Trudging slowly over wet sand, how I dearly wish I was not here. The seagulls can smell my vulnerability. I shake. I shiver. I think I about food, no, I’ll sit in the storm a while a longer. Sip the coffee. Should have brought water too. Feet sore, hips killing, I limp my way to the water. Splash my face with the Bristol channel. Regret. Retreat.
Change of scene. That is all I need to breathe again. As soon as I thought it was over. It started again. The running gags re-emerge. Tea. Toast. Fosters anyone? Yeah, go on, I’m not taking it home.
As a child, my family would go to Mill Rythe Holiday camp in Hayling Island every year. Minehead, but smaller. Roaming free, playing football, table tennis, the arcades, pool, fruit machines, swimming, Jacuzzi, tennis, meeting Henry Cooper, Nan getting a table for bingo 1 hour early, and having a picture with Del Boy’s three-wheeled van, it was glorious. I would mope horrendously upon return.
These memories flood back on Sundays at Shiiine. It’s another time and another world and one no one wants to leave. One last hurrah lurks within everyone’s tired glint. We’re all over thirty, we all know we packed Sunday morning but, we’re all going to behave like it’s Friday night again.
Bouncing to TYS, fawning over Miles’ lyrics and wondering what anti-aging serum Jesus Jones are using. We shall not go gently into the night. I don’t want to go home!
Levi digging everyone who is hanging out of a hole. Neds’ fire raises you up and PWEI’ groove launches you back to the party (sorry Burger King, Big Mac fries to go!). Orbital caning it like its 1988 and Stereo MC’s showing out like bosses. I don’t want to go home!
Cast, Dodgy and The Farm. Friends arm in arm, tears roll down cheeks. Reality looms on the horizon but, it doesn’t seem so bad now. Conversation going on all around me. I join some, I leave some and some never found me. And now you must believe me, we never lose our dreams. Stop the slaughter, let’s go home, let’s go, let’s go.
All together now. See you in 2021