By 
I’m almost at the other end of the tunnel. Just a little further. The wheel of madness that began spinning five years ago has a few more spins left, and then, finally, I can hibernate.
In true surreal fashion, the weekend began with a funeral, and a song.
Still half asleep, I sang an old friend into the ground with a rendition of ‘Wild Mountain Thyme’ before rushing in a taxi to the airport to catch a flight back to London.
This time the excursion was for the premier of ‘The Spin’. I had a travelling companion on this occasion in the form of Phil Taggart, who was there to host a brief Q&A before the screening of the film.
A few cocktails were called upon to loosen us up.
I wasn’t prepared for the amount of people who were in attendance and the size of the event. It was all a hazy dream, like I was watching it unfold from a distance.
Friends and faces, new and old, all flashing before my eyes, like flicking through the channels of a TV screen. Too much for the brain to process at once. It’ll take some time to unpack what just happened.
The weekend ended as Phil and I rushed again to the airport, and as we departed our breakfast spot, a familiar song came on the speakers – ‘Wild Mountain Thyme’. Was it a sign from the ether that this song bookended the weekend? Was someone watching over me?
No time to ask questions. First we have to do it all over again, this time in Omagh, this Friday, October 24.
There’ll be a screening at the Strule Arts Centre, but for those who couldn’t get a ticket, fear not. The film is also screening in the Omagh Omniplex, twice on the same day in fact, and then daily for at least a week.
Same goes for cinemas in Belfast, Cookstown, Bundoran, Lifford, Sligo, Cork, Dundalk, and Dublin. After the Omagh event, whether you watch it in the Strule Arts Centre or the Omniplex, there will be an after party happening in Seán Óg’s on Main Street.
On the very same day, my soundtrack album is released. This is available to pick up from Johnny at Boneyard Records, Omagh, or from me if you can pin me down, or from my website McKowski.com.
It’s all very hectic. An attack to the senses. That’s why I need to detach and observe it all from a bird’s eye point of view.
As an outsider.
As a distant relative to the route note.
I’m there, but I’m not.
Exhaustion is biting at my heels, like a black eyed dog.
I can’t let it take me down.
I’ll surrender to it eventually, of course.
But not just yet.
