Ippo Facto?

Only I'm so shite at planning that I actually manage to attend south on the night that nearly everybody I know is actually out of town doing something else. Typical. A smarter man would have abandoned the attempt at sociability and given it a go on a different weekend. But Captain Boody-Minded here gets the bit between his teeth, and even with body clock completely ferked from the previous day's occupational rubbish, and the world of everyone providing various distraction eventually gets on the road by late afternoon / early evening even though the whole plan had been to go down at the crack of sparrow's fart, get some shopping done and visit a few pubs during the day; mooch around Hometown and see a few things. So the opportunities were limited. But none the less, managed to pop in on my buddy of old Kaz, and then join SouthernSophie and her excellent other half Andy the eccentric west country chap for beer, jollification and eventual sofa sleeping; before enjoying a breakfast the following day that my doctor would definately not approve of (sod him), bumping into Sue and Mim, excellent people I've not seen in a year or more, and enjoying the afternoon's Cup Rugby on telly, including Bristol beating a French side who's strip (light brown with large pink flowers on it) was not so much gay, as utter flaming faggotry. I saw; my eyes told me accurately what they were reporting but I barely believed.


Filthy night coming back... rain, gusting winds, leaves blowing from left to right. A curious fact struck me as I was getting ready to leave my grans pad, where I'd stopped en route, that the rain down there smelled different to this stuff up here, in fact more or less what it smelled like when I was growing up. Comforting, that. The trip back... going into a lorry overtake, into a solid wall of spray I seriously doubted that I'd be out of the other side again intact. Clearly those doubts were wrong, as I'm sitting here typing this at the now, but it was marginally scarey at the time. Hey ho. Back in the days when I was consorting with Hellbitch 2 I used to find the trip from up here to down there at the end of a visit utterly depressing. Now I have a similar relationship with the northerly trip from there to here. What's the point? But then in fairness I'd not want to move back, unless life gives me a damned good reason to. That'd be like a retreat. Screw that. If life moves forward and takes me back, fair enough. But the north's not bad, the place is fair enough; ok, the job's pants; and who know's what's around the corner?