The Clank of the City
Early morning and the city of London swirls around me. From Shepherd’s Bush I hear the metallic raaaang of Peter Townsend’s guitar, from over the river at the Globe Theatre I hear Puck finishing off A Midsummer Night’s Dream, from up on Baker Street Sherlock Holmes puffs on a pipe and gazes out at the rain, mind working furiously. As usual our capital city has its way with me.
I’ve been staying in a hotel room so minutely small it doesn’t even have a cup, let alone a kettle. A cup, surely that’s not too much? Indecent in my demands. Next time I’m bringing a flask and filling it up at reception before bed. Who loves staggering the early morning corridors just to locate caffeine? I’m hardly showroom ready at 7am. I promptly fall back asleep after consuming a flat white and double espresso. That’s an odd gift, the immediate drift back into kipping.
It’s been a lively few days in town. Meetings. The foreword to the Iron John reissue is signed off and there’s some other wonderful plans in play I hope I can reveal soon. They involve FOOD and WINE. I caught up with friends and clinked the glass, received a glimpse of rehearsals for Mark Rylance’s upcoming Tartuffe, wandered Covent Garden in the rain and shook the last brambles of August’s Peregrini Sit out of my Barbour jacket. I’m carrying around Selkie stories, and a splendidly titled book called The Testimony of the Spade that I haven’t dug into yet (no pun intended).
I came hotfooting from rainy Greenbelt Festival and an inspiring conversation with Elizabeth Oldfield. There were many steaming bodies piled into the appropriately titled Hot-House tent and questions wafting about in all sorts of wondrous directions. Loved that hour and also to have time with family perched nearby in Stamford. You can listen to it here: Greenbelt Festival Talks.
As mentioned I intend to retire from festivals unless they are especially fabulous. My tinnitus-ravaged hearing makes it very hard to concentrate when there’s a thousand things banging on through sound systems at once. I took a terrible tumble on the rain-sluiced path that seemed to confirm my decision. Still have the bruises and aches. There’s other places to meet.