What are you doing this evening?

Oh, Dearest WP, if only you had asked me this question many many moons ago. Sigh!

Late afternoons spent ‘ getting ready’. The music plays, the clothes sometimes agonised over and the sitting at the dressing table make-up paraphernalia all  laid out.

Downstairs for dinner with the family and then ‘excused’ from the table and participating in the washing up, and it would be ‘ off into the night closing the door behind me’. Those  words were written by Caitlin Moran, in a novel or article, I can’t remember which, but they resonated. I could feel, hear, and see those nights with such clarity, ‘ off into the night’, cosy in my afghan coat.

Birmingham city night life was so vibrant then. Pubs and clubs spilling out onto the street. The whiff of patchouli or weed. Bands aplenty to see in multiple venues. Sometimes, a short queue here and there… The chatter, laughter, exuberance.