Like that time after I'd lost the heap of weight I lost, and felt like I could eat the occasional sweet thing or two. Buying something to eat while away at a gig was easy - just choose whatever takes your fancy. It's not that easy now. Last night I had two bags of Ryvita Apple-Flavoured crunchy things. Of course, the problem with the laissez faire attitude to food that I indulged back then was that it led me back to my current state of weight problemage.

I also miss the days when I lived only a couple of hours from Edinburgh. Nipping up to Scotland a few times a week was easy, and I could quite happily mess about mid week, gigging and even going to see shows, safe in the knowledge that when I returned to work the following morning, exhausted and bleary, that it wouldn't make a great deal of difference. Of course those particular old days led to the point where my job was getting me down during the week, and the distance from my girlfriend was causing me problems during the weekend: the weekend didn't begin until after the 6 hour drive, and the week didn't start until I'd woken up at 3am and raced to work against a further 6 hours of traffic!

I miss being younger and keener-brained, though without the years that followed, I wouldn't have whatever it is that I have that passes for wisdom and an appreciation of what I no longer have.

Basically, I can miss whatever I like about things in the past, but I'm in a better place now than I was then. That's true for most people, I think. I am fearful of getting properly old, but there's plenty of time for that to happen and for me to get used to the idea.