Bliss Cafe - Dalston

Three Parks We Know

Talking of Haggerston Park, you'll be pleased to know nothing much has changed. The city farm still lends the air a comforting mucky scent as you cycle past; the Astroturf is in use by the schools across the road and the other day I saw a middle aged man jolting round the BMX track on a rickety old racing bike - his son strapped into a safety seat on the back.



Every park in East London still seems to have a crew of dossers who congregate around a single bench. This morning I passed three such groups, the first in Ion Square Gardens. The Ion Square Gardens group seem to be the saddest in all three parks; this morning I saw a man who'd clearly been sleeping rough sitting on the bench with two sports bags, as though he had been kicked out. Not last night – a while ago. Ion Square also has the most spooky types. There is a distinctly druggy vibe not noticeable in the other two parks. Late at night there'll be a solitary figure standing in the orange street light glow in the middle of the square. People make hurried visits along the paths to meet him. He seems to represent the square’s centre point and its extremity – the magnetic north. There's also a strange sectioned off corner of the square, which I am wary of – it is too quiet a spot. Perhaps what I imagine happens there is much worse than the reality- but I never go in that corner, although the council has recently landscaped it. Perhaps the people in Ion Square are influenced by the place... Ion Square is by far the bleakest park. It’s really nothing more than a sloping patch of grass with straight paths, burnt out bins and shitting terriers.



Next, there's the Haggerston Park crowd, who hang out with the dragonflys around the nature pond. Sometimes they appear to be having an idyllic picnic amongst the wildflowers, like hippies. Once I went past and a red faced man waved and called me to come and join in. They were carousing and dancing round the pond. On a sunny Saturday it looked like fun - pretty much the same as what we were intending to do outside the pub on Broadway Market. This morning there were a man and a woman unpacking their first carrier bag of beer in bright sunlight. The pond was surrounded by long grass and it was quiet. To be up so early, and in place, ready to drink, made me think maybe one of them had had a horrible night or big row and needed comforting. Or maybe it was a regular routine that they arrived punctually for, like a job.



London Fields has a marginally more merry band of dossers - smarter clothes and no sports bags of belongings. They were also in place when I cycled past at 8.30 this morning, on their usual bench next to the disused paddling pool. They seemed quite cheerful and smiled at me, except one who was being plagued by a wasp. Here there are a number of shaggy dogs that sit by the bench panting patiently all day. The bench is ideal for spectatorship – it not only looks over the cricket field but also has the social aspect of being near the entrance gate, so everyone coming in and out can be seen going past… and commented on I suppose. The Cat and Mutton, on the other side of the park, is in a similarly good spot for people watching.



I can't decide whether it is wholly sad that people get up bright and early to get their first drink, or whether there is an inviting element in it too. It seems like there is companionship on the benches that could be nice - comforting. And perhaps there is some kind of admirable rebellion in taking life at such a different pace. Sitting on a sunny bench with your cronies, drinking beer and watching the world go by definitely has its attractions. Lots of people do it at the weekend. And in Croatia, most of the men over 45 seemed to spend their days doing exactly that, as though it was an expected and natural part of their retirement. But I suppose, wherever you are, there’s only a few people who drink before 9 in the morning and maybe they would rather they didn’t.

Dalston Mill Article

A friend just sent me a link to an article by Madeline Bunting about the Dalston Mill.

Agnes Denes' original 'Wheatfield - A Confrontation' (1982)

The Dalston Mill

An installation is being erected just down the road from my work at the Dalston peace mural. The Barbican Centre, as part of their current exhibition - Radical Nature – Art and Architecture for a Changing Planet 1969–2009, and as part of their ongoing bid to raise their profile in the East End art scene and get some more trendy punters through the door, have created a ‘rural space’ in Dalston, including a 20m long wheatfield and a windmill.

There are a series of events going on, organized by experimental architecture collective EXYZT, many of which have slightly annoying wacky names but could be interesting.

Click here for a link to the schedule of events, which run from today, 15th July, to the 6th August.

I’ll definitely be going down to have a look this lunchtime – so if you don’t have time I can tell you what its like! Wish I had a camera to take some pics but ours got lost on a Terravision coach in florence - boo. maybe work will let me borrow theirs.

X Dot

The Trains in Florence

Via di Barbano! Crap crap crap. She was lost again. She must have overshot the turning by walking too far down the Via Nazionale. Clenching her jaw she turned back down the narrow street towards the piazza with the horse and rider statue - this square she recognised. A few day-trippers sat on benches feeding the pigeons, which were climbing over each other’s backs to get to the crumbs in a heaving, verminous mass. She looked away, disgusted. Now which turning was it out of the square? Straining her eyes, she scanned the buildings and corners for the right turning. Jeez! It could be any of them. Why were there no signs in this city? She’d have to walk around and check every darn street.

Two weeks and she still couldn’t find her way back to the hostel alone. It was so frustrating! She could feel a lump rising in her throat – pathetic embarrassing tears. Fight them down. Sweet Jesus! Some girls would kill for a summer in Europe!

There was no-one about on her corridor when Brittany got back to the hostel. She opened the door of the room she shared with three other girls: Lauren, Kirsten and Lucy.

It was dark and stiflingly hot inside. The shutters and window were closed to keep the mosquitos out; people back home had warned them about the risk of catching malaria overseas. Besides, the window didn’t have a view, opening onto a dirty light-well and the back wall of the hotel next door.

The four unmade beds were strewn with summer clothes – brightly coloured shorts, polo shirts and dresses. There were photos stuck on the wall behind to each girl’s bed – boyfriends from back home and cheesy family shots. The single vanity table was densely crowded with objects; hairspray and mousse cans, nail polish and sun cream, make up, and half empty water bottles – they didn’t risk the tap water. Brittany crossed the room to the bathroom, picking her way through the litter of damp towels, dirty clothes and shoes lying on the floor. The girls had been shocked to find that their ‘ensuite’ had a shower and a sink but no toilet. Were they meant to squat down on the tiles? Disgusting!

The bathroom was still steamy. Condensation streaked the mirror, to which a few blonde hairs were clinging. She must have just missed them. Probably they’d gone to get a pizza or something – maybe at Franco’s, the pizzeria where the American students congregated most nights.

Brittany turned on the TV. Italian MTV was better than nothing. She sat on her bed and ate the packet of potato chips she’d bought. It would be too weird to go down to Franco’s on her own – they might not be there anyway, or there might be some students from another corridor – then she’d have to tag awkwardly onto their group. She tried out what she’d say, ‘Hey, I’m Brittany, can I hang out with you guys?’. Jeez, it sounded lame! She grimaced at the thought, and shuddered, stuffing another handful of crisps into her mouth.

Later, folding her clothes carefully and stacking them on the chair in the corner of the room, Brittany couldn’t help thinking about her mother – how kind she was. Her Mom had saved up for this trip and spent a lot of money buying Brittany nice clothes to wear in Italy. It was so sweet. Thinking about Mom working at the store and saving up money from her paychecks to buy the clothes made Brittany feel upset. It made her chest ache. She swallowed hard. Mom had been so keen for Brittany to go – and convinced that her daughter would have the time of her life in Florence. Florence! The word had held enchantment for Brittanny and her Mother.

She lay down on the bed in her pyjamas and closed her eyes. It was stiflingly hot. How did people deal with this kind of heat, all summer, every summer? You couldn’t live in it! No wonder everyone in Florence acted like someone had taken a dump in their breakfast. Heat at home was nothing like this – at home you could prop the screen door open and a cool breeze would refresh the house. Brittany couldn’t leave the door open onto the corridor here. The American students had been warned by their teachers about the foreign men staying at the hostel.

The sound of giggling and a loud shushing just outside the door woke Brittany suddenly. ‘Get the keys? Whose got the keys? Kristen! Oh CRAP!’

There was a clatter as the keys fell on the floor, accompanied by a fresh outbreak of giggles. Then, ‘Oh my God, Lauren you’re so drunk. Let me do it!’.

Brittany heard the key tapping at the lock as one of the girls tried to poke it into the slot in the door. Then there was a frantic tugging and twisting at the handle. ‘Holy CRAP! What is wrong with this door?’

She got up and opened the door, drawing a slice of orange light from the corridor into the dark room. Lauren, Lucy and Kirsten looked up at her with flushed cheeks and dilated pupils, caught out like a gang of naughty children. They struggled to keep straight faces – a grin kept almost escaping from the corners of Kirsten’s mouth. ‘Sorry to wake you Brittany,’ Lauren apologised in a stage whisper, exaggeratedly tiptoeing into the room. The three girls undressed noisily in the dark, hopping around and tittering as Lauren stumbled over a towel, cursed and fell gawkily onto her bed.

Brittany took off her pyjamas before lying down again in her pants and bra. She turned on her side with her back to the other girls, for privacy, and so they wouldn’t be able to make out her tears. It was still too hot to sleep properly. They needed Air con for Christ’s sake! What was wrong with this place? She couldn’t help it. She hated this country and she hated this city. She hated Florence. She hated Florence – it sounded ungrateful and wrong even in her head. This was one of those things she should just never admit out loud. She shut her eyes. Maybe it’d be better tomorrow – she’d definitely try harder and practice her Italian.

‘Buongiorno. Una Latte pervavore,’ she asked the man at the counter, smiling.

‘Latte?’ he repeated, raising his eyebrows at her.

‘Yes please. I mean, si, perverore,’ Brittany smiled. Keep smiling, she told herself. They hate Americans because they think we’re rude. It’s all about showing good manners.

‘Okay. One Latte per la bionda americana!’ he shouted to another member of staff, avoiding her eye and beckoning to the next customer over her shoulder. It was hard to stay friendly, Brittany thought, counting out Euros onto the glass surface. ‘No! No! There!’ the man snapped in English, dismissing her attempt to pay him with an impatient gesture towards the woman at the cash register.

Jeez! Even getting coffee was hard work, Brittany thought, joining Lauren and Kirsten at a table on the terrace outside. As she sat down she realised her jaw was clenched, tense with the anxiety of the encounter. The remaining coins clutched in her hand were hot and sticky. It was strange – she was never this awkward or self-conscious at home. Here, she was hyper aware of everything she did. Of being watched, judged, sneered at. And they did sneer at her. They sneered at all the American students.

Being abroad made her feel like a stranger to herself, Brittany decided. She was constantly imagining how she must look in other peoples’ eyes and this made her uneasy and anxious - on edge – afraid of doing something clumsy – of saying something stupid - of getting it wrong. And there were a million opportunities to get it wrong in Italy; she only had to open her mouth.

It hadn’t taken the American students long to work out that the Italians didn’t like them. Old ladies tutted and shook their heads as the students walked past in a group; skinny young Italians in trendily distressed clothes shoved them rudely off the narrow pavements; café owners and shop assistants rolled their eyes, clicked their tongues, overcharged them and cut off their hesitant attempts to speak Italian abruptly, clarifying orders in fluent English. Their Italian teacher had laughingly revealed to the students that the locals called them ‘trains’, because ‘you can hear American students coming before you see them’. But it was no joke, Brittany thought. Even The Florence Gazette, an English paper for expatriots was hostile. The lead article on the second page was entitled ‘Show Florence Respect’. Britanny had scanned through the article at Franco’s: ‘In the early hours of Thursday morning two American students were arrested by Italian police in central Florence for urinating in one of the city’s beautiful stone fountains. It was thought they had been drinking. Residents of the historic city have once again spoken out in outrage at the disrespectful behaviour of American visitors.’

‘Brittany, look out!’ Lauren warned her, as a steaming cup was placed on the table in front of her. ‘What did you order? That doesn’t look like coffee.’

Brittany stirred the bubbly white drink and sipped it. ‘It’s just milk!’ she exclaimed. ‘That’s weird, I definitely asked him for a Latte’. Kirsten raised one eyebrow and Lauren, trying to be nice after waking Brittany last night, laughed awkwardly at the mistake. ‘Brittany, latte just means milk!’ Lauren explained. ‘You should have said a Café Latte – a coffee with milk!’

‘Oh! Whoops!’ Brittany grinned to cover up her embarrassment. She hid her red face in the steam and said unconvincingly, ‘Umm. Lucky I love milk!’ It wasn’t yet midday and she’d already made foolish blunder! Brittany forced down the panicky emotional feelings. ‘Calm down. Calm yourself down. It’s not a big deal’, she told herself. She had to be less sensitive – and not get teary at every little setback. It wasn’t surprising things were hard at first. It would take her a while to fit in, to figure things out. Luckily no-one had noticed her getting stressed. Lauren was texting the Californian boy from the corridor downstairs at the hostel. Kirsten sipped her coffee, and stared across the square - blasé, continental, uninterested.

The American students had no Italian lessons on Saturday afternoons. They hung out in the piazzas and sat cross-legged in circles on the stone pavements chatting, flirting, laughing loudly, shrieking and teasing each other. If they sat on the pavement outside a shop they’d be moved on eventually by the shopkeeper. They retaliated with loud comments: ‘Oh no! We forgot this isn’t OUR pavement. We made a BIG mistake sitting here. This is an ITALIAN pavement and we are RIGHT in the way. Better move you guys! You YANKS are blocking the entrance to this lady’s VERY busy shop.’

Brittany cringed at these encounters. The open animosity between the locals and the students was nasty. How could you enjoy yourself when you knew people were sneering at you? The others responded to the hostility outside themselves by turning inwards, to each other. They banded together into tight cliques with thick skins and a detachment from the Italians. If they hated Americans so what? The Yanks liked being Yanks, liked each other and had fun together. They weren’t going to apologise for being American! In fact, if anything they’d be even more loud and act even more American because they were proud of it and noone should have to cover up who they were!

To the American students Italians became part of the scenery, part of the European backdrop, like the churches and squares and sunshine. They were no longer part of the narrative of their experience. Yes, the Italians were a part of the scenery that they didn’t like that much. It was inconvenient to be disliked, an inconvenience like the uncomfortable heat and stinking medieval drains. But, it was an inconvenience that didn’t really shake their confidence or factor high in the stories of their personal lives. Lauren flirted with a Californian boy from the corridor downstairs. Kirsten and Lucy had a row about Lucy copying Kirsten’s style and they wouldn’t speak to each other for two days. The gang all hung out on Saturday night. Lauren got drunk on Heineken and kissed the Californian boy outside Franco’s. These were key events in the narrative of the summer. And so much had happened in the first two weeks! It was just like summer camp, but in Europe.

Brittany knew she was being overly sensitive but she hated the feeling of being unwelcome. The problem was that she wasn’t satisfied with sitting on the pavement in the afternoons with the other students. She genuinely wanted to see the beautiful old buildings and artwork her Mom had told her about. They didn’t have anything like that in the town in America where she came from. In fact, she thought they probably didn’t have anything like that in all the 50 American states put together! Brittany loved art classes at school and she could draw a little bit. She preferred the Impressionists to the old paintings in Florence, but Titian and Botticelli were wonderful. In the first week Brittany, Lauren, Lucy and Kirsten had queued for hours to get into the Uffizi and the Academia, but the three hour wait for tickets at each gallery had exhausted their enthusiasm for the art of Florence. They didn’t want to go up the tower of the Duomo – it too hot for heights. In order to get to know the city Brittany had to venture into the streets on her own.

It was Saturday afternoon and Brittany had made the decision to visit the Ponte Vecchio and maybe walk around the area south of the Arno, instead of drinking beer with the other American students outside Murphy’s Irish Pub. Deciding on this plan had made her feel okay for maybe the first time in two weeks, she thought. She realised it was the first time she’d decided to go and visit something in Florence on her own, away from the group of American students – the ‘trains!’.

She smiled. It made her feel independent – a bit adventurous. No, she, thought. She couldn’t pretend not to be interested in this stuff. This was her and she was abroad in the most beautiful city in the world. She wanted to be able to tell her own daughter about the incredible summer she had experienced: getting to know the city like the back of her hand; learning to speak Italian fluently; dating a handsome Italian who drove a Vespa… etc!

She headed straight down the Via di Tornabuoni towards the Ponte Vecchio. The famous bridge! In the guide books Brittany had read that all the other original bridges were blown up in the second world war. Tourists crowded the narrow pavements on the streets leading to the Arno, taking photos of one another in front of the landmark. They milled in a jostling crowd on the bridge itself, which was lined with shops selling gold jewellery. Brittany averted her eyes from the gold shops; their displays were too dazzling. Chains, bracelets, rings – heaps and heaps of gold displayed on velveteen trays, angled towards the windows for a better view. A better view! She was almost disgusted with the women who stood gazing into the windows. What were they here to look at? People were strange. Fixated with odd stuff. She shuddered; sometimes she felt detached from other people and she knew it wasn’t a good way of looking at the world. But still, who would come all the way to Florence and then spend their time buying bits of gold on this bridge?

Brittany studied the crowds. So many people. Where were they all from? What were they all doing here? Just ogling things and buying things? Buildings, art, gold jewellery, views of the Ponte Vecchio. And where did she fit in with them? Not quite a daytripper, but worse, in the Italians’ eyes– a noisy disrespectful American summer student; an American who couldn’t even order a coffee in Italian, but could be heard shouting and laughing a hundred metres away; one of the hundreds of hated ‘trains’ in Florence. Then she thought of the girls last night, giggling in drunken fun, while she miserably opened the door to let them in. She wasn’t really part of that either.
A single rower in a boat as thin as a blade sliced smoothly under the bridge, pulling away up the molten river with the sun beating down on his back and the wind in his hair. Brittany felt a sudden cool breeze run down the shallow river, like a pleasurable shiver on the city’s spine. The water wended its way slowly, serenely, through the ancient city with a calm detachment. Overshadowed by the leaning rooftops, domes and spires rising on either bank; overlooked by the many jostling, red-faced tourists peering curiously down; overpriced by the hoteliers, restaurant owners and shop assistants who sold goods with a riverview premium included, the Arno passed quietly on. For a moment Brittany could see that to the Arno, the city, the churches, squares and sunshine, the art, the architecture, the gold displayed in the shops and the people, all the people, were backdrop, were scenery. The river was the real narrative, the only enduring narrative here.

Brittany felt a tap on her shoulder and turned back to the crowds on the bridge. ‘Hey, are you American?’ a sweating middle aged lady wearing a visor asked. ‘Can you just take a photo of my husband and I here?’ Brittany nodded and accepted the camera.

The couple posed, arm in arm, grinning. The river retreated behind them – back in its place – a backdrop again – a scenic setting for their story. ‘Just switch it to portrait mode and tell us when to smile!’ Brittany took two pictures before checking the digital screen. The couple’s pink faces were perfectly in focus; they grinned, popping out in lucid detail against the softly blurred river landscape behind them. ‘Thanks so much! It’s so nice to meet you!’ the wife shook Brittany’s hand hurriedly. She had the slightly frantic look of a tourist with a tight schedule. ‘Can you tell us how to get to the Duomo? We have to get up it today as we’re leaving tomorrow!’ Brittany pointed the couple in the right direction. ‘Thanks so much!’ the wife said as they left, ‘It’s so hard finding your way around when you don’t speak Italian.’

Brittany felt a rush of gratification at being able to offer directions – she of all people, who couldn’t find her way home in Florence! To them, she was a kind of local. They had three days to see Florence – she had been here for two weeks already, and had another month stretching out in front of her.

Suddenly, there was a stir at one end of the bridge. One of the African vendors selling plasticized posters of Renaissance paintings gestured frantically to his partner. They shuffled their wares together as swiftly as if they had been handling a pack of cards and whisked the protective cloth beneath into a pocket. Brittany saw two Italian cops, Carabinieri, moving rapidly across the bridge, but the Africans were gone. Their shop shut, they had hurried away, vanishing into the crowd.

She looked again at the people who remained: a couple kissing; a tattooed man playing guitar to a small audience; a family sitting on the pavement eating gelati; two old ladies studying their guide through gold rimmed glasses. The thing is, everyone here was from elsewhere. Pink face here, map there, Spanish accent, Australian, African. Noone fitted in perfectly. Noone really knew where they were going. That was the thing to remember. Everyone jostling each other, crowding through the streets, sitting on the pavements in piazzas, they were all visitors of some kind with different stories, different perspectives about what was important. This was always going to be a jumble, with misunderstandings, difficulties, wrong turnings, moments when you found you were lost.

Florence had been one of the proudest, wealthiest, most beautiful and most exclusive cities in the world, Brittany thought. She had read how it was tightly controlled by cultured noble families like the Medicis. The Italians were wrong to sneer at the tourists. The ancient walls of Florence remained but the narrative of the city had changed. Now the city belonged to the visitors and vendors; the people who passed through and the people who sold things to those who passed through. There was something about that thought that came as a relief. Florence would just have to accommodate her.

Brittany suddenly felt an urge to dance around, be silly, get drunk! She’d been so uptight, so self-conscious of everything – her clothes, her Italian, her Americanness! Holy Crap! – she was glad of feeling better! She took a deep breath, looking up the Arno and Jeez, it even felt easier to breathe! Now she wanted to celebrate. Lauren, Kirsten and Lucy would be hanging out with the other American students, laughing and fooling around on the terrace of the Irish bar. Maybe she should go down and meet them.

Ted's Tale in the Making

A picture of me at Winterwell Festival writing Ted's Tale on paper napkins from a cafe. I wrote the story because I got up too early and know one else was around. It was raining outside so I put Ted's Tale in a clean coffee cup and sealed down the lid. Originally Lucy named the story Ted Gets Wet.

Later a boy came up to me and told me he was watching me write that morning but thought it was probably an extremely long, angry letter to my boyfriend. He he!

A photographer dude took this. hence the writing across my face.

Ted's Tale

"It's drier than the Gobi down here still," remarked Mike cheerfully, a burly man wearing a fluorescent jacket. He poked the grass with the toe of his boot.

"But how long will it hold?' replied Ted, his companion, looking up at the low grey bank of clouds gathered ominously above the valley.

It was Ted's first festival on the farm. He'd been planning it since he was fifteen and had taken a year off work to manage the project. His parents had provided half the capital - the rest he'd borrowed from the bank.

Ted climbed the hill above the valley and looked down over the site worriedly. The earlier risers had already started to queue for tea and coffee, waiting with tent-matted hair and glum faces outside the mobile cafes. Fluttering the festival flags madly, the wind rushed through the tents, whipping canvas flaps back and forth and blasting paper cups off the tables. Shivering, the campers huddled closer to the breakfast vans, some jumping up and down to keep warm, some rubbing each other's arms.

"Power's out!" came the shout from Milly's Tea Shop as thunder rumbled down into the valley. The sky was dark. Ted watched as Mike ran across the site towards the generator. Others rushed about securing the gazebos and pulling plastic sheeting over the sound equipment.

The first drops of rain fell, pattering onto tent roofs and patterning the wooden tables with dark spots. groaning inwardly the breakfast vendors set up canopies and pulled cardboard boxes of cups and napkins under cover. The majority of the campers abandoned bacon rolls and hot tea in favour of shelter. A few pulled on their waterpoof jackets to brave it out.

The rain grew heavier. It spattered against plastic sheeting; ran in rivulets down ropes; and began to swell sagging corners of taupalain.

Ted wiped the drops of water from his watch. Another two hours before the music would start. he had checked the weather forecast religiously for the past month. It had looked so good! This was what he had feared. People so quickly got miserable in bad weather - especially at a small festival.

From where he was stabnding Ted could see that the site had pretty much cleared - not good for the Saturday. The vendors would be eyeing their tills and gritting their teeth.

Ted narrowed his eyes as a fork of lightening shot jaggedly down in the distance. Then came the thunder.

"Mike, come in Mike,' Ted shouted into his radio over the rumble of the thunder that followed. "Mike! Can you hear me? Get some music playing. MUSIC."

"We've got no performers till twelve," crackled back Mike's voice.

"Tell them their time slot's changed. Offer to pay them more. I don't care. Just get someone on stage!" Ted replied in frustration, wiping away the rain running into his eyes.

"Copy that!" came the reply.

For a while there was nothing. Just the wet flags fluttering and the site getting sodden, the valley mutely receiving the rain. Then, suddenly, there was the shir of the generator kicking bgack into life.

"Thank God!" muttered Ted to himself.

And next, from the main stage, the fuzzy sound of an amp connecting and the sharp squeal of feedback from the microphone. Ted began to take large strides down the hill, trying not to slip on the slick turf. He strained his eyes. Yes, there was someone there, up on the stage. Although Ted could see the figure's bright waterproof jacket he couldn't make out which performer it was.

Next he heard a cough, "Ahem!" before a flat voice came, rather apologetically, through the speakers. "Hello. Hello. One, two, three. Urrm. Hello Winterwell Festival. Are you having a good time?"

Oh God. It was Mike. Ted groaned. What the hell was he doing on stage?

"Right then. Here we go," came Mike's embarassed monotone. And then he began to sing "I'm singing in the rain, just singing in the..." and dance as he sang, hopping from foot to foot like a loonie in his neon jacket. "What a wonderful feeling, I'm..."

"Oh my God," Ted said aloud. "Oh my goodness." For a moment he felt like weeping.

Mike waved as he hopped back and forth and sang, "Dancin' in the rain Dee-ah dee-ah dee-ah dee. Dee-ah dee-ah dee-ah dee. I'm happy again!"

Ted started to smile. After all the stress of the last year, not to mention the past month: the sleepless nights, the money worries (his parents' money!), the perfomers pulling out, the site, the weather... he finally relaxed. And laughed. Slapping his thigh he cracked up, doubling over and laughing uncontrollably on the wet hill above the deserted festival.