the Guardian Weekend feature

main photo, by Neil Drabble

"You worry too much, sometimes, you know," I tell myself.

"All the time, more like. And your point is, exactly....?" I reply. And go back to worrying.

So I was in a right lather on Friday night, wondering how the piece would look, and how the photo would look.

Finally thought "I give up" at about 3:30 AM, and had a cup of tea and drove off in search of an early newspaper.

The seagulls take over the town at night; they sulkily waddled aside to let me pass. Drunk people held each other up outside nightclubs, while taxi drivers assessed the probability of their potential fares throwing up in the back.

Dawn started happening.

I heard on the radio that Humphrey Lyttelton has died. Gosh. I've been listening to him on the radio since I was about 12; his Monday evening music show was my early education in jazz. The first gig I ever went to was Humph, in Cardiff, and I had to walk home afterwards. Twenty miles or so.

But this is not the time to write an appreciation of Humph. Except that I already have.

Moving on...

Anyway, finally I got a paper and anxiously dived into the magazine.

It's OK. Edited excerpts from the book. When I switched off my internal hyper-critical filter, it seemed just fine. And the photo looked good. This was a relief after all that time wandering around Hay Bluff in a gale, getting progressively colder and more bedraggled. And they used one of my pics, too.


So. I took a couple of Nurofen Plus, washed down with Rescue Remedy, and got back to life as it is lived. Like, doing the washing up.