"Oh where I come from, I just don't come from"

Well, hello! I'm feeling much better today, thanks for your warmth, it was nice. I also want to give a very big public thankyou to Mark who is, for today at least, my favourite human being in the whole wide world! And those of you of a similar age to me who were raised here in good old blighty should definitely go over to Adam Ant's place today & marvel in some nostalgia.

So to business...

During that meme flurry a couple of weeks back, the wonder known as Spins asked me what was my favourite part of Crapsville. As per usual, I'm gonna go much further than required & blather on for yonks about this town that has become my home but will never be my hometown.

Firstly, let's throw away another fragile bit of anonymity...

Yes, folks Crapsville is indeed Daventry. Now in all honesty, it's not a bad little place. I grew up in a metropolitan area & as such Daventry will always be a bit backwards to me. One thing that does always strike me about the place is that it can be very pretty. It's a very green place & in the summer months it occasionally looks lovely, if viewed from the right place.

Here's a shot from the highly congested skies above Crapsville (Daventry's airspace is one of the busiest in Europe outside the major airports, fact fans). You can see I've handily pointed out my place (Hello stalkers!) & roughly where The Boy dwells. The point marked A is Ford's distribution centre, notable because it is (or certainly used to be) the largest single storey building in Europe! Some of the people who work there actually use bicycles to get around the place. I shit you not!

The B denotes the edge of the Country Park.

The country park is quite a gem. There was certainly a time when it would've been my favourite part of Daventry. When I first came here at the age of 15, the country park is where we would all hang out. We'd play hide & seek, we'd threaten each other with being thrown into the "resy" & young hearts would take their first blundering steps into the world of romance & relationships. Nowadays, I only go up there with The Boy, we've many a time stood on that very "pier" & fed the no-doubt-utterly-sick-to-the-back-teeth-of-soggy-bread ducks. I did have a smashing walk around the park when I first got my I-pod, which was nice.

The next piccy shows the town's "bustling" high street on Market day. How very quaint, eh? To this day I don't think I've ever bought anything from Daventry Market, though it's always such a pleasure to hear the oiks on the grocer's stall shout "Look at these melons darlin', they are nearly as nice as yours!" & the like. Makes me proud to be a man.*

*I wish I didn't have to clarify this but with my reputation I'd better, I'm not proud at all & I find it repugnant.

Another of my favourite places is Borough Hill. There is quite a bit of history about this hill, but I'm not here to talk history (these guys can do it). Borough hill has always been a place to escape to, for me. Buddy With Boobs & I forged our friendship up there, going up in the car for a smoke or two after late shift before going back to our respective spouses. I also have a very vivid memory of my very conservative former girlfriend, Monochrome Baby, being anything but conservative up there! I've been up there on Acid which was fine until TemperMental (Reckless' ex-wife) started having a "bad trip" & got majorly freaked out by a swarm of flies that were bothering us somewhat. When I first came to Dav, there were lots & lots of masts atop Borough Hill (not just the solitary one,pictured, that remains). This was because the BBC world service used to broadcast from there. I remember being utterly freaked out that everyone's record players always had a backdrop of voices & noise coming from their speakers. "What's that all about?" I would ask. "Oh, it's the masts" they'd say "interferes with everything". Luckily for me they started dismantling them within a year of my arrival here. The good thing about the masts was that Daventry was visible from miles away, which was always something of a comfort when getting to the end of a long, arduous hitch-hike.

One of the other things in Borough Hill's favour is that on a nice day the view of the town & the surrounding area is spectacular, or it would be were there anything of note to see.

I have pondered long & hard over recent days about where my favourite part of Daventry is. The answer will no doubt come across as sad, demented & just plain bizarre. See, my favourite place is just a minute away from where I'm typing this. It's the area at the rear of my work, between the chemical yard & the boiler house. Why?

There are many reasons. At night time it becomes my little secret place, nobody else at work ever has cause to be there. It's just mine. Though it backs on to this big dirty, noisy factory it faces onto open countryside. If I face west then I can turn through 180 degrees & not actually see work. I love to sing out there too. There are a couple of slightly raised areas that double as stages for when I feel like performing a bit. Which I do from time to time. When I was in the worst/best of my Dream Girl times, I would stand, facing west as always, and I would sing out to her across the fields (I still do from time to time, but not very often). I used to sometimes think she'd hear me somehow, that she'd feel me singing to her. Daft twat!

It also has been a place for me to retreat to when I have song ideas going on in my head. "Haunted", "Second best" & several others were all written down there. The rabbits haven't complained yet, bless 'em. It's also over the years been a neat little bolthole for me when things have been tough. There have been many times when I've been at work & some dodgy development in my personal life has to the fore. Down to my little place I'd run, to contemplate, to sing, to phone a friend or to sit and cry. The real overwhelming beauty of the place is that it feels like it's my place, my special personal place. I will at some point over the next 3 and a half hours pop down there and have a crafty fag & probably a little sing.

Well, the rabbits are a very demanding audience...