confessions

There are times I feel guilty.

I don't update this blog enough. It bothers me. It bothers me for the simple reasons. I let my reader(s?) down. I let myself down. The latter bothers me the most.

More often than not, I'm trying to work out the grades of grey, silver and platinum that the sky and sea achieve on your average afternoon. The brilliance and glory of the elusive gold the odd stroke of sun grants the skyscape and sea beneath it - how do you write, photograph, stammer, stutter, shrug off what effect it takes on you?

Mostly it's just platinum and silver, the dangling whisps of skyscraper clouds catching that rare vein of molten sunlight on the horizon, bouncing from stone to sea to itself and back. The golfers bitch in the background about the day and I just try to find new words for sights timeless, that I've seen for years, and still strike me so that I don't notice the slow passage of time.

Mostly it's that.

Sometimes it's subtle. Just steel and cold, the odd patches of light growing in corners, the armpits of clouds, above slate water with no observer. Through a veil of rain I still look at the beauty of it and wonder why no one else does.

Sometimes they do. To be fair, sometimes they see it. They see the weight of the clouds, their pressure, depth and see how the light steals through them, how the stone beneath may soften but never yield. But they don't see it all.

They want the rain in spite of the sun. The early night without the endless days that precede it.

The town is worn and endless.
Those moments it bears the brunt and we lean against a battered wall of stripped stone and only ask what's next.
It holds us up.
And we walk home.
And the sea roars behind us.

patter

It's been raining for weeks now.
At night its patter lulls me to sleep.
In the day it falls silently.
But I see the rippled circles appear and disappear in the puddles.
And I hear their rhythm in my head.

Go see some pics.

I'm going to buy an umbrella.

possibly every argument ever?

ha.

ha, what?

ha, I win.

You win?

Yeah. I win.

Inner Nagging Voice wins?

Yup.

Uh. Well... to be honest, you're more resurrected than won.

What do you mean?

Well... we dealt without you.

Dealt?... Without?... Random pronouns?

You?

Whatever. You lost.

Lost? I've posted for YEARS without you.

You?

Yeah, me.

Right.

Shit.

Where are we? Lost track.

I haven't.

No. No. That's not how it is. I haven't lost track.

You have.

Nope.

You so have.

Nope.

So what have you not lost?

What?

What haven't you lost?

Right. Um... I haven't lost perspective?

Of course. What were we arguing about?

Fuck off. But. Um... actually...

You're in trouble.

Fix it.

Can I?

Maybe.

The triumphant return of the Inner Nagging Voice.

You've not said anything.

Of course I have

Never wanted to.

I've always something to say.

And used to say it

Never said I didn't.

But...

Well...

I can't just jump out and call them all a bunch of cunts, can I?

Actually...

By your own rules...

You can...

Can I?

Yes.

Your music taste's still shit though.

short

Yet again the pace of life outstrips my ability to chronicle it.
The short version:
I'm babysitting cats at the moment. Guinness and Thomas.
I've got a new job. I'm no longer a wine merchant.
I'm homeless, but working on it.
I'm in Scotland.
I still dream about India.
Karma works. In a good way.
I'm a godfather.

the compass always points.

Back up north I go. I've had enough of the London sun.

The cool blanket of haar awaits, obscuring what comes next, showing only shadows and silhouettes.

parfum

Me: 'You spent how much on shower gel?'

Mate: '£16'

Me: '£16? How much did that get you? A gallon? A tanker?'

Mate: 'A bottle.'

Me: 'That's ridiculous. I think my shower gel's about £3, buy one-get-one free in Boots. Not the generic stuff, but the funky stuff that has all the fruit and shit in it.'

Mate: 'You don't understand, this stuff's amazing.'

Me: 'It's shower gel. Does it get you cleaner or something?'

Mate: 'No - it's the smell.'

Me: 'Oh, please. You're spending £16 on shower gel because of the smell? You're a fucking moron.'

Mate: 'Normally I'd agree with you, but this stuff... women love the smell. You use this and random women sniff at you and smile.'

Me: 'It's London in the summer. No one sniffs anyone and smiles.'

Mate: 'I'm serious.'

Me: 'Really? Random women smell you?'

Mate: 'Well, they did. Now I've got a girlfriend she smells me and keeps the others away.'

Me: 'For £16?'

Mate: 'That's right.'

Me: 'If I spent £16 on shower gel would your girlfriend smell me and keep others away?'

Mate: 'Fuck off.'

We chatted about life and drank beer.

pyrhhic sleepiness

I shouldn't have stayed up so late.

The movie wasn't that good.

The tv show that followed the movie wasn't that good either.

Then, fingers crossed, I waited for the Sox game to end.

They lost. That definitely wasn't good.

I'm going to go make an espresso. Then I'm going to go read on the couch, or on the deck. The deck is further from the fridge. The couch is further from the sun.

Saturday decisions.

chow

This is a quiet trip to London. I head towards the local for a pint or the high road for a coffee. Sometimes a milkshake.

The walk to the high road brings me across the lawn of a small park. It's sort of a short cut. Regardless of whether it saves time, it certainly increases the pleasure of the walk. More often than not there's a dog or two enjoying a stroll.

Sometimes it's the chows. One of my neighbours keeps them, and has for the twenty years my family's lived around here. They're bear-like, with improbably fluffy fur and folded faces. Sadly they're short lived. I've seen perhaps three generations of them in my time here. He always keeps pairs. The current are golden and a lighter shade that could almost be platinum. The first pair I knew were black and golden. There's something regal about their appearance. The buoyancy of their fur should be ridiculous; it looks as though they've just come out of a tumble drier. Instead they affect a sense of the regal, a degree of nobility. Perhaps it's their posture, they always seem to walk with their head up, looking forward. Even lying down, they hold their heads to attention, their wizened faces encircled by a mane that spreads back to cover their entire body.

I cannot help smiling every time I see them. They, like the park itself, improve the walk.

Further along I check the menus in the windows of the restaurants I pass. Sometimes they've changed, a seasonal specialty appearing. New season lamb seems popular at the moment, and the first of year's wild mushrooms find themselves on the plate. My mouth waters and I move on.

Every other walker seems to be pushing a stroller. Young, fashionable - often in groups of two or three they walk and talk and shop. Mostly ladies, but occasionally it's (I assume) the dad.

I wander by the bookstore and try to find Boswell. They don't have it. They've recently refurbished and it's too bright. The natural light seems out of place in a bookshop. It's like a Gap, or some such place. I always think of bookshops as sanctuaries. A place to hide from the outside, to lose yourself. One of the few places you can browse and feel no guilt about walking away empty-handed. Light plays a part in that. Dark corners, the lower shelves hiding an obscure volume where you can disappear with the tomes surrounding you. The omnipresence of daylight hinders that; obscures the sanctuary.

It works. I buy three books.

Three miles away the government reels from the results of an election four hundred miles away. I find it amusing; less a vote for an independent Scotland and more a vote for something different from the norm. A vote against, rather than a vote for. It's not a great comment on the state of any republic, constitutional monarchy or not. But I think that's way of things at the moment.

I stroll from the bookshop to the coffee shop. Instead of a latté, I buy a chocolate milkshake. I slurp the straw and start the walk back home. A bit of a different route, to see some different menus and drool at different dishes.

Still the park though, and still a smile at the chows.

expectations

I'm in London.

I didn't expect to be in London. I expected to be in India. Hyderabad.

It's meant to be quite a cool place, Hyderabad.

The colours aren't fading yet, and the endless din of the bazaar rings still in my ears. The smells, the whole gamut of them, from enchanting to pungent to wretched all linger yet in my nostrils.

I note the heat by its absence.

The why's and wherefore's, the reasons for an adventure cut short; they echo, fade and sometimes I wonder why I'm back here. I've forgotten already.

Well, not really. I know why I'm here. But it's just not a good enough reason. Not a good enough reason to have left before half-time. I let it slide past and try to realise that in spite of it all, I'm here. I'm back.

And I've little clue as to what I'm going to do and where I'm going to live.

I didn't expect to be here.

I've a notebook to fill. Diary pages to fill, scribbled notes to make sense of before it all starts to fade. The words came and Delhi took 20 pages. There's Lucknow and Varanasi and Khajuraho and Orchha and Gwalior and Ahilya to follow while they're still vivid, bright in my mind's eye. To try, somehow, to distil the experience of ten days in India into words that do justice to the impact I felt.

I expect I'll go back.