annanotbob2's Diaryland
Diary
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Good Tidings We Bring
28/4/24 I keep getting caught up in late night telly programmes then being too tired to write. George Michael this evening – why are they putting on a two hour documentary about him that starts at gone 11? Why do I forget I can record things? But I’ve remembered and turned it off for now.
Last Monday I made a commitment to actually do something towards extracting a memoir from this blog by tomorrow and completely forgot that till this afternoon, but did then manage to read the very first few entries, from July 2005, for fuck’s sake, and cut and pasted a few chunks. I’m going to do that every day. I love that as it was written nearly twenty years ago it doesn’t feel like something I wrote at all and I find myself actually liking some bits, thinking they’re good.
I’ve also been typing up some of the writing done by people who come to my group at the recovery centre to go on display when the centre opens for the festival next month, as part of the Artists Open Houses. Some of it’s just great, but one in particular is fabulous, written by a woman of about my age on her first session. She arrived very upset because she’d had to have her cat put down the night before so now she was really living alone and wasn’t sure if she’d even stay, let alone write anything. I asked everyone to write a quick list of their favourite things and she named a rock star among hers. I then asked them to choose one thing to write about at greater length. She wrote a great piece about being a teenager and bunking off school when this rock star came to Brighton, to try and catch him as he came out of his hotel. A local TV crew were there and interviewed her about why she liked him, later shown on TV and seen by her head teacher who was not amused. I loved it – the writing was great and she really caught the intensity of feelings when you’re 14 - and had asked if we could include it for the display, which she agreed to. As I typed it up I suddenly wondered if the TV interview had been uploaded to the internet – of course it had, type in his name, the date, the place, local TV and there she is, my writer as a young girl fifty years ago, so young and so full of emotion – I’ve seen it several times over the years – I never made the connection but once I knew I can see that’s her face, astonishing. I got really choked up by it, powerful stuff. What a weird world this is, that it was so quick and easy to find.
While I was still doing that there was a knock at the door. It was a young lad, about 11 or 12 I reckon, a bit sheepish, half laughing. “My mate dared me to come and sing you a Christmas carol.” Brilliant, yes please. “Which one shall I sing? What’s your favourite?” In the Bleak Midwinter. He looks blank. “Sorry, I don’t know that.” Which ones do you know? “Er.. I can’t think of any!” Hmm. Where’s your mate then? “He’s behind the car.” At which point another lad and a girl, about the same age, stand up and come up to the front door – we’re all quite jolly, laughing a bit. “Come on!” says Boy2 “I did my dare so you have to do yours!” What did you do? “I had to ring a doorbell and run away then do it again at the same door!” Pretty tough dare compared to singing a carol, glad I got this dare – come on, let’s have a carol. “I can’t think of one!” The girl pipes up, “What about ‘We wish you a merry Christmas’? Everyone knows that!” She’s right. Boy1 giggles a bit then takes a deep breath but can’t quite get started so I count him in, one two three, “We wish you a merry Christmas…” they all sing together, I join in a bit on Good tidings we bring, one whole verse and chorus is delivered, we all laugh a bit more, I thank them and off they go. Fucking brilliant.
12:19 a.m. - 29.04.24
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