A Change of Plan

Can another month have really passed? Let us make an end to this, and next week start my long-overdue travelogue of the time I spent with my family and old friends of our family over in Dubai and Goa back in February and March.

But more-or-less right in the present, casting your mind back to last month's entry will remind you that the then current plan was to continue my studies in October with A363 Advanced creative writing. For the current plan, simply replace A363 Advanced creative writing with A215 Creative writing. The change was made some weeks ago on the basis of this course's subject matter being more preferable than the other's, and having gone through the registration process I'm just waiting for it all to be complete before the course begins on the 3rd October.

And So My Life Goes On Alone

The train is in, I see it peeping over the fence as I head into the station, and charging over the brige and through its open doors I've made it in the nick of time. The train is fairly full, not heaving with people standing in the aisle, but fairly full, and sitting down with my bass leaning on the window seat, me taking off my coat and rolling up my sleeves in the afterheat of running, I think of how this will be the last time I'll pass through Piccadilly Railway Station hoping to see my mystery girl from almost exactly half a year ago (see under section Unlikely Cassanova, and for the interested parties today the 20th September will be the anniversary). 'How much wasted time could have been better spent and hearts soothed by the mutual love of the two of us had I only said 'of course, my love!' and given her the number,' among other thoughts.

Upon arrival Platform 14 is as busy as usual, and heading up through the crowd into the lounge for Platforms 13 and 14 (where I espie the time and platform of the next one on the Hadfield line) and down the travelator past the banks of platforms to the main body of the station it appears that old Piccadilly has acquired an even more devoted following since last I visted. Platform 2 is my heading, and as I walk over there approaching the sacred place I see the train pull out. 'Of course, we were running late as we went through the stations on our way,' and through I go to join my fellow travellers in consulting the Big Board for the time and platform of the next one to Guide Bridge. It is the same, and back I go through the glass doors, hoping to take my seat like usual where I'd first seen her, but the platform's full, there's no sign of her, and with the last vestiges of hope having run their course I assume a position on the platform and wait.

The train arrives, fills up full, we have a successful rehearsal with Ollie, an old friend I know from various places we've played, joining us to play mandolin (having recently been a candidate to replace me on bass), and some hours later I'm back on Guide Bridge station waiting in the darkness for my train to take me back to Piccadilly.

This train is never busy at any time I've taken it, and I hop on and get a seat. Over on the other side of the carriage sits one girl, young looking yet dressed as if to impress an older man with so-called sophisticated tastes, while further up the carriage on her side are a group of girls, one of whom is telling a story of how she mistakenly pulled a girl while she was on a night out in Canal Street. I can see her, with her blonde hair and makeup done for dark environments. She sits way up in her seat as she tells her tale with great enthusiasm, and from time to time I take a glance and fancy she also occassionally sneaks one over at me. But I'm thinking of my mystery girl, and how I've changed since her. 'Before we'd met, and before I'd been to Dubai and Goa, I hadn't felt in a fit state to start a relationship with anyone, thinking that the best time do so is when one is happiest and can allow their partner to be unremittingly intoxicated with contentedness. And so my eyes were closed to any possible relationships, and strangers only lived as happy passers-by. But now since you, I have been toying with the idea of finding and loving someone, you, but also I've been seeing people, thinking of them differently, not just as happy passers-by, but sometimes with the possibility of love.'

With thoughts like these the train arrives at Piccadilly, and off I get, and via the Big Board round I go to Platform 10 to catch my last train home. Surprisingly it's packed, but finally I get a backwards-facing seat, and cram myself into it for the journey home. It's fairly unspectacular, with one notable occasion being the observation of a young girl on the other side of the carriage as the ticket lady comes past that, 'She's just come all the way from Manchester. And she's probably going back there again after Buxton. How sad is that!' Until the climax of the trip, we've passed Woodsmoor and are getting to near to Hazel Grove. I get up, swinging the weight of me and my bass around a handrail, and stand facing the doors on the usual side. But the platform doesn't come, only tracks. Conceive of the astonishment, my dearest reader, as we pull into Hazel Grove Railway Station on the opposite side from the one we usually (read "always") pull into. The exclamation from a fellow passenger, 'It's on the other side!' had trumped my consequently risen eyebrows, and so I say, 'That's unusual, isn't it!', to which he concludes, 'That's very unusual.'

As with many of my encounters we part on amicable terms, but the astonishment and strangeness of it all still courses through me as I head back over the bridge, an act I don't remember having ever done before, and turn my steps for home. It's dark and quiet, and thoughts of writing this are forming in my mind. Enough had happened, what with the absence of my mystery girl, but as I walk along I pass a young couple sitting close together on the other side of street. Then a wave of feeling washes over me: the need of somebody to love. And then the irony of it all. 'That day when I first saw her,' the only time I saw her, I remind myself, 'I felt content, complete and in no need of anyone for happiness. But how I need her now. But not with me as I am now, but how I was that day, with the additional love for her I might have had by now if only I had given her my number. I'd subconsciously been living out my theory that the very time we are best suited to joining with another person is when we are in such a state that we are in no need of anybody else to join with. But now! Now, when that state is gone, oh how I need you now. The irony, the bitter irony.'

And now a little something for a friend. Ad, here's 'Gooseneck' from Tortoise's Mosquito 7" for you to enjoy. Unfortunately it can't be downloaded from here, but you can at least listen to it - as can anyone else who cares to - and if you'd like to have it permanently I'll upload it somewhere else from where you can download it. Remember, the lick at 133secs is it!

(5:36 minutes, 7.7 MB)