Oliver Wood Photography

Last night was a good moody night, one of those nights when I have a clear sense of the ethereal harmony of things, the characteristics of the seasons, the weather, an almost syneasthetic sense of correlation’s. Actually, I was out and about on my bike but I don’t really know quite where I was as I managed to get lost somewhere between Adlington and Pot Shrigley on very dark lanes. Eventually I found my way back to the secluded Macclesfield Canal and made a very precarious return journey along the rutted towpath to the familiar setting of Whitley Green. The prospect of a “strange encounter” and the possibility of having to route an assailant or a misjudged high-speed manoeuvre resulting in an impromptu slam dive with bike seemed to add to the excitement in the dark darkness. Yes I know, I’m weird crazy personified :-)

It was a bracing night with a fierce looking sky made up of hard edged broken cloud scampering to the east in a jostling squally fashion and allowing the impressive stars to show through; albeit somewhat tentatively. My favourite planet Mars looked fabulous last night, skulking low in the south and standing out from the crowd with its unmistakable fiery orange glow. There was a curious mood of ominous portent with a robust war like essence to this red theme’d and typically seasonal night. Don’t ask me to explain! Actually, I have quite a soft spot for Jupiter too, naturally! It’s an interesting and highly energetic world perfectly suited as the Ruler of Sagittarius—but of course.

I am continuing to indulge in a sort of nostalgia for the music of my youth, or rather shall we say the missed (non-attentive) years of my pre adolescence. Actually, my adolescence was firmly rooted in the “Punk” era of the late 70s, a time when one had to pretend not to like any of the preceding genres. Nearly everything we hear now appears to be in some way derivative and it is easy to convince oneself that the non “classical” music styles have run out of material and exhausted all possibilities for invention and progression.

This is why I like to loose myself in a sort of retrogressive journey of belated discovery trawling through obscure 70s back catalogues for those fiendishly well arranged and ambitiously orchestrated “P Funk” masterpieces from the early 70s and virtually everything on the Stax label. No one does music with this sort of quality now. It would be fascinating to delve into the John Peel shows from the pre-Punk era too if only to get an angle on the “underground” or serious and innovative stuff when all we can think of is razzal dazzle commercial rubbish. Who can remember “Family” and those gritty social narratives set to organ rich compositions with a hint of 70s TV themes?

Current weather: Bright and sharp with mellow baby blue skies, no cloud. Leaves are on the turn and falling (floating) in gentle gusts of crystal like air, general condition of joyful refreshment.

I descended into a rather strange maudlin mood yesterday, lost in some inner melancholic space. I can’t really understand what brought this on, but I suspect that it may be yet another sign of aging, I have reached an age where one is prone to become acutely aware of life having changed beyond all recognition in some way(s), there is a growing feeling of alienation. A vested interest in real nostalgia is now plainly evident and the desire to share my thoughts and feelings with anyone in a similar frame of mind is so very intense. This whole state is probably due to a combination of factors in truth not least an ongoing concern about the prospect of a widening rift between myself and a very dear long term friend. Now I long for her simpatico company, I want to give as much love and show as much compassion as I can, time is running out. At times like this I succumb to moments of intensified pity and get upset by the plight of others in relatively mundane situations. The poor minimum wage kids that served me in a sandwich bar chain with studied automata like routine and made to conform to some half-baked notion of “service” and faux “team work” was such a situation. There is nothing more demeaning than suppressed individuality, but I guess I just feel sorry for people that are unable to do more with their lives. In fact any form of human degradation or degeneracy depresses the hell out of me, the latter appears to be almost intrinsic to life these days. Obviously, there is no hope for us, and the degenerates and the unsympathetic insensitives always outnumber those with genuine selfless compassion.

I spent most of Saturday mooching around some old haunts in the Southeast Manchester conurbation, places that are associated with long gone but much loved relatives and the happiest memories of childhood. Didsbury is a small town only about four miles from the city but it was the place where my dear Maternal Grandmother lived and provided lodging to several generations of Manchester students. A town that was indeed once famous for its student and academic population, a mostly Victorian setting of redbrick, mature tree lined streets, and enchanted parks with tennis courts and ornamental gardens. Suffice to say it is of course no longer quite the same. Major retailers have muscled in, and a dreadful temple to low brow entertainment has blighted the skyline with it’s industrial shed like homage to “megaplex” manipulations in the name of megabuck profiteering. There are no radicals or the sort of people that seemed to be exciting foils to the twin set Cheshire Set of our Hale home just another seven miles further south. The famous ABC TV studios where a generation of black polo necked students from the Manchester University Drama Department cut their teeth on Armchair Theatre has gone, and there is now a keen sense of the general “dumbing down” and moribund middle class conformity of provincial student life.

From the town centre, I cycled up to Morningside Drive where Gran used to live. A short journey through Fletcher Moss Park and then out on to Millgate Lane and passed the traffic island by the Lawn Tennis Club, that famous main location in Ready When You Are Mr McGill. Morningside has not changed much I hasten to add, though the famous Galleon lido at the back of Gran’s house with its blue and white poolside buildings disappeared many years ago. The sounds of laughter and bodies slapping into the water were the sounds of summer at gran’s in the 70’s

Instead of getting the train from Stockport, I decided to cycle the 12 miles home. Another depressing journey through the blandscape of the decaying urban fade-out into Cheshire lushness. It’s the first time I have ridden this particular route instead of the much more scenic Eastern approach from Hale or Alderley Edge. I arrive home in a state, which I believe can be defined by a term that sounds like (shar-may-vu) a bit like déjà vu but this is the psycho-shock of the melancholic estrangement effect familiar to all depressives and travelers. A sense of the colour bleeding out of life, home minus it’s normal “hart’ n’ soul” comfort of familiarity etc. Though this “sense” seemed to pervade the whole of my day (quite aptly) and it was not ameliorated by the release of 21 miles worth of cycling endorphins. I was too tired to go for a night time homage to White Nancy or similar, but the never changing and timeless spatial delights of the natural environment just seem to suite my temperament better than the urban setting. The latter always seems to make me feel depressed rather than physically and spiritually invigorated.

Mental note to self: must get a better digital camera!!

Current weather: Cold steel air lashing persistent gray rain and ground awash with remnants of late summer fruits. Sullen trees shrug off murky leaves in early autumnal gesture of resignation, general state of aqueous messiness.

It is generally turning a lot cooler and wetter a lot wetter! They say that we are in for an exceptionally cold winter this year, a situation that is likely to be compounded by the arrival of a ghastly avian flue out break . I think I should start to bring in the winter fuel supply just in case, and I may get the “back up” coal supply sorted. I could not live in a house without open fire(s) though, but many people just don’t seem to realize how incredibly expensive this glorious and highly effective mode of heating can be. Thirty quid’s worth of coal will only last a week in the cold season and this is without recourse to any daytime pyromania indulgences.

For the first time ever, I have resorted to a little HTML “scrumping”. Mum’s term for taking illicit cuttings from other peoples gardens, she was a keen horticultural anarchist. In my case it is only a matter of “borrowing” the “table” lay out of “live journal” hence the slightly more ordered look of this page and I am sure such things are permitted.

I am now in dire financial straits, in fact this is the first time I have been in any kind of “straits” for more than six years and the situation is just totally life sapping. One tends to forget how important routine and structure in life is, and without it I seem to deteriorate very quickly, energy levels usurped by irregular sleeping times, late nights, and poor diet. It’s not all bad news though…well in a sense? I will be returning to my previous employer in order to work on a new “project” beginning on the 10th and in the current circumstances anything that promises salvation from poverty is welcome. At the moment, I am expected to live for a week on a sum that would normally only last a weekend, bills are impossible!!

I am looking forward to the prospect of a little manual work next week, all thanks to my friend Rob, the village everyman and general odd job man; every English village has one. I always enjoy a bit of proper work, the kind of thing that stimulates real hunger and thirst leading to a sound nights sleep. I seem to have become a little less active on the bike lately and this is due again to not being able to afford proper fuel. A consequence of this is a somewhat diminished up take of endorphins those wonderfully enlivening hormones that are, in truth, better than any “substance”. As a consequence, I feel less motivated to do anything, and concentration seems to have gone out of the proverbial window.