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fourteen easy luddite spring dances

by Simon Aulman

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1.
salalah 01:55
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2.
liwa 02:23
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3.
ash shalfa 02:34
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4.
al-obailah 02:34
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5.
thabhloten 02:38
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6.
al kharkhayr 02:51
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7.
ardah 02:58
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8.
shaybah 02:52
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9.
nadqan 02:52
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10.
umm athelah 02:29
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11.
yabreen 02:48
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12.
al hafayer 08:27
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13.
rayda 02:46
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14.
umm al melh 02:44
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about

very basic/simple/lazy tossed-off little tracks recorded this quiet morning on the floor here in this back room, all created while adhering to the strictest luddite lofi strictures that apply when you've never wanted a watch or opened a manual even for a toaster and never want to learn how stuff is done properly, photo West Dean yesterday, all tracks in approx chronological order apart glaringly from the final one which is the beginning of all the others

......................

Yesterday I walked to Salisbury, glancing off along the way to visit a cousin and have lunch. The blue blue blue photo is a good reminder of what the day looked like - tons of blue sky all around me - and yet it never seemed to stop drizzling on me. Oh god yes of course I knew what was going on - that dark cloud a thousand miles away on the horizon, these drops had dropped from it an hour ago and had only just floated slowly down for me, just me. Still, I never got soaked or anything and I couldn't stop cheering up all the time.

I diverted from my usual route to avoid bits that I knew would be very boggy and boring. There's a wooded bridle path that runs for about a mile towards the southern edge of West Tytherley that is always a mess, the horses make it too difficult even for the motorbikes, let alone the cyclists, let alone the walkers - though I never see any of them, but even one per day, she will leave her mark and so do I.

It was last Thursday here in town that I first saw the year's burst of butterflies. And yesterday was good too. And though I was in rain most of the time, I was also in sunshine most of the time, and the green was so fresh and in eight hours of walking through the quieter places I only passed one person - I'd thought that being a bank holiday everyone would be out, but they'd of course all heard about the mud.

There's a part of the footpath between Farley and Salisbury where it crosses across the huge wide open valley of huge fields and I always remember it as being easy going, never any mud. Yesterday, as I came out of the woods and looked across this valley I really thought I was going mad. All the long length of the valley was this wide silver snake, like a giant length of cling-film. A river had come out of nowhere and was going to nowhere.

The countryside has never been so wet. I'd never even known a puddle here. And now there is a new river. I had to wade across it and it washed off some mud but made me look awful. I still looked rubbish when I entered Salisbury. Being a bank holiday the city was empty-ish. On the train back home, it was empty-ish too. Here in town, in Asda and along the high street, it was empty-ish too. But there were enough people to look at me.

It really could be my imagination, but it's so true-feeling that I believe it - that at the end of a long walk, when I arrive in a town and I'm covered in mud and because I've got so hot and sweaty I'm still just in a t-shirt and shorts and everyone else is in jackets and jumpers and hats and I just look so liberatingly rough-sleeper-y. People aren't standoffish at all. They stare. I never mind. And old man with a beard down to his waist and mud up to his waist, of course they're allowed to stare and it's the time when I most love other people.

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released April 2, 2024

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Simon Aulman Southampton, UK

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