Reportage - fat quarters

journey notes as follow. not v case related though. Wed. train south. cute girl with boring boyfriend at eleven o'clock. (geographically not temporally.) her eyes shut looking out of train at england passing. long dark hair. another guy in front of me reading a shatner biog (semi-auto). I catch a few paras of it over shoulder. always trust a discrete nose piercing. shapes of interesting faces. sad businessman with laptop and shiny shoes like manacles. pedacles?? pin stripe. red stripe preferable. this is coach C. pass thru yorkstation thinking could have arranged this better. the swan smooth neck in soft green while reclined tired on arms. sludgeholders in edgeland of doncaster. sad river of england. other people's conversations. 'she lost it in a factory'. hmm. i think of handmaids tale. that was days back though. princes street gardens in july heat. her face shape is dreamlike. long sleeves fingers peer out of, slender. they're talking about joshua and elizabeth. oh for steamtrain seats of grosmont all over this rail network. real wooden wood. buddlia in wasteground. shatner, I read, canoed with 6 other boys from canada to new york. i haven't changed since age 5 in this respect. england oh land of pylons and motorways. iron rails between graffiti parking lots of industry. red brick of olden false glory. weirs and knotweed. i am a fool never to converse. girl in green top departs at sheffield. he may not be dull really. are the beatniks growing stronger in cellars here? or are they turning into consumers of money? roll mats could save us.
case notes though: middle england is devoid of mirth. will report further findings soon.
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top room of circa 1500s house in leicestershire is a secret production room of needlework, quilting, felting - fat quarters everywhere; works on wattle and daub walls around random queenpost timbers. apple tree in secret garden and ghost pine beyond. youngsters practising forward drives with tennis ball. tomato plants outdoors. I watch brief encounter after sepia wartime portraiture. it wasn't the film I expected - before sunrise is the true version. on now to more stations. the buddlia seems more friendly now. Cut. Fri. Hotel lobby foyer watching second test (ashes) with ultra-£3 boddingtons well enough earned. buddlia in sight as I write hanging into holiday inn parking lot. the sky turns purple grey from a mixture of broken weather and july dusk. 111 for 3. make that 111 for 4. the lobby carpet is bus seat-esque enough to dream into. I see a big red indian bird and a wallaby mouse. the lobbies are the best places to run into interesting people. 111 for 5. I figure I can still score another 2pts from the ten pound note i started with. or a sneaky carryout from supermarket over A road. discover that the oldish couple, looking like dapper MCC folks are actually aussies, staying in lobby to watch the cricket like me. i should have known. they're both on pints. now also eating salted nuts. i ponder hiding my journalistic pad. some people it would loosen their tongues, some it would tighten, but who's to guess how many of each and which more important. I see many younger outer edge knitwear types opening up and the few harder core experimentalists silenced on sight of a pad. (rain falls outside.) Perhaps the few are more worthwhile than the many, but I think I'd have more fun plumbing the shallows or depths of the many - the end dealers and users, the rollers of fat quarters for pleasure and collegebook ideals. I get in conversation with the aussie couple - turns out only one is aussie - the guy is from aberdeen. only story I get is of a german backpacker they met - was trying to learn english but landed up staying in a hostelfull of germans. no obvious leads into much.

next wisdom to come is from my contact J, prearranged to meet her at hotel. met in lobby and ventured to their room. she reveals what I already suspected- that second only to Totnes, this spa town I'm in, the mother of all spa towns after saltburn, is the UK hippy central. I suspect this must be why I came. if there is a UK tahoe contingent in above ground existence, it may be here. my plan is to hit the charity shops tomorrow and see what leads I can pick up. always go with a hunch, even in notre dame. I'll go tomorrow on the pretext of acquiring quick wedding guest threads - a perfect way-in to any fabric and needlework subterfuge. i know a girl previously on the US music touring circuit who had/has a pad here. since gone further west, also with a farm in spain I think. if her homemade tipi is anything to go on then this is indeed a likely junction for red and orange cottons. note to self. also try to acquire a cheap baby acoustic guitar. a fat quarter-size. a good way into the local sngr-sngwrtr coffeehouse scene.
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Sat. no acoust found after a run around town. but another language anecdote heard to reinforce that of the aussie scots couple re german. this time a trip to amsterdam by dutch girl trying to ask directions in dutch but noone there understanding her because all are tourists. I hit the fleamarket with M. Some vinyl inc. live janis and live joan baez and coney island baby. little antique stall - chipped pottery vessels, discoloured spoons, faded jewelery, strange objects awaiting a detroitfix use ['upcycling' is a new fashion mag term for it, seemingly]- but no baby acoustic guitar, banjo or similar. a surprise. directions to oxfam from a studentesque blonde. no records. stalls of hip garmentry en route. back via frock exchange shop. some nice threads. colour co-ordination in the basement. cut to evening. post wedding in barn. 'yes we even had correspondence' I hear, from cambridge undergrad I briefly exchanged letters with about illusory theory of time and intergalactic stick.
cut back to hotel room. i awake at 4am. a whole bottle of cava still unopened. subdued hotel washroom lighting. i glug milk from cool window sill. 'forget something? un oubli?' asks holiday inn. yes, probably, I think. halloumi pastry wrap. playpark. soil field over stream. i tell ten-to-twelve yr old you can get thru to playpark at top of field edge. he says he already knows. the youth are ahead of me - good. what insights? i add the word 'not' to make: 'throw yr soul at this day because it might not be yr last'. I must have been reading too many self help books.

investigations on the northeastern seafront and further inland. whitbywool circle has gone to ground. there is a french connection. grosmont steam line. I sat in tree watching cafegoers. squeakiest voiced girl in shepherd's purse. those chips taste good though. apple juice in glass litre bottle from purse, served by non-squeaky dark haired girl. will give full report in due course. no news is news itself.