Separate

I got up mid morning and set off for Grant’s at noon. I walked there through Ashburn Woods and across golf-links enjoying the mild weather.

Grant ushered me in. He’s my longest standing friend really, and the one in whom I confide the most. We listened to one of his weirdo new wave LPs and he told me about the house parties he goes to with people from Hanson and that he’d ring me up the next time he went to one. We decided to walk to Hainsworth Hall and took the long way round, cutting through Ashburn and entering the park at the top end for a change. We had a cup of coffee at the café and then went upstairs to look round a predictably pop-artish exhibition of photographs, before deciding for no real reason to go down to see Lee. As we walked towards Three Locks Road I thought of what I was doing exactly a week ago, walking down this self-same road with youknowwho. Strange really, the schizophrenic way the school world of Claire and Deborah seems so remote from the world of Grant Riley and how I can’t see the two together at all, and yet I’m a part of each.

We called at an inopportune time. Lee's Mum answered and he had visitors, and was showing them those bloody home movies again, so Grant & I stood uneasily at the back of the kitchen for ten minutes before he took us out to mess about with his moped down on the wasteland. He rode it about quite proficiently and it reassured me because now I know it can’t be that difficult. Grant talked to Lee about music and his noise band--they've played a gig at Easterby Film Theatre or somewhere, and have some stuff on a demo tape of local acts which is being reviewed in Sounds soon. Lee looked so bemused I couldn’t do a thing for laughing and had tears rolling down my face.

Afterwards we sauntered back up through Lodgehill to his house and talked with his identical replica of a brother Philip and had tea and poured over a YHA guide looking for places to go in the summer. We decided on a hiking holiday in Cornwall and chose four Hostels to stay at between Tintagel and Newquay. It'll be good if it gets off the ground but somehow I have a feeling we’re being a little ambitious.

I got home at eight.