To Where I Am Now

Monday February 17th 2025

I was in the triangle today, that is the flower shop, the stereo shop and the second hand furniture store, visiting all three for their specific services, plants, old stereos and pre-loved household items. Success at the plant shop where I picked up the bamboo sticks to secure ‘the leaning plant of Padrão’ (that’s the square near me). Success at the second hand furniture and household goods store where I picked up a nice small blue and yellow vase and a larger faded pink one (all this for no money). At the stereo shop I just told them no rush with the turntable mat for my sixties record player, I can’t do anything in The Archive organisation anyway until I get the damn shelves from Ikea - still out of stock. While I was talking to Paolo outside the stereo shop, a bus came by and hit the girl close to us on the pavement. It’s so narrow there and the mirror from the bus hangs over where people are walking, it made a terrible sound but she was ok, scary.

Talking of injuries, the other day I was moving a trolley out of The Archive and I stumbled down the steps, the trolley banging into my shins. I didn’t think anything of it but then the other day I realised that one of my shins was hurting and when I looked down at it and touched it, it was quite tender and I had a massive bruise. I learnt today that the posh word for a bruise, or the medical term is ‘contusion’. “A region of injured tissue or skin in which blood capillaries have been ruptured”. I hadn’t realised that a bruise could be so poetically described.

Earlier I’d gone around the back of The Archive to take a picture of the broken window. Some graffiti has also appeared, it’s pretty scungy back there, but it’s an alleyway near a bar and nightclub - perfectly placed for scungyness and the broken window fits in perfectly, it looks like a found location for a sleazy scene in a movie. I took some pics for the landlord and dropped in at the cafe on the Padrão square where I got talking to Vitor about football. We decided that most of the Man U team had to go (he was a supporter) and he showed me his fantasy football team. - nice chats with the locals. I can speak Spanish in there because most of the staff are from Venezuela.

I felt dizzy for an hour tonight, some stomach ache and I had to sit down on the sofa and watch the time go by as I couldn’t get to my long list of what I had to do. I was listening to my mate Nicklas Barker’s Spotify list as I recovered, always fascinating choices. I went out into the street for a breath of fresh, Monday night air, the streets were empty and i looked in the window of the mysterious icons shop before I returned to finds diamonds in my eyes and took a break on the sofa till I could see again.

Music today has been a couple of things but I started the day with Damien Rice - O (2002). It’s been a while since I played this lovely album. He’s only made two more albums since - 9 (2006) and My Favourite Faded Fantasy (2014) the last one I have completely missed. I saw him live once with Lisa Hannigan at Sin-é in New York and I recorded it on my mini disc player and discovered today that I have a CD of it which I don’t remember making. The album was something of a surprise success, it was so good but unlikely to gain that much attention from its folky style, but he has that wonderful Irish poetic depth, irresistible and if The Blower’s Daughter doesn’t have you, I can’t help you. There are many cover versions of the song as well as versions in Portuguese and Spanish.

Music Of The Daze