there is love in this muddy ground

Glastonbury festival over with, I am now unsure what direction life is going to take. Feel a little thwarted by the deluge and ensing quagmire that made the prospect of trekking miles to see the Dimwits (or somebody else you'd never heard of but have an intriguing name) somewhat unappealing. As the Glastonbury Daily put it: "Thanks, God". However the chagrin of being rooted to the spot if you stayed still for more than a couple of minutes, of having to queue for hours to get wellies, and being jostled, hectored, and becoming one of the Great Unwashed somehow transformed itself into a gloriously liberating experience, and back in my East london suburb, I miss it terribly. After all, what could be better than three days with your mates with no cooking/washing/washing up, loads of booze, fantastic music, and the slim chance of a bit of sunshine?

Anyway, my thanks to all who I was there with - it was great. Roll on the next one (in two years, more's the pity).

Summer love

Hello fans.

Are you walking daily by your Saviour's side?
Are you washed in the blood of the lamb?
When you rise each morning are you crucified?
Are you washed in the blood of the lamb?

So it is summer, and just you feel that urge once again to learn of my fascinating perspective on the world. Just got back from Italy where I saw Florence, and my friends Ed and Flora wed (the ones from Afghanistan) in the most ridiculously lovely setting of an abbey in the Tuscan hills. My powers of description rather fail me, at my delight in seeing these two rather wonderful people wed, meeting again all Ed's very likeable friends who he had introduced me to over the years in his usual way of somehow gettin people all together and enjoying themselves. What a knees up afterwards it was too, where I met relatives and more friends and danced into the wee small hours of the balmy night. We were required to sing some songs, to the immense delight of all, though I was shaking and had the most tremendous come-down for about 10 minutes afterwards. Shambling through life as I do you see I cannot cope with the sudden high. For those who enjoy adrenaline performing must be a jolly good fix. My girlfriend looked beautiful too on that day. As I looked about me at the families gathered there in their various generations, my contemporaries (who have rather suddenly, at pipping the quarter century, stopped being representative of youth and that lusty unknowing hope for the future that we can have or even be in salad days), I was filled with a very suitable sense of the passing of time, of a time, and therefore of actually being alive. Probably something todo with the appraoch of death and all that.

So, are you washed inthe blood of the lamb? Beware sinners, beware!