from showing my favourite ex around this part because I know how boggy it always is. Yesterday we were both in trainers, and really we could've gotten away with slippers.
We talked a lot about music. She knows a lot about music. She used to be a DJ. But then who among us didn't ? - I am probably the only person I know who never did any of that stuff. If it was possible to measure how much we love music, then I reckon that I and my favourite ex would score high and be about the same. We both had crappy childhoods and music was one of the things that kept us sane.
But in PopMaster she would win the wind-up radio (if that's still the prize - I only ever hear it nowadays in charity shops, a moment at a time) and I would be on Youtube as the most hilariously abysmal contestant ever. This is why my music here is so primitive. I haven't learnt a thing since I started. What I do must be what was innate - right there from birth. To me it is obvious that you just flail around at random for a while and hope that good-luck throws up a tiny thing that is beautiful and you grip that tiny thing and stretch it and repeat it and make it go on too long, but no one has to listen all the way to the end - the ending is only so very very far away for the sake of the drunks among us, the only ones I really understand.
recorded this morning, photo Withycombe Shade near Beaulieu Rd Station yesterday
