Space invader

Totally depressing morning and afternoon, overnight snow only adding to the dead end atmosphere. I was incredibly bored, and everything was claustrophobic. Nanna P. arrived at about one and was again in raucous good form, and so the day continued until six-thirty when I left for Easterby and my evening out with Lee. He and Wiechec got on the same bus as me at Lodgehill, both looking quite odd in their matching military-style peaked caps.

We started out at the Polish club up Honeywell Road. Andy's brother Jonas was there, along with Vic Banasiak, who I hadn't seen since Lodgehill Middle days of '77. He's now a real man who smokes and is into heavy-metal. “Fucking hell, when are you going to stop growing?” were his first words on seeing me for the first time in four years. Several older men were dressed in traditional Polish costume of baggy trousers, ankle boots, and white braided blouses and Jonas wore one of these outfits too but looked quite ridiculous because he’s really thin. We played darts for a while in the seedy stairwell by the bar along with a friend of Andy and Vic's, a quiet lad called Mick.

After an hour or so we left for the Viceroy lower down the street. It's a really crummy Pakistani curry house and its bare, graffiti adorned games room was sparsely patronised. We played pool, Space Invaders and generally just ‘enjoyed’ the atmosphere. I loved the recklessness feeling of it all and how it felt a bit below board somehow.

We walked back home through the slushy streets of Lockley and a misty Woodhead Park and at Lodgehill I left Andy and Lee who cut down towards Three Locks Road, and I got home by eleven. Watched Universal Soldier, a hippy film from 1971, which was pretty good.