a story

i hope i have the energy to write this... i wanted to tell this story last monday but couldn't give away to dinah which shop i'd been to to buy her presents...

then i wanted to tell it on wednesday after she'd had the presents but had to wait until there was either a happy ending or not... all will become clear...

so, in parts:

prologue:

last saturday (over a week ago) i was rehearsing at the south london pacific bar with T, a couple of people floated in and out, it was my 1st rehearsal with T and it rocked...

part 1 - not recognising people straight away:

on monday (a week ago) i went to manolis's, at 1st i didn't recognise who was in there, ate my breakfast, then worked out that two of the three people in there drinking red wine i'd met there before, the inventor and the designer...

so i chatted to them for a little while, glad to have bumped into them again, but didn't stay too long because i was travelling down to radio days, a vintage shop near waterloo that producerG had told me about, to buy presents for dinah's birthday...

it absolutely chucked it down on the way and i got soaked... when i arrived in the shop one of the guys in there helpfully hung up my jumper which was very wet... i started looking around the shop trying not to drip too much...

i was buying the 2 items that i got from there (a magazine from 1948 & a silver brooch) & was listening to one of the two guys talking to another customer about music... i ask about it and he offered me a flyer... for the south london pacific bar...

i tell him i was only in there on saturday and it turns out that both men in that shop had been in the bar on the saturday... one of whom (who owns the shop with his partner) had dreamily complemented us on one of the tunes we were playing...

small aside - apple cathedral:

i left there, cycled into town to get the 3rd item for the birthday (black holes and revelations by muse) and to pop into the apple store to see about my ipod shuffle, broken...

in the apple store i see one of my new students and he takes my broken shuffle from me, woefully beyond it's warranty, and says he might be able to sort something out...

part 2 - the losing:

fast forward to wednesday, day of the birthday, my beautiful girl turning 25, she loves the presents and we go out in the evening to a pizza place in crouchend which has cocktails... she is wearing the brooch...

we have a delicious time, drinking and eating, the cocktails are great, the food lovely... we stumble out of there a few hours later and we're happily wending our way along the road when dinah notices that the brooch is gone... she had been aware earlier that it was a bit fragile...

so we went back to the restaurant but they can't find it, we go up and down the road about three times scouring the ground for it... dinah is upset... it's sad but there is more birthday frivolity ahead so i make her laugh as we get home, opening a bottle of cava... drinking more... completing the lovely birthday...

small aside conclusion - keyboard class:

i try and ring the restaurant each day but they don't seem to answer their phone, friday comes and i have a keyboard lesson with the student who works for apple...

he hands me a small package, my musical world is returned to me... happy day...

part 3 - conclusion:

so i finally got through to the restaurant tonight, just before M was coming round to have a look at my fender rhodes and they had the brooch... i cycled over there to recieve it, put it in the same box i'd originally given it to dinah in and left it on her table with a note to look inside...

the prodigal broach, now more valuable than before for having been lost and found...

there - you have my week of losing and finding... meeting people again... getting a new shuffle...

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