him with his dirty great 12 string guitar case

 an entirely written in the morning blogpost (well nearly)

here in the countryside a greyish morning and a more moderate day overall.

so horsemouth travelled back by train.

but he got the train times wrong (don't ask him how).

result he was hanging out at paddington for longer than expected (him with his dirty great 12 string guitar case). he got into a chat with a cretan musician off to play a gig in cornwall (sadly not glastonbury he said) called pav (or whatever the cretan equivalent of paul is) who had his bass with him. 

his main thing is a more rock thing called balothizer. 

on the train horsemouth got into a long chat with a finnish woman called kooka  (horsemouth may have miss-heard it doesn't seem to be on a list of popular finnish girl's names), she worked as a lawyer, had two daughters, and was off to pick up her camper van to drive to a retreat for the weekend.

she had a guitar at home in a corner. she wanted to learn to play it so she could play round the campfire. horsemoutht thought this was an excellent idea. she liked scottish and irish and celidh music (horsemouth recommended anne briggs). 

she got off at pershore .  

at worcester shrub hill a cheese and pickle sandwich. a train to foregate street another on to hereford. 

at hereford his brother picked him up in the car. 

everything seems to have grown voraciously in horsemouth's absence. there were marrows (horsemouth gave his brother one), runner beans, cucumbers, spinach, beetroot, the potatoes seem to be doing well (but horsemouth cannot really tell because they are underground). 

similarly with the fruit - the cherries are gone already (looted by the squirrels), the strawberries seem mostly to have survived, the damsons are coming along, the gooseberries seem to be doing well. 

horsemouth went with his mum to pick the strawberries. they then went to pick the cherries (but they were gone already). 

and (later on) apples and pears. 

his mum has a copy of the hereford times already so at some point horsemouth will wander into the village in search of beer (his brother has drunk all the supplies excepting the cider and a bottle of stout). perhaps a zoom call with howard later. 

over in far off leigh-on-sea it's the leigh folk festival. horsemouth would have gone but the timetables didn't match up and (to be frank) the festival line-up looked a little thin. he only really wanted to see the owl service and fran foote and wasn't sure that he would make sufficient  fortuitous discoveries.  had he been around he would have gone (nevertheless). 

he advises you to go in his place.