You know how Saturdays are like buses? You do nothing with them for months on end, and then all of a sudden you have to cram all those wasted Saturdays' worth of activity into a single day, to make up for it? This was a Saturday of extremes...
Some time ago, I promised myself a day of just me, the muttley and the sky. That day was Saturday. We got up early. Not quite an alpine start, but it was Saturday you know! We were on the road by 8.30am, and crawling through the narrow streets of North Malvern by 9.30am. I found a carpark. Not so much of a carpark, really, more of a layby; parked the car and consulted my OS map (landranger 190, if you're interested!) to pinpoint our rough location. Needless to say, my layby wasn't exactly marked, but knowing I'd just passed a phone box and looking at the tumbling crags looming above my bonnet, I guessed that I was roughly in the vicinity of the school. We got out of the car quickly, shouldered the backpack and set off. I say set off; really I mean I cast around for the scent of a path for a good couple of minutes - should I take the one to the right of the layby, rising steeply and stonily up the side of the rockfall, or the one to the left of the layby which was broader, paved and passed through the last vestiges of civilisation. I chose the path most travelled, and ogled through the windows of the pretty cottages. Once on the hills, we strode out, roughly in the direction of St Ann's Well, taking the slightly lower, leeward paths and skirting round the pointy pinnacle of the first hill. The sky was broad and clear, the sun was up and twinkling on the frost, and we could see the full length of the ridge stretching out ahead of us. It was a spectacular, cold, fresh day and I gulped in air and watched the muttley dashing eagerly from scent to bracken patch.
Past Worcestershire Beacon, we joined the ridge path. The views were spectacular and if I had any grasp of geography I'd tell you precisely how we gazed over the plains of Worcestershire and Warwickshire to our left, and towards the distant blue smudge of the hills of Wales to our right. Since my geography is dreadful, I'm guessing that's what we saw...
Highlights of the day included chatting to various other dog owners along the way; watching a pair of buzzards wheeling on the thermals over British Camp; making it to British Camp; realising my uphill legs had fallen off about a third of the way back; the kestrel hovering spectacularly just over my head while Muttley and I sat on the path to watch her; isolation, solitude, fresh air and open sky. The cold snapping at my fingers; frost crystallised on the grass at my feet.
By the time we regained Worcestershire Beacon (via the summit this time), my downhill legs had fallen off too, and I had merely the faintest grasp of our precise location. Which worried the muttley who was, frankly, exhausted. Electing to skirt round the hill rather than force my hamstrings up another sharp ascent, I realised we weren't on precisely the same path that brought us onto the hills and I didn't know precisely what path we *were* on. I kept the news to myself, fearing for a savaging of the ankles if I broke the news to Muttley. I adopted the policy of looking down the steep slope of the hill, and identifying roads I had driven along to get us here. Eventually, we rounded the final bend in the path and there were houses stretching up the hill in front of us. Not, unfortunately, the houses we had passed on our ascent from the carpark layby, but I hoped they would be very close neighbours of those houses. I pulled the map from my backpack to check where we might be, and crossreferenced my position against the girls' boarding school I found myself standing outside.
"Are you lost?" A man sitting on a bench behind me, enquired.
"Um, not *exactly*" I fudged. "I'm parked on this road, not far from here."
"My car's just here; would you like a lift?" he solicited.
Ummm. Let me think about this. You're sitting on a bench outside a girls' boarding school. Would I like a lift? Clue: No. Thank you.
I turned left onto the road, and was almost immediately greeted by the slightly alarming sight of a Morris dancer in full regalia flying down the hill on a bicycle. I raised an eyebrow, in an attempt at a quizzical, worldly wise manner. 200 yards further up the hill, Muttley and I had to stand back and let a horde of them pass, all be-belled and jangly and indulging in their lewd practices. Thankfully, the car was just past them and I collapsed gratefully into its embrace and drained the last of my thermos of tea. We had been walking for six hours, and the Muttley was exhausted.
After a hot bath and a swift Chinese, DBO and I ventured up to the Arts Centre, to see The Buzzcocks. I have to confess, I've never been to a bona fide punk gig before, but the Buzzcocks seemed like a good place to start. It was a very entertaining evening - but for none of the reasons I might have anticipated... The gig was entirely seated, which was the first oddity. The audience was made up largely of people my age and above, some of whom had brought their children (of Dan's age and below) which made for a slightly confusing (and confused) audience. Some of us had attempted to revive our lost youth, and dressed for the occasion. I was particularly impressed by the portly man with grey hair which was desperately thin on top. Nonetheless he had bravely spiked what remained of it, and sprayed a large blue patch. The effect was somewhat ruined by the sight of the blue paint sparkling on his scalp... Despite the spikes, the colours, and the odd safety pin, this middle aged audience was altogether too clean living. No-one was bolloxed, slurring or swaying, and there wasn't a glue sniffer in sight. The band itself were slightly uncomfortable - they were old and fat and saggy of jawline.
Tony Barber wore black tracksuit bottoms and a T-Shirt which looked suspiciously chainstore and not at all punk. He was embarrassingly like watching your grandad dance at a wedding. They raced through the first half of their set, following the John Peel 'wrong speed' method and shouting far too fast, obviously keen to grab their cheque and get the hell out of there. The sound mix was appalling, which was probably the most appropriate part of the whole experience. There was an interval - an interval!! At a punk gig!!!! All kinds of wrong!!!! - after which, some of the audience had the temerity to dance. But it was so muted to begin with, that I watched a man balance a tray of beers through the gently swaying masses. Eventually, a woman with pink and black striped hair and a jumper to match, began dancing at the front of the stage. This mostly involved jumping and waving her arms around, and looked quite the most authentic display of the evening. A young member of staff tried to usher her away from the stage front, which led to a gaggle of middle aged pogo-ers fronting up to staff young enough to be their children in a hideously surreal inversion of the generation struggle.
Shortly after this, Steve Diggle announced that it was someone called Simon's 40th birthday, and that the band would like to wish him "Happy Fucking Birthday; have a piece of this, yer cunt!!" with which, they launched into Ever Fallen In Love (or whatever it's called) and we could all go home. It was surreal, and tragic, and surreal again. I'm awful glad I've done it now, and I shan't have to do it again...