That pencil there, that I'm using in the icon, that was given to me by badasstronaut, who sadly passed away last week, after a long fight with cancer. She gave it to me one weekend when jinty, damiancugley and I went down to Bristol for a visit and to go to Ashton Court Festival, a rather wild event full of blue haired space babes and stalls selling pretty much everything. They don't run it any more; I'm kind of amazed it was running then. It was like a window into what festivals used to be, cheap on-the-gate tickets, held in the ground of a stately home, locals only, real bands, weird and wild but kind of homey at the same time. It was so hot I bought a parasol, which now sits (with the giant pencil) in my umbrella stand.



A lot has happened since that weekend; time has passed, measured in home improvements and changing interests. Debra and I both met the loves of our lives. Regular visits to see Bristol electro bands and visit Ikea and Deb's lovely local spa trailed off into promises to go down sometime. The links were looser but still there; I watched her with a glad eye. I liked to see her garden. She introduced me to the idea of growing flowers and veg all jumbled up; she had kitchen lino so outré the fitter asked, "are you sure?"; she knitted in the mosh pit when we went to see The Horrors at ATP; she understood the value of pie and tea.




I was waiting to go and see her until she felt better (worse, I was waiting till she felt better to send her a package of things, which was waiting upstairs with the card written and everything, and is now sitting there being a lesson to me NOT to wait for the right time) but now I'll be going to the funeral instead, on May 7th. We've been asked, jinty and me, to contribute a song that sums up her and comics. Come on, girlycomic, motodraconis, crazycrone and everyone else. Help us out here. I've got a CD full of tracks already, but I'm still not sure I've hit the right track. Maybe this one, I know she loved it: