"Time Flies, Time Crawls, like an insect, up and down the wall ", some lyrics from 'The Light Pours out of me by Magazine'.
Very relevant to life I feel. As you get older and look back everything seems to have happened so fast and time just seems to have flown by, but when you were younger you felt eternal and you'd never grow old. But I'm afraid it happens to us all. Not sure why I started like this, maybe because of a Facebook conversation yesterday with Isobel Kirkwood in Scotland. I posted a picture of an ad for the first punk concert that I went to with my schoolmate (and still in my heart and mind) Paul Cobb. I think we were only about 15/16 and I'd come back to Downham Market to visit him after my Dad had been posted up to RAF Kinloss in Scotland and I'd moved with my parents and made a whole different bunch of friends.
Anyway while I was stopping with him we went to stop at his Dads house in Walthamstow and went to a concert for the extortionate price of £1 to get in, and it was to see 'The Crabs', 'The Jerks', 'The Mirrors' and 'Sham 69' at 'The Vortex'. At some stage we got off the tube at the wrong stop and walked out into some deserted neighborhood and noticed a couple of dodgy looking geezers watching us and following us at a distance. We resorted to a bit of subterfuge and somehow snuck back to the tube and got to the right place. We got to the Vortex and watched the three support bands down in the dark, dinghy cellar that was the club and Sham 69 didn't seem to be coming but loads of drunken London skins were. Being so young and in a very strange town for a boy who had grown up sheltered from the world on RAF stations we decided to walk up the stairs past the skins and head home.
And then after our break in London we returned to Paul's mum's house in Downham Market and went down the pub one night. When I went to the loo I was followed by a bloke who waved a knife in my face who wanted to stab me because his mate had been beaten up by punks in London. Somehow escaped him.
Anyway Isobel Kirkwood mentioned on my post that she lived around the area at that time as a punk and had run ins with the skins whilst there. Just made me all nostalgic and triggered a few memories which I lay in bed thinking I'd start adding to my blogs. Needless to say my MS has totally pushed them out of my mind for now but I'm sure I'll remember more as time goes on.
Lots been happening since my last blog so I'll try and remember some of it. I had a lovely Easter weekend with Dees daughter Taliesin back from Bristol and my children Jake and Livvy down from Lincolnshire. It was just so nice to have everyone back, I hadn't seen my two (except on video calls) for ages. Had to hide a few tears when they went back.
On Saturday night Jake, Liv, Tals and me (Dee is still not up to doing much) had a walk up to Spoons for a snack and a few drinks. I had a cider and a couple of large glasses of Shiraz but it hit my bladder a bit and it's embarrassing going into the disabled toilet which is next to a table with friends and family out drinking and eating every 10 minutes so I headed home and left the three youngsters out for another hour or two to have a few more drinks .
Dee and I opened some wine and awaited their return, slightly later (but still early really) than planned. When they returned I had the idea of taking it in turns to share a music video of choice on YouTube. Quite interesting really and I think everyone enjoyed it.
Dee and Tals also found my old scrapbooks which I shared some snippets from on Facebook and I found a large brass etching which I made when I did the Martial Arts Jewellery and Artefacts phase and I'm going to get it polished up and mounted.
Also before Easter I had the pleasant surprise of a photograph sent to me on Messenger from Charlie Patte showing some of the black belts from my school and Tiger TKD on a night out together and saying hello to me. Thank you Charlie Patte, Grace Costello, Ian Waumsley, Ryan Field and John Penfold.
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