Smokingboot

When I woke up the light was totally different, clear, reflecting frost, not a tint of yellow or warmth in it, and I felt it in my bones saying 'never mind a calender or charts or markers on stones, here it is, today. This is Winter right now. You are in the first morning of the season.'

Tried to phone Mum, she couldn't hear me. She keeps buying more and more phones, and each time something magically happens and she can't hear a word. That is to say if I speak up she chides me for shouting, and if I don't, she says she cannot hear me. She's driving them mad at the phone shop. Bro thinks its just her, but whether its a hallucination or what, I don't know. I know it is the bane and centre of her life, as so many other deleterious things have been, and my head hurts now, partly out of tension at her and partly because of the cold.

Heating's on. The day will improve. I must try to be more patient.

𝑬𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒚𝒐𝒏𝒆 𝑺𝒂𝒏𝒈 𝒃𝒚 𝑺𝒊𝒆𝒈𝒇𝒓𝒊𝒆𝒅 𝑺𝒂𝒔𝒔𝒐𝒐𝒏

Everyone suddenly burst out singing;
And I was filled with such delight
As prisoned birds must find in freedom,
Winging wildly across the white
Orchards and dark-green fields; on - on - and out of sight.

Everyone's voice was suddenly lifted;
And beauty came like the setting sun:
My heart was shaken with tears; and horror
Drifted away ... O, but Everyone
Was a bird; and the song was wordless; the singing will never be done.

Better write this down before I forget it.

R and I were staying in some holiday cottage/apartment. I got there first, to find an old looking place mainly decked out in blue, a long room rather than a wide one with books fetchingly piled on tables and a life sized mannikin decked out in a blue Mary Poppins alike costume. It had blue eyes and black hair done up in a soft bun. It was sat on a chair staring straight at me, a bit unsettling. I sat in the chair nearest it. Then, just as the latch lifted and R came in, it turned into a real person and began to chat, to him and to me. He saw no difference and I didn't quite know what to make of it/her. She was supposedly our host, and asked us questions that suggested we knew we were in a very special place with a marvellous reputation and were bound to be incredibly keen about it.

She asked me what I thought of it, I looked outside and saw a market selling herbs and plants and other things out of plastic containers. Towards my right and over the road there was a church tower with a clock on it. Twoards my let there was some kind of white barrier along the road, concealing road works or something. The architecture was a mix of modern and oldish,nothing to get carried away over. What was this place? Why was I was meant to be enthusiastic about it?

She was organising a tour and we joined her and a few others. But somehow R and I drifted away and found ourselves at a pub that was also a post office and music hall. In we went for a drink and a show, everyone was seated on the floor, I spilt some wine and spent ages trying to wipe it clean so no-one would sit in it by accident. The show was full of sexual innuendo, everyone was laughing except me because I was still trying to work out what was so special about any of this.

Then I was alone trying to hang a coat up when a black guy appeared behind me. He made romantic-sexual suggestions and was very close. Nothing wrong with him and I knew full well he wasn't going to harm me, he was just offering to... entertain me. I might as well have been in Westworld. I didn't take him up on the offer, (because hey, I might as well have been in Westworld) Aand all around still there was this sense of total unreality even within the context of me knowing it was all a dream,in fact it was less real than the average dream because everything seemed geared towards convincing me it was more real, more wonderful, more everything,

Despite that, my sleep was deep and rewarding, so much so I overslept and was woken by the cleaner ringing the doorbell. I am fine, bit of a head cold, not quite awake yet, I'm even having a coffee to shake and wake me. Hypnogogic stuff is all around, a horse at my right shoulder. Anyone lost a horse? If not, maybe this is my brain telling me I need to git gon. But to where? From what?

Oh Boot, wake up!

https://smokingboot.substack.com/p/song-for-samhain?r=1r9jj7&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true



Poem im the comments for those who don't want to interact with Substack.

A lot a lot. Constructive mostly.

Excellent friend came up for the weekend, cocktails occurred. Behold the menu!
https://irp.cdn-website.com/55831944/DESKTOP/pdf/2026-06-18lwcocktails.pdf
By The Fire is just wonderful especially as the place is at its best in Winter, with an open fire and candles and old leather armchairs here and there. The darker the better when whisky based wonders work a charm.

But see the fourth down, the Koji Gibson? Tastes like pickling juice. The waiter assured us that it's popular. I've never had an onion cocktail before, nor will again if I get fair warning.

We earned our cocktails, having braved Storm Boelo to sate my friend's fascination with the Falkirk Wheel. While I appreciate it as a feet of engineering, after hearing how the canal sustains 30 different varieties of water flea I certainly questioned some of my life choices.



Then we went on to the Kelpies and these were amazing.



They were created not only in reference to the terrifying Each-Uisge of legend, but as a nod of respect to the real water horses who pulled the barges along canals and sustained so much trade in Scotland. They are truly dramatic lit up at night, but I quite liked them against the days clouds.

As ever with this chum, we talked and laughed, ate and drank. All was good.

A chum in India sent me this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYtPZZ1RTCk
She asked 'What does inclusiveness mean?'
The video is about Garba, a celebration of the divine feminine as it pertains to the mighty Durga, performed during Navaratri. It echoed my friend's concerns, first of all about non-Hindus trying to get in to a private ticketed event for Hindus (notably young men, as this festival has dancing and music and lots of women looking gorgeous) and secondly the secularisation of sacredness, the desire to take the god/goddess out of the event and keep the party. It becomes about uniting humans rather than connecting with the sacred, and it's mostly well-meaning but based on non-belief with a healthy dose of self-conscious tolerance. There are worse places to start but such a stance is not flawless: it can feed condescension towards those who actually do believe in the existence of gods.

I'm a white European woman. Some doors have been opened to me on account of that, others have been closed to me on account of that. Injustice does exist, there are people who shut one down out of pure prejudice. Inexcusable. But sometimes there's a good non-insulting reason for the door being closed. There are situations in life where one doesn't belong. They should be rare, context and sensitivity count for everything, but it's OK for them to exist.

I can feel my friend wanting to sit me down and talk, really talk. She would like me to understand. It's not the kind of thing to be done over zoom, it needs us to be together for a long time in a place where she can show me her life and land, her India. But even if we did, the topic is too vast. We might begin the conversation, I don't think we would end it.

Went into Edinburgh last night to see Letz Zepp, a highly lauded tribute band. They were good, a bit too much guitar noodling and the interlude with the guy on the keyboard went on a bit, but a very effective lead singer. We came, enjoyed, and left, with no particular need ever to see them again. We have another night with another Led Zeppelin tribute band coming up. We're not LZ fanatics, it's just the way things turned out.The comparison will be interesting.

As we made our way back to the Waverley, we heard singing coming out of a pub, a cover of something I've now forgotten by Sting/The Police. It occurred to me that for a long time I haven't heard anything new in terms of a genre. It makes sense as I tend to like old pop, haunted shriekies*, R&B, some metal, some folk, bit of everything really. But it's weird to think I can't really name any massive current music movements. Of course it's going to be influenced by the way I curate my feeds, still, it feels like music has become a curiously small world of internet micro-genres. Trap and K-Pop have their pull, but they're obvious sub-genres, Phonk is distinctly different to other styles, but its derivations are clear.
One emerging musical zeitgeist seems to be promptcore. I can understand how tempting it is for people who cannot create music any other way. But the problem reveals itself immediately in its architecture which seems to go something like this:

[MICRO-GENRE] + [SPECIFIC BPM] + [EMOTIONAL ANCHOR] + [NAMED INSTRUMENT] + [ERA REFERENCE] + [SCENE/ATMOSPHERE].
Example:
Prompt: Energetic indie pop, 122 BPM, uplifting and nostalgic, driving punchy drums, bright acoustic guitar, warm male lead vocals, wet reverb chorus

AI told me the above and also said: if you have a specific genre or mood in mind, tell me what you are trying to create and I can write a custom prompt for you.

And I get it, how liberating it must be not to have to pick up an instrument, hire a studio, sweat in front of an audience, or watch some cold-eyed Simon Cowell-alike tell you that for all the years and heart you've put into your craft, you're not commercially viable, in fact you may not be any good at all. Also admitting the need to understand more rather than surrender to my kneejerk reaction. But yes, I do have a kneejerk reaction, which is to say here we have it, the true new artistic drive of our age: outsourcing.

* The name of my band in the aether.

I am done, trying not to dread meeting friends tonight. It will be excellent, I know! My problem is that awful sense of gathering myself up, like I have a pint of ability to be fun and interesting, and once that's done I'm just a very tired woman sitting there without glow. What actually happens is that I get there, we have wine and muck around, and I am quickly up for a laugh same as ever.

I got up at 7, made coffee, did some stuff. But I am not going to make it through to 7 tonight without sleep.

The poem, well it isn't a poem. It's a bit like a memory but not a dream, hypnogogic or something. I don't know what it is. My actual dreams right now are all bits of conversations in other rooms, things I hear and half hear and forget, while big thick bands of orange and blue cross my vision. No idea what is going on, especially as right now I dont feel drawn to those colours at all.

Our Romanian neighbours are clearly bemused by me. Son is a vet who once ran a gardening business, Dad is a keen gardener and both are confused by my inability to permit the cutting down of, well,anything, really.

'How many plums do you actually get from this tree?' Asked Son.
'A lot' I answered confidently, but that was last year. The little Victoria plum had a dreadful accident this year when the top half sheered right off in a keening wind. Honestly, it looks like it was cut right across. I feel for it.

'You could just uproot it and get a better tree,' advised Son.
I knew my expression must have been aghast because Russ was chuckling. He told me it was at my sentimental attachment to everything in the garden, even if it's rubbish. Periwinkles, why? Because Dervish liked to sleep among them. Dog Rose, why? Because she's been here longer than we have. Struggling Thyme, why? Because Ralik adored this stuff. The plum tree, why? Because I feel sorry for it. For goodness' sake.

'We won't touch the apple tree til it has stopped fruiting,' said Son, 'when are you going to pick them?'
'Oh I've picked most, I just leave some for the beasties,' I said and he just stared at me, a smile curving his lips in a kind way, with the realisation that his neighbour is a) just plain daffy and b)practically the world's worst gardener. Anyhoo we have the start of a plan. It may include another apple tree.

Not so much editing as tearing chunks. This is a good time for pulling things apart.

Autumn is here, we need a fire in the evening and whisky is beginning to beckon. They say you shouldn't touch blackberries after Michelmass cos the devil, having landed on a bramble bush when he was chucked out of heaven, spat on the fruit in fury and renews his curse at the same date every year, but old Michelmass is on 11/12 October rather than the 29th December, so there's still time. The back lawn is full of fungi. There was one particularly perfect looking shroom now devoured by happy little beasties. It may have been a polyporous tuberaster but to be certain I'd need to dig up its base and I want to see if more grow. Though it sprang out of the soil, the implication would be that there's rotting wood under there somewhere, maybe a tree root. If it's one of these - the common name here is stone fungus - they're edible. You can even dig up the bases and cultivate them indoors, though our lack of cellar might get in the way and R is too wise to trust my completely amateur identification.

It's not my favourite time of year but I do love it all the same.