Day 126. The bear necessities. (5/5/19)

Another absolutely perfect day.

I'd started the day with a job for myself. The sort of job you only give yourself on a day off. I had the amp out, I was playing the Telecaster. But the Telecaster felt dry, dirty, slow to the touch. This is what happens when you have your guitars on stands in the study. Dust accumulates, attacks.

A strip down, a thorough clean, a restringing and suddenly the Tele sounded as beautiful as it's ever sounded. My amp still on the settings put in place on Thursday by a much better musician than I, the 40 year old guitar sang.

And then the sun, somewhat unexpectedly, came out. So we spent the day in the garden with books. Caught up on another 40 pages of Portnoy's Complaint, a book that only makes sense when you hit the rhythm of the prose and plough on through. It's not there for dipping into.

Probably would have read more but I accidentally had a little sleep in the sun. 'Rested my eyes'. For an hour. With only the sound of birdsong as company; the birds being the babies we heard in the buddleia which meant I couldn't cut it down, now flying freely round both our own and neighbours' gardens.

Pretty much bliss.

But with a time limit.

With our garden facing the way it does (not a clue, geography genuinely escapes me, direction and distance are vague details) there comes a time mid-afternoon on anything other than a scorching day that we lose the sun, we lose the heat. We move indoors.

So we're back indoors. And we're catching up on TV. Obviously great humour from my side of the room at United's season falling to pieces again, meaning that they get to play on Thursday nights next season. A draw away at Huddersfield possibly being the crowning glory of their end of season. Perhaps they should have just kept Moyes?

Arsenal versus Brighton though? Who's even vaguely arsed about that one?

So J has put The Repair Shop on.

The Repair Shop is possibly the best thing on telly. People bring loved items in disrepair to a barn in the country where craftsmen with ridiculous abilities and beautiful souls make them whole again.

The episode that we're watching right now? A lady in her seventies has brought in 'Wheely Ted', a teddy bear on wheels she has had since she was a child. Repaired at some point sixty years ago by her mother when he was looking a little threadbare, Wheely Ted was now covered with a fur made from an old housecoat. How he looked underneath was long forgotten.

The lady who brought him in described herself as having 'borderline cerebral palsy'; Wheely Ted had helped her learn to walk. He was genuinely her friend.

Covering was cut away, ears were rebuilt, nose repaired, original fur cleaned. Ted was new again.

There were tears, obviously. There are always tears on The Repair Shop. Tears of joy and love. And tears from the viewers. It's one of those shows: a show where something is achieved, a show filled with love for objects and how special they are.

Which made me think of Star Bear.

Star Bear is called Star Bear for reasons that will become readily apparent at the bottom of this. We rescued him for Matty from a dump bin in Mothercare 18 years ago. He was a constant and he was loved when Matt was a toddler.

But you reach the point where you're too old for teddies and they move to one side.

A day came when I was having a clear out. Clearing the loft. Finally throwing out all those thirty year old music papers that were never going to be looked at again. Dispensing of old items that were no use to anybody else. A skip on the drive. Filled easily. And one of the items that helped to fill that skip, late in the afternoon of the great clear out, prior to the next day's pick up, was Star Bear.

He wasn't wanted, wasn't needed, a bit too grubby to give to anybody else. (And yes, I feel really bad saying this.) So he went in the skip.

I didn't sleep well that night.

Woke early, went downstairs on what was a frosty morning and retrieved poor Star Bear from his position atop some bin bags full of Melody Makers and brought him back into the warmth where he belonged. Where he belongs.

Obviously he went back into the loft but we knew he was there, knew he was okay.

Then, a few years ago, on another loft clearing day (because loft clearing is never complete) we retrieved a few of Matty's old stuffed toys and put them on his bed for a laugh.

Star Bear now lives on Matt's wardrobe. Next to the biggest bloody penguin you've ever seen. A penguin so large that, on the occasions Matty's mates stay the night unexpectedly, it is used as a bed.

Star Bear's tiny in comparison but that's where he lives.

And the message? Things are bloody important. Treasure things because they were something you loved and that love never goes away.