AL FRESCO DUVET MAN

It's 7am.........Yes 7am! I've been on the decking in my garden reclining on a sun lounger gargling with soluble aspirin for the last 20 minutes. Gargling and spitting it out into an ungrateful pot plant. My throat is unbelievably sore. Every time i swallow it's like swallowing razor blades. I managed to get through Saturdays gig but it was a huge struggle and at the end i was doing a passable impression of Lee Marvin. Yesterday i thought i had seen the worst of it, in fact it was at that almost pleasant stage where you feel a bit heady and spaced out. Hang on, i'm bloody freezing, i'm going to get a duvet from 'The Dog House'...............................I'm back. Now i look seriously pathetic but warmer at least. Today i woke up to a seriously painful throat and the only upside is that i have until Thursday to shake it off.

Yes, before you say it! I am feeling very sorry for myself but honestly i'm not exaggerating.
Last night i went to a celebration of Paul Beathams big birthday. Paul is the drummer with Sheffield band The Sharp Cuts and everyone, and i mean everyone, congregated at the newly opened DELANEYS Bar, owned by Steve Delaney, the guitarist from The Sharp Cuts. I fear the worst. All Sheffield musicians now have a focal point to hang out, which is good but a recipe for many a late night, abandoning the car in a rather dodgy area and getting a taxi back to the outer reaches of Killamarsh (which i now overlook from under my duvet in the garden) It was good to see so many people, musicians and long time acquaintances (that sounded a bit weird, i didn't mean that musicians aren't people) But i got my usual uneasy feeling when squashed in the main bar which was really crowded so i spent most of the night in the beer garden.
It's a very strange feeling here under my duvet looking down the hill at people rushing to catch a bus to work and getting on with their lives. Each life so different and complicated. We get so wrapped up in our own world that it's easy to live in a bubble and forget everyone else. Sometimes when i'm flying (in a plane of course) i look out of the window down at remote towns and villages and think Wow, people are living , working, worrying, loving, feeling pain and joy and then i feel sad that i will never meet them. I really would like to say hello to everyone if i could.
Right now though, what i would really like to do is to sleep. I look up at the green canopy of the huge trees towering over my garden and the blue sky above them and hear the cooing of the ring necked doves within them and with each painful swallow i realise that i'm just a dot to the people in the plane which flies 30,000 feet above my house but still i wonder if one of the passengers is looking down and wants to say hello. I give them a futile but genuine wave.
Wow there is a beautiful crescent moon in the morning sky. Thank you.