slooshy sloshy, slooshy sloshy

The inimitable and beautifully bewitching Kate Bush wrote a song called Mrs Bartolozzi on her last album, Aerial (2005).  Funny enough, that's a wonderfully onomatopoeic description of how my head has been for the last week or so. It appears to be a song about using a washing machine.

I contracted a bought of labyrinthitus some 12 years ago and was less than impressed when it became apparent that the malaise mentioned in the previous posting was a return of this annoying affliction.  It's caused usually by a virus and it gets you when you're recovering from a head cold or whatever.  It feeds off the fact that you're stressed out too.  So, it makes a regular appearance on medical forms in teacher-land, as you can imagine.  Generally it is a form of vertigo.

The last time I had it I was working in a very difficult school.  Luckily I had not driven in that morning as I suddenly took on a cartoon-like sea-sickness.  I staggered out of my class and lurched over to the nearest wall.  I crept up the corridor hand-over-hand until I somehow managed to get to the office.  "Call me a taxi, quick!"*  I was off for a few weeks - which included the Easter holidays (you know, the one with the outbreak of foot and mouth disease). The doctor could do little and informed me that it sometimes hangs around for years.  Over the coming weeks, loads of people told us how friends or relatives had it and one poor soul had had it for about 2 - 3 years.

My response was to go to see a homeopath.  Whatever one thinks of them, my bout of labyrinthitus was short-lived.  I think I may be visiting one again if this carries on.

Anyway, a couple of days off to allow the balance to sort itself out and I should be back to work in a day or two.  Hopefully I'll be okay to drive up to Cambridge tomorrow evening to see Richard Thompson OBE (I kid you not - for services to British music, no less). In the meantime, slooshy sloshy . . .

Interestingly, I have never met another person who has ever seen Kate Bush live.  It's quite well known that she only did one tour and that was in 1979.  I know lots of people saw her - the concerts were sold out.  I lost contact with the person I went with to Hammersmith.  However, it's curious that so few people seem to have admitted to seeing her. And so many wished that they had. It was an absolutely magical evening.  Given she was so young and only had two albums of material to use, it seems now to be an almost dreamlike moment in time.

* too ill at the time to know if anyone thought it a good time to make a joke . . .