Excerpted from Blinded By The Light by Sherry Ashworth. Copyright © 2004. All rights reserved. Monday I slept in late, did a bit of cleaning otherwise Mum would hit the roof, emailed some friends, but said nothing to about Kate and Nick to anyone, not even Phil. I read a bit, watched MTV. Last year I would have killed to be able to do nothing like this all day; now I feel that life is a head-to-head game with boredom. Tuesday – much the same, except I went into Manchester and looked round the shops. I was getting low again. Sometimes Manchester strikes me as the best place to live – home of United, Oasis, Coronation Street – even when you meet people from other places and they take the rise out of you for your northern accent. At night, down Deansgate, the clubs in the village, girls walking down the middle of the road mad for it, you feel there’s nowhere else you’d rather be. But other times, when the sky is loaded with grey rain clouds and the smell of burger stalls hangs around and makes you sick, you wonder. All the shops are the same – HMV, Virgin, Our Price; Next, Top Shop, Burton; JD Sports, JJB Sports – you’re supposed to have all this choice but you can never find anything you want. I get to thinking that life never delivers. I have this feeling on some days that anything’s possible, that round the next corner it will happen – whatever it is – that there’s a prize waiting for me, and me alone. But I haven’t found it yet and I reckon that maybe I never will. That’s Manchester melancholy for you. Buy It Now At AmazonCLOSE WINDOW