dreams interrupted

I don’t remember the dream, but I’m pretty sure it was a good one. The sense of disappointment when it was shattered by my phone’s alarm was proof of that. I tried to grab at the last few tendrils of memory, but they slipped into permanent shadow. My body knew it wasn’t meant to be awake. I moved slowly.

I made it to the tube on time, but nearly missed the bus. It wasn’t where it should have been. It wasn’t immediately apparent. It was dark and damp on Baker St as I stood pounding postcodes and streets into my phone, trying to work out where I should be to grab the coach to Stansted. Bus after bus drove by, always the wrong one, each leaving a cavernous echo along the empty street. I looked over at the Sherlock Holmes museum when the correct address popped up on my phone, and ran a few streets over to where I should have been waiting in the first place. The coach was there, and waited for me as I huffed and puffed my bag into the locker.

I slept and we were there. My bag wasn’t overweight, even with a bottle of Barolo wrapped tight in a protective but otherwise superfluous beach towel. Stansted always seems unfinished to me. There was quite a lot of work going on. I bought gin for Andy and Kirsten and some breakfast for myself. My gate was called and I walked by the bar to join the queue for boarding and I quite fancied a Guinness.

I slept on the plane. Well, I kept my eyes closed anyway. We landed early and so those ridiculous Ryanair trumpets sounded. My bag popped out early and Andy was there and so we headed into Girona for lunch. Basque tapas at a restaurant near the vine-clad elevated train line. The vines that clad it looked skeletal and dead in the winter light, though they were only sleeping. The restaurant wouldn’t open for another 10 minutes and so Andy and I cracked a beer while the kids climbed about in the playground. I’m not sure we could have been more scheme-y if we’d tried. Andy took Angus to use the toilet so of course Theo fell and hurt himself. He bawled and would not be comforted. So there I was, stood by a playground, trying to comfort a screaming 5 year-old while holding a can of Estrella’s double malted beer. He was having none of it until his dad came back. I was worried about getting looks from the parents in the playground, but no one cared. There was no disapproving glance at either the screaming child nor the ever-lighter can of beer in my right hand. I nearly offered Theo a sip. Then Andy returned and Theo’s wails descended to whimpers and finally he realised it wasn’t so bad after all. Tears wiped dry, the restaurant opened and we went in for lunch.

They poured us Txacoli into beakers from a great height and then we helped ourselves to the seemingly endless tapas dishes displayed around us. It was a modern building but the interior had been done to look like an taverna. Behind the bar that displayed the food was a large cut-out barrel end, foudre size, with a tap at the bottom. I guessed the tap was dry. We ate and drank Txacoli and the boys mostly behaved and then we got more food and drank more Txacoli. I noticed on the second round that the bottle had a spigot on the end of it, to facilitate the pouring from a great height, which released a satisfying spritz.

Sated, we left in search of ice cream, but the ice cream place we wanted was closed. So we crossed the river and I got a glimpse of Girona’s strange cathedral. Asymmetrical, daunting and monolithic, it looked like something out of fantasy. Perhaps a defensive keep rather than a church.

We found a frozen yoghurt bar that did goat milk stuff and lots of toppings. The chocolate sauce was the sort that hardened, so that you had to crack it like an egg shell. It seemed strange eating something so cold in January. We ate and walked around the narrow streets in the old town. 

Dessert finished, we found the car and drove to France.

happened

So some stuff has happened in the meantime. In that gap created between times I’ve written here. I’ve been back to Scotland, and sat in the sun on Islay sipping whisky and beer and eating something fresh from the sea. When the breeze died the midges appeared and fed on us, but it was breezy on the beach when we popped the Champagne and drank it even though our legs hurt. The sky so blue it pierced. And Loch Indaal sapphire, but for the odd white horse. The hills and fields an undulating green banner between them with the white buildings of Bowmore dotted against it all, tall black letters spelling the name of the distillery and town all at once.

I went to France and made wine. The Vermentino bubbled in its ferment like a bath with too much Imperial Leather poured in. It tasted of lemon barley and oats. The mist rolled in the from the sea and crept up the hills and mountains. I drank old Armagnac and stumbled in attempts to speak the language. Loose schist and pebbles fell beneath my feet as I stooped to pick bunches of grapes high up in the hills behind Banyuls. Thibault and I drank beer in a bar by the beach and we talked about wine and women. Andy and Julien and I drank strong Belgian beer next to the sailboats in Argeles after work and I don’t remember what we talked about, but it wouldn’t surprise me if the pretty Italian girl on the picking team came up once or twice. Her name was Luna. Everyone fancied her. I fancied the other one. I don’t remember her name. One night we decanted a couple of wines, Andy and I, and stayed up late in the gallery drinking and listening to music. The wines opened and we talked about them and the world around them. We drank all the whisky I brought and more. I returned to London but wasn’t quite sure why.

Summer turned and the leaves fell and now autumn is almost gone as well.

The Red Sox won. I stayed up late to see.

Mezcal, Old Fashioneds and Sazeracs stood lined on the bar, with shooters of sangrita to chase. We drank them, too many of them, and stumbled out into the Soho night. My bus never came, so I grabbed another. 

Wine sipped, glugged and sometimes spat. Old friends caught up with over beers and burgers. Plus ça change. 

I wrote and edited and amended and did it all again. I checked proofs and drafts and covers. I submitted and re-submitted. I drank pints and chatted with my publisher about costs and dates and rates and boards and dust jackets. I waited and then corrected again. I got it right, I think. It got sent to press, that book of mine, and soon it will be real. 

And now it’s now, and there’s a journey soon. 

elsewhere

I’ve been thinking a lot about elsewhere recently. I don’t know whether it’s simply a periodic bout of overwhelming nostalgia, boredom with here, or just a random path my mind has chosen to wander. But elsewhere is certainly where it’s wandering.

Elsewhere has taken many forms.

Sometimes it’s Islay; the ferry pulling into Port Ellen, the round parish church in Bowmore and the patio out the back of the Lochside hotel, sipping a Feis Ile dram and a pint of ale in the sun, the Paps of Jura in the distance to the north. Then I journey up to the Assynt Peninsula in November, then further to Cape Wrath. The sky’s so low you can touch it; a menacing grey that creeps closer when you’re not looking. The slate sea crashes against jagged black bedrock and explodes into turquoise capped with white foam. Looking out and knowing it’s just the Atlantic for a good portion of the world until you reach land again.

In a blink it’s India. Morning by the Ganges in Varanasi as the sun comes up, showing just how vibrant colour can be. Pungent on the nose. Countless people praying and doing laundry. Hearing the lap of the river against the wooden hull of the small boat, the sound of the world waking up drifting over the water. Goats, pretty much everywhere.

Or I’ll start in Jerez de la Frontera, sitting at the bar in Nono’s, watching him tap a cask of Palo Cortado for my afternoon libation. Watching the pigeon on the bar eat seeds out of a matchbox and sipping a bottle of Cruzcampo, a copa of sherry on the side. I don’t even know if Nono’s still exists. I hope it does. From there I’ll drive down to Cadiz and wander along the sea walls and breathe in the ocean air.

If it’s an evening wander, it’s probably Fenway. Drinking a watery beer in a cramped box seat while munching on a hot dog and spilling pretty much everything as I jump up to cheer as Papi drives one into the Monster seats. More Boston. Walking along the brick-laid sidewalks on the Hill, watching my step where the tree roots have pushed up the bricks like a crooked set of teeth. Grabbing a slice from the Upper Crust on Charles St before wandering over to the Common and noticing again how much smaller the little league fields seem these days.  

And then, out of nowhere, I’m sat out front of the Café Sola in Collioure, drinking a beer and looking out over the bridge towards the Mediterranean. Maybe later I’ll walk down to the pier and listen to water on the rocky beach. It sounds just like rice crispies after the milk’s been added; snap, crackle and pop.

A cocktail at Bramble in Edinburgh.

Brunch at Louie’s, watching the storms come in.

Walking on the wet grey sand in Humboldt, transfixed by the Pacific.

These journeys all cover old ground. I’m not going anywhere new, just revisiting where I’ve been. I don’t know if I’m haunted by my past or if it’s me that’s doing the haunting. Lingering long after the event, looking for something lost that probably wasn’t there in the first place.

Isn't that a song lyric?

 

Buy my book. Please.

where i left off...

March 8th came and went and still I'm trying to finish my first draft. Instead of one deadline, now I have a few, scattered here and there and making a great deal more sense. I do have a table of contents of sorts, with the bits that need finished adorned with a tick next to them. There are a lot of ticks. 

In the meantime, I've been to France with some mates. We ate, drank and were merry: wine, beer and inordinate amounts of VEP Chartreuse. And whisky. It was colder than anyone ever expects France to be, and I shall long remember the violent flurries of snow that came and went in the space of a minute while we walked along the vines in Puligny-Montrachet. 

Part of me is still hungover.

London's welcomed me back with rain and gales, in some sort of poorly executed impression of Scotland. The cat's been delighted to see me though, and I can hear his strange snores from the comfy chair as I type this. 

 

Buy my book. Please.

be de plage

There was this one night in France. It was the first night. We sat around a table, dinner finished, tasting some wines and chatting about whatever. We were the last ones in the restaurant. It wasn’t bad, as seaside *** hotel restaurants go. The colour scheme, with its luminous orange napkins and waterglasses, may have been ill-suited to January. The orange may have clashed somewhat with the battle-ship grey upholstery adorning the chairs, but the food was decent and the wine list good. My bavette was chewy, but bavette is supposed to be a bit chewy. 

I was tired but relaxed. I think we all were.

I watched him walk through the door. Fashionable and drunk, with exaggerated movements of all limbs. I knew he was English, though his look had a Gallic edge to it. I could see the barrage of profanities swelling inside, seeking some poor member of staff to pour forth upon. As he entered further into the restaurant, someone at my table recognised him and called him over. We all shook hands. He wasn’t quite sure whether to speak in French or English. He swore the restaurant was shit. Told us we needed to go to this place.

‘The B de Plage, man. I’m sure there’s something funny going on there. Must be loads of coke in the toilets. It’s the place to be. What are we drinking? More fucking Grenache?’

‘Syrah.’

‘More fucking Syrah, then. I’ve lost the key to my room. I think I left it at the B de Plage. We’ve got to get there. It’s the place be.’

We sipped our glasses as he patted his pockets again and again, looking for the keycard to his room. Every few seconds there came a shit or a fuck as he failed to locate it.

‘So we’ve got to get out of here. Got to go.’

‘Go where?’

‘B de Plage.’

‘It’s the place to be, apparently.’

‘Yeah, but there’s something on going on in the toilets. Have you seen my key?’

We all fancied a beer. The sober one of us offered to drive. Where to go?

‘B de Plage.’

We piled into the rental. My search for B de Plage on google maps failed. The one way system of Le Gau du Roi confounded us; we wound up driving in all manner of circles. Drunken directions erupted from our guest from time to time. Often just ‘no, no, no... it’s just over there’ or ‘I’ve no fucking idea where the fuck it is’ and often 'it's by the fucking beach, obviously, it's the B de fucking Plage'.

Doubt spread among us. It became Cortez’s city, or de Leon’s fountain. We aimed for the beach, and frequently missed. Still my map showed no prize. We were driving blind, guided by a howling drunken lunatic whose ravings could well have been that of the ancient mariner for all we knew. All attempts to apply logic to our course failed. We hit the same roundabouts and took different exits, only to find they led to the same places and yet more roundabouts. The rental car took some speed bumps a bit too fast and we hooted as the car leapt; cringed when the undercarriage simply scraped along.

Another circuit and we admitted failure. Decided the ancient mariner had imagined it in a booze-tinted haze. The car pulled up to the hotel and as we tumbled out I heard him say,

'I found it.'

'What? The bar? It's not fucking here, is it?'

'My key.' 

He wandered inside, sanctuary rediscovered. We decided to drink on the beach under the stars. The January air was mild and the sea lapped quietly at the sand as the constellations twinkled and we drank our wine. 

Glasses empty, we wandered back to the hotel, into the empty lobby. One of us picked up a black business card from a table covered in fliers and such things for local venues.

There was a gold 'B' emblazoned on it, and, in smaller text beneath, 'de plage'.

It existed.

some spare vintage thoughts

I'm sat in the Café Sola in Collioure at the moment, sipping coffee and a mineral water. The mineral water is there to wash to the taste of the coffee out of my mouth. French coffee is awful. I complain about it where ever I write: this blog, twitter; my disdain for it even gets a mention in my new book. I've not written a letter to The Times yet, but I might.

Outside the café, car horns sound in celebration of a wedding. It's a local thing, apparently, to drive around after a wedding service, blaring horns with gleeful disregard for those who may not give a shit about their nuptials. It seems to only end when a mother with young children at naptime threatens the lead driver with an ancient rifle usually reserved for hunting wild boar.

Today's a rare day off. Can't believe how fast it's gone. I'm back to London on Wednesday, and I don't think we'll have done any red at Mas Cristine by then. It's been a funny harvest thus far. Some spectacular fruit, some not so much, and not a lot of juice per ton. Sad to miss the reds. I've not even been to Banyuls and Coume del Mas yet.

I should be working on the book during these rare times I get a chance to write, but like running I feel I need a little warm up first. It amazes me how the world goes on while the harvest goes on. I've missed the RNC and the DNC, the continued Red Sox collapse, the Paralympics, cabinet reshuffles, sunny weather in London, dreadful weather in Scotland, the end of the Fringe, Freshers Week in St Andrews and goodness knows what else. It's not terribly concerning, just curious how much happens regardless of whether I have the time to pay attention.

I'll rejoin the world shortly. Too soon, as usual.

Posted with Blogsy