"Cleaning Out The Shed"

So, today's Fee Comes Fourth tune? It's about an old fella who has been grieving for a while. For the lady who was the love of his life, though he would never have described her like that. To anyone really, but definitely not to her.

And, like many emotionally repressed folk of a certain disposition, dealing with the grief wasn't easy. The biggest helps, and possibly the biggest avoidance tactics too, were the regular pints at the local. It was that or the shed at the allotment. And the shed at the allotment seemed too lonely a place. He needed company, he needed distractions, he needed...not to think about her.

But at the end of a night of drinking with the pals, there's still the long, zig-zag walk home. To an empty house. And that walk was where the all the haunting happened. That was the time when his booze addled brain had no control over her presence. When she'd slip in and out, more in than out, like a swallow making dozens of visits to the nest, with a mouth full of midges for the chicks.

That walk was bitter mainly, occasionally bitter sweet. But it was also the time when he could start, subconsciously, and without any knowledge of  strange other-language manifestations such as "Grief Psychology", to process and make sense of and cry for his life with her. And for the rest of his future without her.

And one night he remembered a picture, a silver framed picture, of them together when she was a sweet heart and he was a Jack the lad. And he knew he had to find it...


The line "Cleaning Out The Shed" is from TODAY'S Fee Comes Fourth tune called...Cleaning Out The Shed. It was co-written with Gary Carey and Gerri McManus.