Perfect Day has been on automatic replay in my head this past day since the news Lou Reed had passed away. The cover of this tune that stands out in my memory was played on a clear blue June Saturday in Mountsfield Park, London. People’s Day.  A jobbing muso of whiskered jaw in black uniform playing guitar under trees to weekend flower children, jigging toddlers, people yearning  something or someone never reached, remembering things that never quite were. Remembering flashes of fun. We sing along. Together. Weekenders on our own. 

Was it the 444,000th cover of Perfect Day ever made?

A reggae beat rolls up the hill to warn it will be in charge from sunset.
I rarely carried a cameras in the 1990s.  It is clear in the big screen inside my head. I wish there was a kind of camera that could take the image in my mind and show it to you.  It would show you the plant stall on the left as you came in, the crumbling outbuildings, the craft stalls, and the cakes liquefying even in the shade, flowered icing smearing. It would show you young love. Problems all left alone.  It would show you the children in spangly costumes, it’s such fun.  It would show you  buggies laden with goodies and babies, smiling, sleeping and squirming. It would show you the cream of London apiarists, who for five minutes would make you think of keeping bees. It would show you the tiny stream train and driver, a portly Gulliver. It would show you the tables of ezy cleaning products, and dolls in crinolines with  toilet paper petticoats that will do another twirl at a boot fair soon.  It would show you old love. It would show you  chutneys and pickles with floral covers, and it would show you the donkeys and falcons. Just a perfect day feed animals in the zoo. 

Just a perfect day you made me forget myself.

One perfect day. Luckily, it’s not the only one.

MJ Edmunds

Italics are  from Perfect Day by Lou Reed.