Switch On The Sky

One of the general truths of travel is that it doesn't really matter where or how far you go, you take yourself with you. Writer Neil Gaiman said as such ('wherever you go, you take yourself with you') and fellow writer Haruki Murakami said something similar ('no matter how far you travel, you can never get away from yourself'). All three of us had moments while we were on holiday where Isaac's death hit us in some way. Going to a very hot island four hours away by plane and spending the time on beaches and by the pool wouldn't have floated Isaac's boat at all- he didn't like beaches, would have found it much too hot, wasn't great on planes and getting him up an down all the steps from the hotel to the street below would have been difficult. In some ways that's why we chose to go somewhere like Gran Canaria- it being so different from the car and ferry, French campsite holidays we'd done with him was all part of our thinking. We're still getting used to being a family of three- being somewhere a long way from home where you don't know anyone compounds this in some ways. No one we met or spoke to knew what had happened to us or what we brought to Gran Canaria with us. Lou says there are times when she wants to tell people, 'we're not a family of three, we're a family of four', but dropping it into conversations is really difficult- there's no easy way to do it and it goes off like an explosion, leaving people wrong footed, shocked and apologetic.

Last Saturday, 30th July, was eight months to the day since he died and we all felt it at different time during the day. It never leaves you does it? Grief and loss always find ways to come out of nowhere and punch you again. It still sometimes feels like being winded, a physical pain in the chest. I felt it sitting on the balcony one evening, music playing through the crappy speaker I'd brought with me, sun shining on me, cold beer in hand, and then, suddenly and unexpectedly, a wallop of pain.

Lying on a sun lounger on the beach and thinking back to the room in Wythenshawe hospital in late November, it all seemed a bit unreal again, that we'd ended up where we were/ are, and being away without him briefly felt wrong. We went to one of the beachside cafes for a beer and some chips and some shade. As we sat down we all noticed the TV screen hanging over the ice cream counter, showing one of Isaac's favourite programmes- Mr Bean (and bizarrely one of his favourite episodes too, the barber shop one). Sitting drinking a pint of very cold beer (price 1€ 50) and watching Mr Bean made us all smile, pulling us out of the loss and the tears we'd all felt a few minutes before. In some way, via Mr Bean, he'd come with us. 

This song, Switch On The Sky, came out the day we flew. Mark Peters is a guitarist from Wigan. His Innerland album came out in December 2017, an instrumental/ ambient record with eight tracks all named after north- west landmarks. The following year a beatless ambient version was released and a remix album too called New Routes Out Of Innerland. All three were big favourites round here (you can listen buy at Mark's Bandcamp page). Switch On The Sky is the first single from the follow up, Red Sunset Dreams (out in September), and has Dot Allison (formerly of One Dove) on vocals. It's a gorgeous, slightly forlorn, gently psychedelic song with guitar, bass, pedal steel, synths, banjo and ukulele and masses of swirling reverb. If you buy the single at Bandcamp there's also a lovely hazy shoegaze/ dub reworking called Switched On. 

It's our 27th wedding anniversary today, another first to go through. We were young when we got married (Lou 23, me 25) and we had no idea what lay ahead of us or the circumstances we'd find ourselves in all these years later but that's the way life goes I suppose. Here are a pair of 27 songs to celebrate, both from favourite bands of mine. First, an A Certain Ratio song from 1991, the early 80s Factory post- punk funk being updated with something much more early 90s (but still laced with a tinge of Mancunian melancholy).

Twenty Seven Forever (Jon da Silva's Bubble Bath Mix)

Second, Half Man Half Biscuit and a song from their 2002 opus Cammell Laird Social Club, wherein Nigel's efforts at romance are repeatedly rebutted- 'I said '' would you like to go the zoo?''/ She said 'yeah bit not with you'/ 27 yards of dental floss and she still won't give me a smile/ I'm King Euphoria, she's Queen Victoria/ 27 yards of dental floss and she still won't give me a smile'

27 Yards Of Dental Floss

Happy anniversary Lou.