May

[Sweder]

A rare but welcome evening escape into the hills, the perfect antidote to a day spent simmering in the clogged arteries of London's orbital carpark. Sadly my performance fell short of doing justice to the perfect conditions. A waning sun gloated gently in a cloudless sky, no doubt reflecting on a day's work well done as it slipped over the western horizon.

I broiled on the outward lope, managing to work up a lather in these benign conditions. On the return a beautiful zephyr kissed my sweat-jewelled noggin as the hounds chased rabbit shadows into the blossoming gorse. Around me the hills and valleys of Sussex basked in the glow, a more peaceful and seductive scene hard to imagine.

All is not well in the Sweder engine room. I pulled to a steaming halt on the building site that is my front garden, breathless and in some distress. There's a monster in my belly and it's been gnawing away at me this past week. Throw in disrupted sleep thanks to a combination of annoying tickly cough and the raucous symphony of the dawn chorus (since when was dawn at four-oh-bloody-clock in the morning? The birds 'round here sound like Nigel Kennedy and his tartlets after a good night out) and the wheels are starting to feel decidedly loose.

No such complaints about my musical company this evening. An ecclectic mix from the good people at Planet Rock, topped off by the rather wonderful Miss Janis Joplin telling Kris Kristofferson's story of Me And Bobby McGee in a way that must've made the writer weep. It's awful to think this ethereal songstress was lost on the cusp of her greatest triumph. She shared a troubled path with another of my early heroes, John Belushi; a flawed genius with dangerous tastes who lost out to his own drug-fuelled demons all too soon.