WEEKEND COOL

"Good weekend?" asked Nell, busily setting up a computer next to me.

I thought back through it. Then I told her that I'd sat in the park, drinking tea from a flask like an old man.

I am so cool.

I did actually do a few cool things. For example, I played at a gig on Saturday.

Okay it was another barn dance, and yes, the music is designed for what we used to call 'English Country Dancing' at Primary School, but it's still cool, right?

"How are you man?" asked Tom (the drummer) when I arrived.

"I'm good," I said, cheerily lofting my boot open.

"I can never tell from your Twitter feed," he continued, "whether or not you're on the edge of some sort of breakdown."

I stood there wide-eyed for a while. Nothing like telling it like it is eh, I thought to myself.

The gig itself was a classic party-dance. George Lucas and Kenny Rogers swung around the polished floor with Aunt Bessie and Mrs Beeton, while kids in cowboy hats got dizzy on lemonade and did knee-slides at the back of the hall.

Laurel and Hardy were there too, drunkenly trying to 'impress the ladies'.

"Swing your neighbour's partner!" cried the caller at one point.

"I didn't know it was that kind of party," said Hardy to a smattering of awkward laughs.

After a while of course, when everyone else is getting the hang of the dancing, fooling about stops being funny and starts looking idiotic - much like telling the same jokes over and over again, it wears thin - as Laurel and Hardy always do eventually.

I drove home in the early hours of the morning, eyes glaring into the headlamp beams and country lanes.

A breakdown? I thought, rumbling over Tom's honesty. I'd like to be as far away from a breakdown as possible! What does that even mean? I'd been going for deep and slightly surreal. How had I ended up on the edge of sanity?

-

I was up early on Sunday morning, ready to play at church. I got there and realised I wasn't on the rota this week.

That was a moment.

I think I cooled it out though: I stuck around and helped David set up the keyboards.

After church I went home and tidied up for a bit, before accidentally falling asleep while making my bed.

Then I sat drinking tea in the park like an old man.

Nell laughed and went back to plugging in a docking station.