The sun emerges!!!

This is a cause of much celebration, so after breakfast at the market and afternoon tea at the Village Fete, Big A and I take two cars over to Narcoleptic Dave’s house to watch the ‘Live Earth’ concert.

Despite the weather, it has been a good summer to watch live music on the television, with the Glastonbury festival and the Diana thing as well, and it makes me feel a bit guilty that my own guitar is so under-used at the moment despite me once supporting the well-known Sultans of Ping on one date of their UK tour (which I do not want to boast about but I did). It is depressing. I dream that one day I will still make it to Wembley and Prince Harry will be reading my name out hesitantly from a badly-hidden cue card.

Narcoleptic Dave has two barbecues going, and we sit and watch the ‘Live Earth’ show on his outdoor big screen projection thing; later on the patio heater takes the edge off the cool evening air. We discuss music and Big A asks my opinion about lots of things as I am younger and know more about it (although I have never mentioned to him about the Sultans of Ping thing as I do not want to make him feel inferior).

I have not played a gig since the ‘just after accidentally exposing myself at a party’ fiasco of two years ago and the urge calls me again. Plus I now play the banjo so am officially a multi-instrumentalist like Stevies Wonder, Winwood etc., so the audience would get double value for money.

Being a creative artiste I have a strong inner urge to express myself like a penguin who needs to get up the beach. I resolve to address this. I will get my guitar out once again and see if the old magic is still there.

“It’s off.”

“It’s off.”

“Off.”

“It’s off.”

A succession of players pass us with the news that it is off. This is not entirely unexpected.

“What now?” asks Big Andy, leaning on the door that leads in to the bar.

“Don’t know really,” I reply, looking through the glass at the welcoming pumps and optics.

“We could pop in for a pint while we’re here?” offers Eddie. Nobody likes to say ‘no’ to him. We should not have let him join our gang. He is a bad influence.

Three pints later and we are still gazing out onto the monsoon swamping down upon the bowling green. There is a nagging sense unease coming from somewhere. The rain drives and flurries, it sweeps down, it churns. It pounds away like an Abi Titmuss, wet, relentless and everywhere.

“There will come a point,” I observe, “when the LTLP will cease to believe that we have been playing bowls.”

The others nod worriedly. We order a fourth pint to consider this.

After a while I realise what is bothering me. We are sat in a busy Social Club, and nobody is smoking. It seems all wrong. And I haven’t smoked for years, since when it was cool.

Big Andy is twice his normal immense size, due to all the patches he has on under his shirt. Eddie, meanwhile, looks just weird without his cigar. He has the air of a man who has gone to the pub without his trousers on, and fidgets like one who’s just sat on a colony of beetles.

Short Tony gamely drinks coca cola, having given up alcohol in solidarity.

Across the room, other people look odd; out of place. An immense social change has taken place, and one day Baby Servalan will ask me what it was like.

The rain pours down. And pours. And pours.

The LTLP has been working away from home, leaving me alone to care for a subversive and truculent Baby and merely popping in for the odd weekend in order to make helpful and constructive suggestions. Exhausted and stir-crazy, I was desperate for her return.

There is always a bit of a dilemma in situations like this – after a long time apart it is great to see somebody and spend some quality time with them, etc. Conversely, being stuck on your own within four baby-prison walls means that as soon as relief arrives there’s a strong urge to get out and see some daylight. As it was, she had foreseen this and been to an Asian supermarket in London and got loads of stuff to make a delicious Thai curry for the Friday night.

I explained all this to Big A in the Village Pub, who nodded sympathetically at my predicament. “It’s a shame,” I added. “It looked really tasty.”

I think I understand now how tough it must be being a single parent. I know there are right wing people who say that single mothers are prostitutes and deserve all they get, but this is not always the case.

As it is, I have tasted single fatherdom which is even more difficult due to genetics. It is a state which I would not wish on anybody.