abandoned holiday by katharine eastman

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A return to my older style of music - gloopy keys and doomy twangs on the gtr - somehow this one has turned into something that (to me) sounds strangely joyful - possibly very good too.
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Well oh dear my holiday didn't turn out very happily. When someone tells you they're whisking you away for an exciting fortnight you are of course expected to be excited and delighted. I pretended I was - and assumed that the feelings would come along later. But they never did. And on the way up north my girlfriend and I got into an argument and I got all sulky and said hurtful things which I probably meant but which are the sorts of things you never say to anyone.

E.g. I've been addicted to alcohol and to writing and to making music and to reading and to going on long walks. And when I say "addicted to" I probably mean "in love with". And I do mean deeply in love with - as in-love-with as anyone like me can be in love with anything - which is a lot - all the way to the death if that's the way the day falls. But I have never been in love with anyone.

And I know that I am not the only person on the planet who has never been in love with another person. I like everyone on the planet, I really do. My default setting is to like and trust strangers - I love chatting to strangers - they are my favourite people. They make no demands on me. But once people start thinking that they love me and then start expecting me to love them back - that is when the misunderstandings start.

Heading north, looking at the lavish lush greenery that these days of rain have suddenly detonated, I knew I didn't want to be taken away from my home and the things I do there/here - that "excitement" and novelty and eating-out and travel aren't enough - they don't match the euphoric lost-in-time numbness that happens when you are making the things you love making or are losing yourself in drink - that no one can compete.

So we broke up and kissed and made up and returned and stopped off at Kimbridge Barn for all-day breakfasts and wine and then back here I quickly made this piece. I found notes I'd written a month or two ago about how I'd made various albums back then and I followed the formula and there is no telling beforehand if something will turn out beautiful or disastrous - and though they seldom turn out beautiful they seem almost never to turn out disastrously - and this one is I think much closer to beautiful than I could've ever expected - because I was relaxed, with no pressure, having taken all this time to finally say what I should've said months ago - that whatever this is, wherever it's ended up, no other journey is as wonderful as this one.
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(recorded this afternoon, photo by me, today, railway line at the crossing in Kimbridge, Hampshire)
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