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Thursday 28 March 2013

12. The Fiddlers Elbow in Brighton

Leaving East Woodlands near Frome in a drizzly afternoon after last night's revelry in Bath.

A tiredness that sleep cannot slake.

Lydia likes the phrase
"where did it come from" she asks

"From being on the road for nearly a Month"

I take Lydia in to town to pick up 'Gavin', whom she adores and has been riding for longer than she has known me.  I am not even slightly jealous but Gavin is lime green.  

I continue deep into the heart of the English countryside alone, accompanied by the rain and Jim Reynolds CD which he gave Jim Reynoldsme the night before.
His album, 'One Day' is lovely, especially the first few tracks.  I mentally thank him for joining me, in this way, for the
journey.
 

Ordinarily I would love to be driving through these parts but for some reason, the weather perhaps, or my tiredness, I cannot find that sense of enjoyment and am a little anxious to arrive..... where?
Even when I pass through Winchester and catch a glimpse of the Cathedral I don't stop.  I tell myself that I will on another day, that I don't want to be driving in the dark, that trying to park would be a hassle and so I leave Winchester with a nagging feeling of an opportunity, perhaps of badly needed revivification, missed.
The road pulls me, and I remember Joni's song 'prisoner of the white lines on the freeway'.
I arrive in Brighton and am warmly greeted at The Fiddlers Elbow by Rosie, who, though young, is in capable command of this busy, hard drinking, old, Irish Pub.
It will be an hour or two until the music starts and there are other acts performing here tonight.  I take the time to find some dinner - Vietnamese around the corner.
Out of the blue I get a text message from Sharon Lewis whom I haven't heard from for six years.  We played on the same bill once or twice in Oxford and Brighton and had a brief romance in London.  She is one half of a duo called 'Pooka' who were famous in the nineties.
Lydia's brother Ben also shows up.  He is also one half of a current and well known and successful duo called 'Bitter Ruin'
It's nice to share a table with friends.
Also here tonight is a music writer/journalist called Paul, who comes to ask me some questions after I play.
The music tonight is overseen by Brian who asks me to play a set in the first half and another in the second but after the act after me in the first he decides to end the night there because the Pub is so quiet and indeed, as Carly of Pipe and Tabor, one of the acts here tonight, correctly remarks "It's shitting quiet at The Elbow tonight".
Sharon invites me to stay at her place which I gratefully accept and the next morning I have a chance to wander around Hove and Brighton.
My Grandmother brought my brother and I here when we were children and came to live here in her final years.  My daughter also spent her later childhood here with her mother and so this place has some pleasant memories.

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