The summer so far has been a bit special! I had my mind blown by a truly beautiful Scottish holiday during a recent return to the Hebrides. It’s where I get to inhale the cleanest freshest air I’ve ever known and rejoice in the sheer lack of other humans, the scarcity of shops, and pristine beaches resulting in holiday snaps that pass for Thailand. Incidentally the Thai tourist board did indeed at one time populate their brochures with photos of the Uists which are the next islands on my Hebridean bucket list. My favourite day of the year, so far, taught me how an inflatable canoe is the perfect vessel in which to get the hell into Shavasana and aimlessly drift between Coll and Tiree with an audience of curious chubby seals for company.
Batteries well and truly recharged I later made a holy show of myself at a Ceilidh. As one of a tiny minority of English people I was content to watch the lively dancing before being scooped up and vortexed into The Gay Gordons by a Galic speaking blonde goddess who was too pissed or polite to care about me treading on her like an ataxic goon. Not that anyone, least of all myself, cared.
This week has had me somewhat transfixed by the marathon of moon landing documentaries. With my nonchalance toward this event now curiously transmuted towards a no doubt temporary fixation, It’s fair to say I have surprised myself by getting so carried away by mooniversary fever! I’m especially taken by the extent to which it seemingly united humanity, although sadly that soon wore off too. Helen Sharman and Maggie Aderin-Pocock for the encore please.
Maintaining the current lunar theme I showed my face at The Blue Dot Festival at our lovely Jodrell Bank with its big fat LovelI telescope. I couldn’t manage both days so Kraftwerk were superseded by New Order on the Sabbath. I experienced a strong emotional reaction to ‘Your silent face’ and, not for the first time, there was something truly splendid about dancing in the rain. I’m now fantastically curious about what the rest of the summer brings…