Maybe we will come back some day.

Sunday. Definitely the worst hangover I’ve had this year. I got home at 4am after dancing at the Green Door Store, and cooked myself pasta before getting into bed just as it was getting light.

I sent my alarm for 11am, so I would have time to haul myself into the bath and have a frantic tidy-up before my mum arrived for Sunday lunch.  If it had been anyone else visiting, I don’t think I’d have been able to face it.  When I dragged myself out of bed, ‘tired and emotional’ didn’t even begin to cover it.  Life is hard, and (let's face it) sometimes it seems even harder when you have a monster of a hangover.

However...  (And this is why I love my mum more than pretty much anyone else in the whole world.)

My mum and I pride ourselves on being able to take joy in the small things.  It’s a great trait to try to cultivate in oneself.  It truly helps.  A really good cup of tea.  A freshly made bed.  A view of the light on the river in the morning.  These are the things that can save me.

Music, above all else.

And so it was in this spirit that, despite it all, we ended up dancing around my sitting room to Patti Smith on a Sunday afternoon.

This song, which was my mum’s favourite at university – which she hadn’t heard since but still remembered every word.  We sang and danced, burned sage and laughed.

It’s us, of course we did.

As Patti herself says: "You know, when I have these hard moments, I just go all the way back to being 11 years old, when I knew who I was. Seven, 11 – I go all the way back there and then begin again, in my mind."

Note to self: Patti and Fred are my current relationship role models - perhaps I need to meet more men with the same surname as me?