Rock & Roll Heart

(Photo by Holly)



The last time I saw Springsteen in Manchester, I ended up proposing to my future wife and spending my salary on a ring. This time I go with my sister in the hope that it will be cheaper. It should be a three hour drive but it takes nearly twice as long because of heavy traffic and torrential rain. It doesn’t matter because it’s a brilliant gig with numerous highlights: The E Street Shuffle, Save My Love, the ’78 tour version of Prove it All Night and a lovely solo performance of The Promise. I finally make it home at two o’clock on Saturday morning, conscious that I have two gigs of my own later that day. Dylan doesn’t know this. He wanders into our room at quarter past two and won’t go down again until five.

Rain. There’s not much I can say on the weather front that hasn’t said already. In what is likely to be the only summer I spend at home before retirement, June has had the highest rainfall on record and July won’t be outdone—we’re due a month’s worth of rain in the next 24 hours. If it’s okay, I’d like to shout at somebody now.

Rain. The garden is doing its best. We’ve been getting up to half a dozen strawberries a day and Dylan likes them enough to steal them off my plate. The courgettes have beautiful ochre flowers and some of my tomato plants are beginning to bear fruit. The best part of the garden is watching Dylan: every time we go out he checks the strawberry plants and apple tree, and then he transfers the pots from the Grow Rack to the table, just like he’s seen his daddy do. Last weekend, while Holly was mowing the lawn, he followed her around with his toy lawn mower. The lawn looks great and it was a real team effort.

Rain. I haven’t been as adventurous with my cooking as I’d like although I did make red-cooked chicken thighs in the slow cooker last week and they were pretty good. I’m making one of my all-time favourites tonight: Toad in the Hole with three types of sausage, roast potatoes and salad (including homegrown radishes). Bad weather demands good food.

Rain. I played a few gigs in the week following the Springsteen gig, including a headlining set in a rain soaked marquee at the Pucklechurch Revel. The lovely Pucklechurch crowd of maybe five hundred or so were there for the beer more than the music, but we won them over and I can’t remember the last time I enjoyed a gig so much.

Rain. It’s hard to feel inspired when the weather’s so bad but I guess it makes it easier to stay indoors. I’ve submitted the first draft of my Communications project and the feedback has been pretty encouraging. Sadly, I wasn’t one of the winners of the Nottingham Short Story competition but I’m not giving up just yet: I’ve entered His & Hers into the Sean O’Faolain Short Story competition and six tiny stories into the Earlyworks Press Flash Fiction competition. I’d cross my fingers but it makes it harder to type.

Rain. The last time I went to Paris for a couple of days was twenty years ago. It was grey and uninspiring then and it doesn’t seem to have changed, despite the pre-recorded tour guide’s assurance that it is a deeply romantic city. We’re in Paris to catch Springsteen’s 4^th July show at Bercy Arena. It’s the gig of my dreams but we leave the venue at the start of the encores so I can be sick in the hotel next door. I’m dehydrated—without air conditioning it was about forty degrees in the arena—and I’ve drunk too much water. It was a great gig though, and the highlights before we left were 4^th July Asbury Park (Sandy), Darkness on the Edge of Town, Because the Night and a moving solo performance of Independence Day—one of the great father and son songs. Unlike me, the Boss shows no signs of slowing down.

Rain. The following day, Holly and I head to the Eiffel Tower and take a drizzly boat trip along the Seine. Holly buys a chocolate éclair; I buy something called a gland and a meringue the size of Dylan’s head. That night, with Christina Aguilera providing the soundtrack to our evening meal, I tell Holly that she is beautiful, no matter what they say, and she hits me on the head with a spoon. Paris is, indeed, the city of romance, but I miss my boy and I’m ready to go home.

Dylan’s changing all the time. He’s more appreciative of his grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins; his vocabulary is growing; he’s been jumping in muddy puddles and last week he swam* across the diagonal of the pool without any help. He’s giving more kisses, more cuddles, and when I ask him if he wants to be tickled he says ‘I do’ and lies down in preparation. I have a feeling this is the calm before the storm. After all, he’s going to be two on Tuesday.

And I’m in charge of his party.


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*Imagine someone riding a unicycle, then take away the unicycle and put them in the water.