I went to bed last night feeling really awful, coughing, my eye perception all askew, and all at once I knew that I had to lie down in the dark and try and sleep, eventually I did but by the morning I could see straight and was coughing less but that’s because I was standing up. The shower head had broken and the day before Filipe had come and replaced the head and the connection to the wall, so it worked again, but the angle was too inflexible so if you put the pressure on too hard it went over the curtain. I knew the day would be a strain.

I was going to Gaia, I was late, but when I got there I was too early, the day was continuing as expected. I went to the big posh department store El Corte Inglés which is right next to the train stop. I got in a queue, ordered a coffee and they got it all wrong and they had to do it again. In the store, I had to find an exotic cooking sauce that most of the staff had never heard of in any language. Finally, I found it in the pricey gourmet section, the woman knew exactly what I was after and gave me multiple choices for this rarity, I felt like a millionaire shopping in Harrods.

I left and carried on down to Jorge the luthier’s place where he wasn’t fixing my guitars but my cosy lamp. It had one of those tap-and-the-brightness-changes electrics and as I had smashed my other lamp that also did that, I had the electrical bit that makes it happen available to be butchered. So Jorge cannibalised one to fix the other, but then when he put a bulb in the new one something blew, so he had to cannibalise part of the broken piece and make one working bit from the two. Something that was going to be easy was hard, Jorge found a way as he always does and I was on my way in my fractured day.

I took the train back across the bridge, got off in the city, went to the record store, and bought the new Paramore LP – This Is Why (2023). On the other end of the scale, jazz-rock trumpet player Ian Carr from Nucleus released his second-hand solo album, Bella Donna, in 1972. This new reissue was available for a really great price, the original would set you back a bob or two and might be a little worse for wear. There was also a cheap Goo Goo Dolls CD, Miracle Pill from 2019, and last but not least a surprise to everyone including myself, Olivia Rodrigo’s new album Guts (2023). I realised that although her market was as far away from me as it could possibly be, if the song Vampire had been written and sung by David Bowie then the whole world would be loving it across the age groups. The unexpected and unlikely, the slightly awkward and missing pieces had continued.

I had a sesh with Alain in Cyprus. He plays some tricky acoustic guitar and it’s interesting helping someone out who already has complex skills.