1989

It's 1989 and my life is, suddenly, a mess. 

For a start, the band that I play in and love passionately is losing momentum. God knows, if I could transport the business and marketing skills I've picked up now back in time thirty years, we'd be a rip-roaring success but as things stand back then, I'm not enjoying it and I hate that.

Secondly, my job is moving from Weybridge to Farnborough. This is, in effect, moving from the middle of nowhere to somewhere simply uncharted. There's no way I'm going to take that job but what's my alternative?

And thirdly, and finally, my girlfriend - who, the following year, will be my first wife - has taken a job in Kendal, Cumbria. 

In a bid to to escape from everything, I drive up to see her every weekend. I can leave work at a quarter to four on a Friday and I have abandoned the heavy lunchtime drinking so that I can set off onto the M25 with.a clear head. There is not yet an M40, at least not between Oxford and the M25, but in those halcyon days one can still reach junction 37 of the M6 in only four hours from Surrey on a Friday. At that junction, I take a small road parallel to and on the eastern side of the motorway for a few miles further upwards before turning west to Grayrigg, where Katherine was staying on a farm in a converted goat shed. 

I passed that turning today, heading south after an enjoyable lunch with Into the Hills. To be honest, there were better and more scenic photos to be taken on the way to meet him, while the sun was shining, but I was more concerned with getting to the shop at the Tebay services in order to buy something for the Minx for our anniversary on Monday. (Go there and see why; it's not a regular motorway services.)

Also, this shot has a better story attached.

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-12.4 kgs
Reading: 'In Aleppo Once' by Taqui Altounyan