Today a large truck arrived outside of my house, the driver had a pallet of books but he could not get them anywhere near the front door. I have a sprained wrist, i showed him my wrist in bandage and he just shrugged saying, i should call a friend. I spent the afternoon loading them gingerly into my study by myself. Tonight i went to see my vicar Peter Owen Jones, we eat and spoke about things close to our hearts, our souls and our minds, and the book. After our meal in the car park outside the pub i opened a box, and there it was, my book for the very first time. I signed the first copy for Peter, we hugged and i let go of its impending release. Here i was, i should have been so happy and excited. Instead i drove home and sat with my confused feelings.

As i place my head above the parapet, there will be people throwing stones and there will be people throwing roses, i should expect both. Those were Peter’s wise words. Because i have written a book about my life journey, its my autobiography, and on that journey there are so many people who will see my story from their own states of minds. Some will be open and engage with the arc of the story, and then there will be people who only see themselves. I should be proud of the five years i have put into this wonderful thing, but there is a shadow that sits in the corner of my room. Its only fear, i don’t want to hurt anyones feelings. Surely at my age it should be all roses, there is little time to deflect the stones and feel their weight. Its time to enjoy the music, the words and the shared experiences of being who iam. Peter inspired me to write a book in the first place, i read his letters and decided to write my own, my letters turned into an autobiography, its here.

What a year its been, a box set of my solo albums, my 1972 demos, my book and around the corner the new Squeeze album. The most adult of all Squeeze albums in many ways. So much in one year, its a good harvest, it is time. Out in the fields around where i live the nights are drawing in and the crops are being gathered. In this life we all reach that time, and in this year it feels more than ever that this crop should be harvested and admired. There is something for everyone on the trailer behind my tractor, something for the stone throwers and for the people who bring me roses. Every year can’t be this productive but every year can be fruitful and exciting. I feel excited, in a quite way from behind my desk in the darkness, now that the sun has left the late August sky. A slither of moon slides across the still sky, it brings hope and love.

Louise has given me so much love and support with my book and the new Squeeze album, im a very lucky boy. Without her to back me up there would be no crop at all. She inspired me to write the record and created the space for me to dissolve into. In many ways the farmers wife. Tonight i sent the album to my children, they are fine judges. They can see the fields in which i work and they support me too, i love them. But now that end of August feeling, the new school blazer hanging in the hall, the new shoes that fit too tightly. A new book for my satchel and some music to impress my peers. That wicked last bank holiday of the year rips all reality from the summer passing, and here on the Downs of Sussex the trees look tired warn out from waving their branches, warn out from giving shelter.

Tomorrows a new day, when all said and done, at the end of the day we are where we are. Its time, its being in the moment that eludes us all, even when we think we know, we don’t. Its impossible to know, its only possible to be, I am, they say. And here we are the summer is fast slipping into those long touring days, back out on the long and winding, this time with something new, this time with perhaps a tingle. How long has this been going on? This coming week is very much like the start of a new chapter, and you will read it all hear. As i tip toe across the shaven fields back to my desk, back home to the empty barn and its endless horizons, my wrist wants to bite my hand off. I will not tip toe on egg shells, i will only be who iam. Here comes my head above the parapet, aim yourself at me with roses and stones.