Beware the Ides of March.

OK, I’m reminiscing again. It’s what you’re supposed to do when you reach that age where people say ‘Poor old thing. He can’t help it, you know.’ And being led to seriously wonder whether your days might be tightly numbered is even more of an excuse, so…

It was the night of March 15^th 1995. There was a girl called Sue, a big snow storm, a magical full moon when the sky cleared after the blizzard, and a ready supply of beer, whisky and marijuana. Then there was the raging jealousy, the sense of having been dropped like an abandoned puppy, the curious case of having the girl I was holding in my arms mysteriously vanish, and the four subsequent hours which simply disappeared into a black hole somewhere.

This song by Enya was the backdrop to the whole event, just because a young woman twenty years my junior wanted to teach me how to waltz and Caribbean Blue was the only music I had which was written in waltz time. She failed; I failed; the whole night was ultimately a failure (the anger and depression lasted six weeks; the dreams kept coming for ten years.) But the memory of it remains clear and strong as such memories do.