Sometimes you get a missed call and something in you seems to know. Followed by an answering machine message that tells of "bad news" so you call back and you're running through the lottery of all your friends in your head wondering who it could be cause you just know.

Dirk died. Suddenly. We met through friends on a jaunt to a Lemon Jelly gig in Sheffield. Over 40, hair too long and should have realised no one wears tie dye anymore. One wife and two children. Had an amazing talent for contsructing devices out of modelling straws on non smoking mini buses. Why someone brought a pack of modelling straws to a Lemon Jelly gig, I'll never know. Two weeks ago we drank mushroom coffee in a field and loved each other intensely. He told me and I told him and it was the best feeling ever. He couldn't believe I wasn't going to the Big Chill and convinced me to go, he even wanted to start a whip round. He said I was the festival pin-up and people should hire me out. Ha ha. We had an absolute affinity in our love for lying down. We were going to do a lot of that in two weeks at another festival. He didn't know yet that I was going to the Big Chill I've been crying all day.