Dear Nessi

Way too much to catch up on again….an entire week's flown by.

The road with the mosque is still blocked off. We passed it last night on our way home, and had to detour again. No media this time. I hope they're done searching come Friday or there might trouble when everyone tries to go the service.

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Anyway.. "Love Forever Changes" said the sticker on one side of a cassette Miss Sparrow gave me when I was in hospital, over 10 years ago. Velvet Underground and Nico were the other side. I thought "Love Forever Changes" was the name of the album.

Now Miss Sparrow had front row seats and we were way up high n the back - but we were there too. Mr Lee survived the band, and the full house waited in anticipation for the album from 1967 to be performed in its entirety.

But the sound was wrong at first.. I strained to remember the songs. The mix was odd. Oh, dear, I thought, a treat from my brother-in-law in Big Pack, and what would I say if I did not enjoy it?

But whatever was wrong vanished when the orchestra joined in and they began the album properly. All kinds of thoughts, of their lives and mine, floated around my slightly (ok very) stoned brain…1967. I was one year old. Did Mr Lee ever imagine he'd be playing these songs in London, 36 years later? Probably not.

And I thought about being a teenager, about the days I thought I'd be old and boring by the time millennium rolled around. And how pleased I'd be to have been able to look to the future and see myself, in the 21st century, maybe not young anymore but still playing in bands and painting pictures.

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Friday I worked at the gallery again. 15 people came in over the course of the day, including Mr Bentley. He was in town to see a friend and had already been drinking , so I nicked a couple of beers from behind the Gallery Guy's wide screen TV. Mr Bentley has to sell his car, cos they've got a dog now and its biting the family and getting blood on the seats. plus Mr Bentley says it costs £5000 a year to maintain. "I'd rather spend 5 grand a year on booze," he said. Funny how people with kids want to get drunk every chance they get - prolly cos they don’t get many chances.

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Saturday night, Power Pack and I met up with Mary in Trafalgar Square. A spontaneous candle lit vigil, to coincide with the protests in the US. Power Pack never usually goes to protests, cos he hates crowds, but came along maybe because he had just sold 3 paintings to a guy from Stop-the-War. Or maybe he liked the idea of candles. It being our first candlelight vigil, we had no cups and we kept having to re-light our flames. Tony Benn was talking to the small crowd, with not even a tiny megaphone. If it was quiet I could just about hear him. But some women were chattering away as if it was coffee morning. I kept looking at Power Pack and rolling my eyes. No one else told them to shut up so I didn't either.

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Monday night Ricki took me to the photography studio where she works. Gorgeous place, like a huge New York loft, high windows on either side, a wooden floor and a mirror that made me feel like doing ballet. Ricki had everything set up in advance and the session seemed to go better than when Wolfgang, a supposedly professional photographer, did my slides a year ago. Let’s see how these come out.

Another nice thing was how impressed Ricki was with my prints. I've been plugging away at the that class for over 2 years and feel sick of it. But my prints have hardly been seen yet. I'm looking forward to next month's solo exhibition now.

Petra