I just got back from playing the Wadebridge music festival in Cornwall. I swear to god they put Valium in the water out there or something. Seriously, I haven’t been that relaxed in ages. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that Cornwall is apparently one of the only parts of Britain that was untouched by the ice-age; the landscape is thereby truly prehistoric and perhaps the air is too. Maybe that had something to do with it. In either case, it was a magical place and a fantastic weekend – the festival was so much fun and I hope to do it again next year. I even got on a bicycle to get from Wadebridge to Padstowe (completely uncharacteristic of me, even as a child I was more of a roller-skater than a bike girl).

It’s funny the things that hit you at random moments. Whilst riding my bike along the Camel trail (no camels on said trail though, much to my disappointment), I saw a caterpillar trying to make its way as fast as it could from one side to the other and I was struck by the courage of it all. Of course, said caterpillar was probably oblivious to the potential danger presented by all the bikes that rode that trail, I don’t know how deeply caterpillars think, but still, it made me think: How many of us sit on one side of the bike trail and watch others try to cross, self satisfied in our I told you so’s should they get squashed. I’d like to think I’m one of the brave ones – one of the ones that risks it. But perhaps everybody thinks that.

This of course led to another train of thought, one that guided me to the memory of a picture I once saw on an ex boyfriend’s wall of a butterfly. Underneath the picture read something to the effect of “In life, many things will capture your heart, but only a few will capture your soul – pursue these”. And I started to wonder how well I’ve lived by that – a slogan that hit me as hard the first time I read it as it does now as I write it. I’d like to think I live like that. Albeit a little sidetracked by the odd whim of the heart. I guess at the end of the day, if I can leave this world looking at it with the same sense of wonder as I had entering it, I will have lived a somewhat successful life. Maybe that’s what that whole Zen “beginner’s mind” is about. I don’t know. I don’t know enough about it.

Anyway, back to the festival...there were these two guys there who had walked all the way from Canterbury. It had taken them almost a month – sort of like a backwards Canterbury tales. Reminded me of The wyfe of bath – one of the tales I had to study for my “A” levels (not sure if that’s how you spell it and I can’t be bothered googling it). The main premise behind it was that women all want supreme power in relationships, that’s what they seek, even though it doesn’t make them happy. And I realised I no longer look for that. I kind of wish I did – life was simpler then. I was a nice dictator. But in truth, these days there’s nothing more attractive than a man with his own mind. For me, anyway.

Anyway, sorry to get so philosophical on you, but that’s what happens when I get too much time inside my own head! And five hours on a train either way to Cornwall kind of did it...

In other news, fire in the snow will be available really soon on iTunes (for the UK and Australia) and on CDbaby.com for everywhere else. Will let you know.

Pip xxx