Home, sweet home?

I am staring at my ticket to see Seasick Steve tonight at the Festival Hall. I love his music but I just can't summon up the energy or enthusiasm to drag myself there on the bus and tube in the rush hour then back again, in the dark, alone, on heavy, thundery night. I know I'm a wimp. I knew when I bought the ticket that I probably wouldn't go, but I hoped I'd be able to at least try. I think the main problem is going alone. It's just no fun. Squeezing into my lone seat in the middle of a row, surrounded by couples and groups all having fun together and me, with no-one to talk to, no-one to share it with.

Back in the late seventies and early eighties when I was a writer for a rock music magazine, I always went to gigs alone because I was given a single free ticket, and I was writing about the band, and I knew my row would be a press row full of other journalists I knew, and we'd all go backstage afterwards and get drunk and stoned with the band, and probably end up in bed with someone. Those were the days!

But it seems that the older I get, the more alone I feel, with nobody to share my enthusiasms, nobody who wants to go to concerts or plays with me. I asked all my friends and nobody was remotely interested.

Mr G would have been. He likes Seasick Steve, too. But Mr G won't venture into London. He won't even go to the local theatre and twice I have booked tickets for the pair of us, and had to throw them away. So I didn't even tell him I'd bought myself a ticket and now, even if I wanted to go, I wouldn't dare tell him because of the reaction I'd get, the mockery and jibes.

Years ago, when I first met him, I had a lovely flat in an area I loved and I was very happy. I used to see him at weekends, then come home and see my friends and go to things during the week. Now, I feel I am on one of those weekends. A very, very long weekend. A five year weekend, in fact. I long to go home. I am fed up to the back teeth with being here, in this awful place with nowhere to go for a walk unless you have a car and can drive out to Black Park, or further into the countryside. I want to go home so desperately, but I haven't got a home and my stuff has been languishing in storage for... well, some of it has been there since I sold my cottage in Highgate in 2003. The larger things came out in 2005, and went back in in 2007 when Mr G had his strokes so I sold the house I'd been paying him to do up for me, without ever moving into it. £200 a month for storage. How many thousands is that over the years? Don't tell me, please!

I want to go back home now. Home to my pictures and ornaments and guitars and perfumed candles (which he hates), and books (ditto) and my own kitchen and garden - or balcony, at least. But I haven't got a home. I can't find one. I can't afford one. I am stuck.