One of my FB groups has a daily theme, on Monday it was “1989, your memories”. My head filled with this song.

it had been released two years earlier*, but became the soundtrack of my late ’89.

It’s Hogmanay 1989. In my mind it’s wet, but that doesn’t matter. On the M8, it’s dark, I don’t think the bridges and the tower blocks were illuminated back then. No matter, the passing cars and Harthill services are enough in my heightened state. I’m a back seat passenger. We’re off to Glasgow. I’ve behaved very badly and should be staying at home. That track is playing.

We’ve reached Glasgow, it’s the launch party for the Year of Culture celebrations. There’s a pair of tickets for the party in George Square. A wants to go with B, they have been a couple and A would like them to be one again. B wants to go with C (me), to keep me away from D. I want to go with D. E doesn’t really care. Negotiations circle around. B’s brother and his wife take the tickets. We drift around Glasgow, visit B’s mother (was that where we handed over the tickets?), welcome in 1990 above Queens Park. B fails in his quest, it’s the start of the end of our friendship. By June and The Big Day Out , D and I are officially a couple. The soundtrack expands. The breakup songs come a decade later.***

Then in my paper on Wednesday I read this interview with Roland Gift. That’s the happy coincidence.

I didn’t post my memories in the FB group. They only know me online. My friends who know me here**, didn’t know me then. It was literally over half of my lifetime (so far) ago

I was happy remembering the song, and the excitement of back then. But I don’t want to go back there.

I wrote this because I wanted to try and evoke those memories with words, a different sort of post. The feeling of being twenty five, but acting like the teenager my studious teen self never was.

Just before I sign off, have a look at the image I chose for today,

and then this other post .

But as I said there, we see a lot of rainbows here.

Until next time,

Marina xx

*it featured on Fine Young Cannibals 1989 (and final) album “The Raw and the Cooked”

**friends who know me IRL.

***Me and D? We’re still friends, we have to be, we have MasterS. Sadly there’s never been a rapprochement with the person left at home that night. Not surprising really, I treated him very badly. Perhaps that’s why it’s not a story I tell my friends?