The postman always knocks at ten past seven

Buying music is becoming harder to do, the music shops are disappearing. It's about a two hour round trip to my favourite record shop and it may also be my nearest. I like downloads but not as the only option. If I download something I feel I missed out on an integral part of the process. It's like where is it, why can't I touch it? Increasingly I find myself ordering records and I do like the fact you usually get a download version or a CD version with it as well. The last one I ordered was the BMX Bandits in Space LP. Take a listen. 

The thing is when the postman delivers LPs he turns up at 7.10 am, always the exact same time. I had to put a sign on the door for him to knock loudly because he was a bit timid. Not any more. He nearly knocked the door down this time. It seems to only be records he delivers at ten past seven though. One evening I came home from work to find a huge box outside our house taking up most of the pavement. It was a plant we'd received as a gift. The postman had put a card through our door at mid-day to tell us he'd left the parcel in the porch. We don't have a porch. 

I forgot the joy of vinyl for a long time. Too many cheap record players, too many records played late on drunken nights with people knocking into the stereo. I took records back all the time. On its release I bought Pulp's 'His & Hers' on record but it jumped. I took it back to Penny Lane Music in Liverpool where I'd bought it, and told the guy. He asked which track and then put that track on his record player. It played perfectly. I sheepishly asked to change it for the tape. 

When I was fifteen I loved going to record shops in Brighton and thankfully a lot of those same record shops are still running. In some of them you still get served by the same person. In Portsmouth they have a pie and vinyl shop which sounds amazing. And they have Hovercrafts. Must get there soon. 

The clocks go back

Hello, I thought I should get back in touch, it's been a long while. I'm enjoying the extra hour we get from the clocks going back at this time of year. You can't beat lying in bed till half past nine, then putting the clock back to find you're getting up at a nice respectable time for a Sunday. The church bells on the hill were ringing when I got up, it's impossible to get up before them. If you succeed you may as well become a bell ringer. 

I decided I wanted a doing kind of day and went for a run this morning. I bought this new PE kit in July and frankly it's not been out the drawer much since. It was cold out and I thought I'd be the only one out. On the meadow the dog walkers were out and about as usual. I run past a guy putting a bag of footballs in his car boot. Continuing to the park, it's pretty busy with dog walkers here too.

It's been a weekend of good food, I made rye bread Friday night with carrot and coriander soup and then waited for Tracy to come through the door after a works party. I could have gone out too but these cold nights are making me want to head for home. Today we make bruschetta and victoria sponge. I've also found the juicer my Mum bought me one Christmas and have been serving up fruit and veg smoothies. At first I tried to make one in the food blender, feeding through carrot and rhubarb. It didn't produce one drop of juice though, just very finely chopped veg. 

Work is looming, we need more time off work, maybe I could put the clocks back another hour, or a day. 

Japan

Japan is a beautiful and friendly country, a truly amazing experience that is very difficult to put into words.

12,6 and a half

“Let’s go, fast leg.”

This is what’s being shouted at me and my fellow bikers in a darkened room. I’m spin biking, which, for the uninitiated, is like being in a nightclub on an exercise cycle. They turn the lights off and pump out dance music while shouting instructions. It’s a lot of standing and pedalling, ‘hovering’ which is crouching forward, turning up the gradient so peddling becomes heavier, then more ‘fast leg’ peddling.

It’s a nice gym tucked away on a mews street in Marylebone. I’ve not joined, we’ve got vouchers, which means as a non-member you can’t book the spin class. It’s usually fully booked so each time I have to wait outside the class until the right time and am a substitute for some lazy person who’s not turned up. I step into the pitch black room and hope the instructor will turn the lights on so I can find my way to a spare bike.

Yesterday evening a girl came into the class with a musical instrument in its case and put it behind her bike. I liked that. If I had an instrument on me I’d use it as an excuse to not turn up or put it in my locker and spend the whole class wondering if it’s been stolen. I liked the way it suggested she’d accomplished two activities that day. Me, I only managed the spin.

After the Saturday class I feel nicely warmed up under the ice cold blue sky as I walk the streets of Marylebone with their desolate Saturday afternoon feel, while the mass rush of Oxford street is only a few streets away. I go for a coffee, sometimes at the Nordic bakery, sometimes closer to home.

Either way it feels like the most deserved coffee possible.

At the Hop

I saw a photo the other day of the junior school play I was in back in 1980, but I can’t remember a thing about that play. Ah Chesworth, with your yellow doors and classrooms divided by curtains. Here’s something I do remember:

Chesworth 1977 or 1978 and me and David Wood, who’s my best friend at school, hatch this plan where we must spend the day hopping on one foot and the leg that we're not hopping on isn’t allowed to touch the floor. A harmless enough plan, perhaps even a brilliant one. By first break this plan is gaining momentum. As we hop to the first break other kids in the class are joining in. There must be about 10 of us hopping by the time we head back to the class. By lunchtime it’s become a craze. As we bob up and down en-masse towards the hallway to collect our coats, a teacher comes charging over, demanding us to stop. Her adult mind, perhaps tainted by disappointment, hints of tragedy, with a little bitterness and paranoia thrown in, is not clear enough to see that this is pure fun. Cleverly I have decided to put one foot on top of the other so I’m not, technically speaking, touching the floor with both feet. The teacher demands to know what this is about. Is she thick? It's the challenge of not letting both feet touch the floor. It's about hopping. We’re shouted at some more and told we’re all in lunchtime detention immediately. I use both feet to walk to the detention.

The following day Tim Ottley arranges a lunchtime football match especially for the hoppers. Non-hoppers are not allowed to play. He’s quite ruthless about this rule, grabbing the ball off one kid and sending him off the pitch. Yesterday we were punished, today we're being rewarded. Good times.

I don't know if I've explained it too well but I still laugh when I think about these kind of memories. It's a comfort. Life just isn't that funny anymore, at least right now. I'm just glad we're out of 2011.