This is love by PJ Harvey

No, it’s not a photo of me absconding to hide under the table, as I said I would yesterday, quite the reverse.

I have been reminded of this song today because, without Mark here (he’s gone to meet Chris Brooker) DM and I have had the freedom to cast off our clothes and romp around the house naked.

OK, OK, we’ve had the freedom to……. but that doesn’t mean we did it, OK?

Once again, one of the songs that changed my life revolves around the start of my (proper) relationship with David. I understand that PJ Harvey was also in the first throes of passion with the love of her life when she wrote the seminal album, Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea. You can tell. Every track on that album spoke to me so clearly, echoing my own blossoming confidence and happiness.

I learned that it’s alright to let go of misery and to embrace love and life. It doesn’t always bite and it doesn’t always hurt. Until that point I had believed both things to be inevitable. I learned that desire is something to be celebrated and not spurned. I learned that being a woman could bring great fulfilment. I learned to love.

This song heralds my new-found freedom to express all of that.

There is such urgency in the way she sings “come on out, come on over, help me forget, keep the walls from falling as they're tumbling in” – that was me – it wasn’t real and I couldn’t be sure it wasn’t just a figment of my imagination. The only time my walls were not tumbling in was when I was with him. I never felt confident he’d turn up and was equally sure he forgot me the moment he was away from me. My lack of confidence was swept away eventually and this song played its part in that transformation.

Polly Harvey was exactly right for me at that time. Ebullient and full of life. She made me feel I could……..

Two years ago I was demonstrating our lack of interest in the drudgery of life and last year I was making my little sis happy with a tribute to 'Rod the Mod'!