Love

Oh, forgive me. It's just that, well, I've had a week or so of being all in touch with my feelings. I think this comes from peak, or rich, emotional experiences.

I've embraced the past, I've stroked the head of a dying old bird, and I've come to understand things that I hadn't realised that I'd misunderstood. And so it goes.

Where am I going with this? Where indeed. Ah yes... For this month's posts, I'm going to pepper you with tiny extracts - dialogue, oddments of reflection, insights, and the stuff of general gaping, that came from my meeting with my old pal - The Artist, as mentioned previously.

As a starter, I'll say that we met up in Manchester - last Saturday - a warm, sunny day. We met at eleven on the dot, in the top floor cafe of Afflecks Palace, where we drank earl grey and ate toast, before moving on to the first of a few pubs. Approaching from the right (I hadn't spotted the second entrance to the cafe), The Artist called out my name and offered an open hand. I smiled, chorused back his name, and opened up for a hug. Already, 15 years on, things had changed.