17th July - Bournemouthiversary



Let's rewind the clock a couple of years, and I wondered why 17th July felt like such a poignant date to me... With the lockdown (finally) lifted, I'd met up with my (now) partner, for our first date just a week earlier, and had eagerly awaited the second, on the following Friday evening. It was a beautifully sunny night, and I remember patiently waiting by the kerbside for the sight of her car (which I'd not yet seen by that point) to pull up outside. She sent me her live location on WhatsApp, and as he emoticon edged ever nearer down my road, the same pants-shittingly nervy routine kept washing over myself. 

Get my selfie camera out, check my hair looks ok, shove another chewing gum in my mouth, sniff my armpits. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. I stood there, looking - what I thought was - effortlessly cool, with some earphones in. But little did she know, I was tuning into some deep/melodic house/techno to keep the BPM of my heart low, so that I could breathe calmly without hyperventilating. On this occasion, it was the VER:WEST '5 seconds before Sunrise' track (produced by Camelphat) as I tried to desperately keep my own 'sunrise' under control.




When I got in the car, I remember not really knowing what to do with my hand. She had this great dress on which wrapped up the side of her thigh, and it looked silky smooth and tanned. I wanted to touch it, but it was just a second date and I didn't wanna overstep any boundaries or come across too forward. We'd already shared a few snogs by this point, but snaking up the thigh was a whole different area. I waited until we'd passed the gap between Newbury and Winchester, and made the move, which was received well, so I kept my hand there for the rest of the drive. 

As we arrived in BoMo, she dodged several drains on the pathway to our hotel, which led me to feel I was now dating a superstitious maniac. I also saw a tattoo on her calf which looked like an astrology star-sign. Red flag. Despite this, over the course of the next 12-24 hours, I was left in no doubt at all that this was the woman I wanted to spend my life with. You'll have to wait for the wedding speech to hear exactly why on that one, hahahaha! As I pretended that I wasn't bothered about the Arsenal-Man City FA Cup Semi Final which was occurring at the same time as our Gelato date in Sprinkles (I later got home and watched the highlights, jumping around my living room in joy at what was a surprise cherry on the cake of my weekend), we drove home, and she handed me the aux, which was a huge test.




The first thing I'll add is that my taste in music is absolutely supreme, probably better than 99% of the world, in all honesty But with that, comes a pressure. Because when your knowledge of music is so on point that you're listening to certain tracks 6 months before anyone else has cottoned onto them or started to love them in the same way you did last year, you have to be careful with 'the norms'. You can't play something too heavy to a 'norm', you have to wean them in gently, show them some commercial 124BPM house, the sort of stuff you'd hear on Kiss FM on a Friday night, or in a 'shit' club. Then, after a while you can slowly crank the notch up to the more festival-ready stuff, and all the prog-house and EDM classics. On this occasion, we started by listening to two songs in particular which stick in my mind. The first, was 'Waiting on my Love' by Kryder. The second...




... Was this. 



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