Nylon strung? Not highly strung .. almost perfectly pitched.... travelling, south and west, across the Severn wide and low at neap tide all bathed in golden sunshine…. then rain and hopes of summer Indian are seemingly dashed along with hope of clean redemption from the mess that is the Port of Talbot. Steely sprawl across the coast edge, a scar on any landscape but still, many toil there. Anonymous hotel, as per usual, all the same and…. there is some comfort in that. Then down to Arts centre villaged in the valleys, quaint and picturesque…real and lively with the lovely sound of welsh folk speaking like singing. Sound check for five minutes. All is well. The half hour up there in the lights goes by in a flash. Me clutching onto my electric,  classical axe…jamming with my happy voice. The crowd is warm and funny. I don’t say a word. Let the music speak. Hear the music ….Message Clear. Then up with George Jones and co. One of his dad’s songs. Emotional …powerful. What a great night and it went on and on. Every one pulling together to remember Micky Jones the man from MAN. Blasted with pumped up juices flowing all through. Job done. Said goodbyes. Curry in Swansea at the K2. No half and half for me though. Then boats and packing, sea and sand and ports of call and all. Playing guitar when ever, how ever I want. My arrangements changing and forming new bridges, whole songs strung together in a kind of out pouring then strangled, chopped up bit’s, songs half written…. all coming to life. I can pick up the nylon axe and free my head…run with it. I think some of it is completely new to me. Plugged in, classical fuzz, sounds great to me.

A big tide pushing along the northern coast of Cornwall, fishing in the thick of it. Almost caught a seal… I mean surfer. The seas are dying. If we continue to empty it at this rate there will not be enough sustainable stocks of fish by the year 2050.  I take a fish or two a year on hook and line. Japanese eat lot’s of fish and make beautiful gardens, fabulous electronics which I can’t afford right now and there isn’t enough mackerel for sashimi so it’s off to a zen garden to chill and chant. Do what I truly like with out let or hindrance…
how I love those words!

Cooking later as per usual in my galley, my domain and in my element. Making food for people is surely one of life’s greatest pleasures….feeding the folk. Looking at an ebb tide …wondering if ‘tis time to go a wading in the evening surf for a bass or pluck some more…stringing strange chords together to see what happens. Later I re-invent For Dr Spock and marry it to Red Star. Gin and tonic …that’s the spirit. No pool to sit by just the rocking motion of the endless sea and right now, I’m not even on a boat. I write some book. I have to. It has been too long in the writing and any way I just found out what happens at the beginning….and at the end so it should be easy now. If it isn’t I shall blame you for distracting me for the last few years, you coming to gigs and then, I had to show up but ..I am glad I did.

Gazing at the Atlantic rolling in ten waves in a row. The weather has been lovely for days. Watching the surf rolling across the wide bay. Six white horses running in with the evening sun flashing through their opalascent tops. Beautiful! Let me tell you how I am feeling ...can't believe this is real.
Shopping for some thing unusual to eat at The Co-op. Cool shop compared to almost any other. Cool people run it or Tony Benn ain’t my hero. Cornwall is a strange land re-peopled by the new merchants….greedy with an unrealistic sense of entitlement. St Ives typifies the exploitative seam that runs through the place. Wake up! The artists of real merit upped sticks years ago. Half of them couldn’t have afforded a pastie in St Ives were they still around. Grumble and bloody moan. The pastie was shite. The dawn crept away like the uninvited non Cornish person who sold it to me should have .
Much later ....up a fresh water stream from estuary …pike is mine but only for a little while then back he goes to grow to be a bigger one or be eaten by his mother. Some more meditation….cogitation and a long digestion of recent events then….peace. Where is that guitar? Of course I nearly always know where but, then again, there are two now…sisters…electric sisters, with a classical mein, who wait to be caressed by these aching fingers. It will be a while. I think I am overdoing it.

Yoik on a beach. Chant in a zen garden. Gotta cut it all up and fix it together. Just found notes for a new song Can you feel me by your side – wrap your fingers around mine – I will stand between you and the darkest night.

at the Micky Jones memorial gig

with George and Son of Man

koi in pagoda pool

you don't yoik about some thing.

you yoik something ....

in the rock garden there is

the sound of falling water in a pool

the green home to koi

wind chimes sing in the gentle breeze

joy and sadness are together here

as the air is joined with sunlight

as I am joined with you 

edgarbroughton.com    http://edgarbroughton.com/