Back in my dreaming homespinning drinking youth this is the sort of relentless thing that I'd play with the knob at a million for three endless days wearing nappies because I couldn't bear to be away from it even for a wee moment. Now I am sober and all I have is my imagination of how good or otherwise this'd be for the drunks who I'm making music for.
The photo is one of my three shoeracks. This is the one right by my front door. My other two are in my tiny downstairs loo where there is no room for a wee anything. Yes of course I am a liar and a hypocrite, I pretend I own just the socks I stand in and one book and two albums, but I do have addictions to certain things - mainly books and shoes and sofas - and if I see any shoe-y thing in a charity shop that's a size 10 (at a squeeze) or a size 11 or a size 12 (with thick socks) then I have to buy it and live with it (them) for a while to see if they really do fit - you cannot tell in the shop, or even in the first fortnight.
I count 24 pairs of shoes in this photo. So about 72 pairs on my racks. plus there's some in a box under my bed "for later", plus there's 4 pairs by the back south-facing windows waiting for the sun to dry them after recent wet excursions.
E.g. yesterday. Yesterday I walked from Calshot to Lyndhurst. I used to do a walk like this decades ago, back when I lived in Minstead - on cool dull empty days I'd say tara to my wife and walk down the track to Lyndhurst and across by Boltons Bench to Matley and under the railway line to Ipley and along the river and then through Kings Hat Enclosure and up and across the heath and the road and more heath and hit Ipers Bridge and walk to Fawley and call in on my favourite grandparents and then walk on to Calshot and look at the sea, and then I'd walk back home.
I think it was about 15 miles each way and I'd do it in an easy day, no big rush at any time, it all fitted in between the first light and the last light without me needing a watch - I've never owned a watch.
That was then, when I was impulsive. Yesterday was more of a slomo whim - I'd not really planned to walk to Lyndhurst, more just to Hythe or Totton maybe. But no - at the mindless moment I seemed to be taking the route that led to Lyndhurst. The forest was less boggy than I'd expected, there were fewer people about than I expected, the forest never looks very beautiful at this time of year, but I did love its austere grey bleakness - especially on the long dirt track between Ipers Bridge and when you have to cross the road.
I am not embarrassed to admit that I got lost three times - once on that great bit I've just described (started off by taking the wrong long straight track), then as I tried to approach Kings Hat Enclosure and instead entered an adjacent one, and then when it seemed like the big dusty (in summer) track between Ipley and Decoy Pond Farm had totally vanished in the spirit of discouraging walkers to help save the nesting birds. I know the forest better than anywhere in the world, and yet it is the place I've got lost in more times than everywhere else put together.
I've never been a fan of the New Forest. Even before it became so crowded and touristy and corporatised and turned into some stupid adman's "experience" with leaflets and every path signposted and great wide tracks made for families to cycle along and stare at their phones as they ignore the idiot they married and the docile obedient idiots they manufacture.
So the bus had dropped me at Calshot at just gone 9-30, and I must've arrived at Lyndhurst at about 2-19pm, because a moment later I caught the 2-20pm bus to town - if I'd missed it I'd've had to wait till gone 4pm. And this day, the day after that walk, is the happiest I've felt for a couple of months - since I fell down the stairs and busted my knee and thought I'd never walk again. It's not just because yesterday proves that I can still walk quite a long way. It's mainly because long walks make me so high. Long walks are the only way I know how to get drunk without actually drinking.
Yesterday's walk, less than five hours, was only about half the distance of my usual long walks - Salisbury takes 9 and a half hours, Petersfield ditto, Andover nearly 10, Basingstoke about 11 and a half - so I've not really proved myself yet - but sorry to sound like Sting and his tantricsex wife but this natural slow high is almost worth it..
she says this is the last album she'll make like this before she goes off and makes stuff with Lana Del Rey - so just for this moment we have Kathy to ourselves - (yes I love Lana's music too) Simon Aulman
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