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.

pale light

Limping from bed this morning. My calves hurt because I ran yesterday; for the first time since the last time I wrote about running. I woke up early enough to do it again today, but the ache has caused pause. I'll take a day off. 

The day's pale light starts a littler earlier. Not early enough be useful, not yet. It doesn't hang around too much longer. It will still be dark when I walk home from work. 

Two weekends in a row of old friends, good food and too much drink. I discovered that the Red Socks Carignan 2010 that I made is a perfect match for haggis one week and that Fuller's ESB goes great with guinea fowl pie the next. At one point there was a great jukebox and a pub in Essex rang with the tunes of our university days. It had the curious effect of making the beer slip down faster and in perhaps greater quantities than normal.

I'll shake the rust off and get ready to face the week. Should be a good one.

 

Buy My Book. Please.

no hot water

I was sound asleep when February started in Western(ish) Europe, but not for very long. I was in a strange hotel in the town of Vienne, just south of Lyons. It looked, from the outside, like a grand townhouse. On the inside it was more of the student hall of residence circa 1978 sort of decor. It had an odd odour and I saw not a single female guest in my brief stay. I tried to shower at 4am (early flight) and there was no hot water.

Finishing January and beginning February on a whirlwind wine tasting/buying trip of Southern France and the Rhône seems to be as good a sample of the year so far. Moving quickly, a lot to do, not much time to pause, but fun while it's happening. There were bad wines and good wines; wineries seemingly at the end of civilisation and the odd revelation. I wrote only tasting notes and read only descriptions of cuvées and wineries and regions and yields and grams per litre of residual sugar and not much else. 

So I've drunk beer today. And a small sip of wine someone forced upon me, but mostly beer. I'm writing this and other things. I'm going to watch a cheesy movie and eat curry. I'm going to think of things not wine for the rest of the night.

 

Buy My Book. Please.

smoked tea

I smell of wood smoke at the moment. One of the fireplaces in my local pub has some venting issues, and so my jumpers smell like bonfires. It could be worse. James at work tells me I reek of a mixture of lapsang souchong and pepperoni.

I remember losing my last remaining respect for a particular wine writer when she was asked what wine went with kedgeree and responded ‘lapsang souchong’; that’s about a poor a wine recommendation as you can get.

I like lapsang souchong. It’s good for the mornings you want to be drinking Laphroaig or Ardbeg but still need to function beyond breakfast.  

The snow was supposed to start at eleven but actually started about quarter to nine. It was small flakes to begin with, no more than an icy dusting. It got thicker as I walked to work. I paused at the entrance to Chiswick House; the entrance with the obelisk. The icy dust lay unbroken, like the thin frosting on a cake. I wanted to turn in and wander the empty snow-covered grounds but instead I stayed my course. The growl of revving engines and shriek of slamming brakes reminded me that snow in Britain brings out the worst in drivers. I was happy to walk.

 

Buy My Book. Please.

 

getting over the firsts

I'm not sure how we're already halfway through January, but we are. A 24th of 2013 is complete. It's disconcerting in that I've got quite a lot to do and instead of doing it, I'm sat marvelling at how slow the days go and how quickly the weeks pass by. 

I've only noted two firsts of the year - my first curry of the year and my first run of the year. Neither killed me. The former was something of a disappointment. There are dozens of good curry restaurants within delivering distance and yet I've found none that I like as much as the ones I left behind in Scotland. 

The latter felt great, and were there more light in the day I would be out there first thing, dodging the swampy puddles on the pathway by the river on the south bank. It's not the mud or the wet but the cold. The involuntary sucking in of air when that icy water charges through the thin webbing of my running shoes throws off my breathing something rotten. 

Cornwall sits relegated to memory now, though it was only a couple of weeks ago I was there to bring in the new year. It was a good trip, with a lot of laughs, good company and a sense of coziness that seemed taken straight out of a hollywood ideal. It seems now like stolen time; a brief week without worry, heading from cove to cove in search of pirates, antique shops and decent pubs (of which there were several). 

I'm off to France next, though that's for work. I would say it's my first trip of the year, but I started the year on a trip.

I'm not sure why there's a tendency to mark the first - it's not as though I'll be counting afterwards.

 "...we die, my Friend, 

Nor we alone, but that which each man loved 

And prized in his peculiar nook of earth 

Dies with him or is changed, and very soon 

Even of the good is no memorial left."

- Willam Wordsworth, The Ruined Cottage

It's hard to start the new year with a loss. We all do from time to time, I suppose. I've not the words, so I'm using Wordsworth's. I'm more of a Coleridge fan usually, but there you go. This is a somber moment of reflection before revelry and the embracing of friends in a rocky little village in Cornwall. The knowledge there's one less in the world will make those embraces a little longer, and a little warmer.

and to all a good night...

My whisky glass wants not for a top up, and Shane McGowan and Kirsty MacColl serenade me for the first time this year. On a chair behind me sleeps the cat. Aside from the two of us, the house is empty. I decided against a tree in the end. My presents sit in a pile behind the chair the cat sleeps on. There are four, and I know what three of them are. I still leave them unopened. They're there for the morning. 

It's quite a shift going from The Pogues and 'Fairytale…' to The American Boy Choir singing 'Once in Royal David's City', but it seems right. The organ kicking in in the latter lifts in much the same way as the rapid duet in the former. 

It's a strange Christmas this year, but that's ok. I don't quite know what I expected. I don't really know if I expected anything. 

That's a lie. When you don't really expect anything, you expect everything and are just curious as to which eventuality pops up.

Happy Christmas, folks. hope it's a good one.

some sunday notes (undecked edition)

I'm writing this because writing is preferable to shopping, and no, I've not really done any Christmas shopping yet. I bought a present in desperation, having browsed for an hour and not seen anything that clicked. I like getting presents, usually. Or I used to. Buying the perfect gift for someone is an admirable skill. My sister, Suzanna, possesses it. And I used to. But now I stumble from shop-to-shop and stare at bits and bobs and wait for something to leap out and grab me. To shout out "OH MY GOD, BUY ME, I'M PERFECT FOR X,Y or Z".

There's no leaping or grabbing this year. I did have one spectacular idea for someone, but the problem with great gift ideas is that the particular gift has to actually exist. Sadly, it does not. I could attempt to make it, I suppose, but I'm neither a cartographer, book-binder, or 19th century printer. Were I those things, I know what everyone would be getting from me this fucking Christmas. 

My Christmas tune this year has been AC/DC's "Mistress for Christmas". It may be my Christmas tune every year from now on, you never know. I've got the house to myself this season and as I'm going to Christmas dinner at a friend's there's been internal debate as to whether I'll bother with a tree. The not bothering side is winning for a couple of reasons, the primary one being general laziness. I might put a wreath on the door. I don't mind privately being a grumpy shit, but it's my folks' house, and the neighbours shouldn't think they're being unseasonal. I may change my mind; I could see myself rushing up to the high road tomorrow, desperate to get the last tree and decorate it before midnight; who knows? But for now my halls remain undecked. 

Friday night I cooked for the first time in ages, rediscovering my love for prepping my mis en place. I used to hate it; loathe it, in fact. I'd farm out prep to any unwitting sucker who dared ask if I needed help in the kitchen. On Friday evening I put "Four Days In October" on my iPad and chopped away at shallots, onions, mushrooms and potatoes and the stress of a week of wine-merchant-ing in the lead up to Christmas just disappeared. 

Dinner was good, though somehow I managed to lose a bag of scallops between the high road and home. We opened bottle after bottle of wine and stayed up until the wee hours. It was the perfect sort of revelry to kick off a holiday with, capped off with swigging Madeira from the bottle and better than average misbehaviour. Old friends, new friends and friends not seen in far too long all seemed to get along just great. 

It meant yesterday, however, was a write off. I spent all of three hours out of my pyjamas, and two of those were at the pub, bathing in the quiet and nursing a restorative pint or three. The bar staff wore Santa hats and sympathised kindly with my state.

That's enough for now. Time to gird my loins and get some shopping done. 

 

Buy My Book. Please.

morning tumble

I find it easier to get out of bed at 530 than at 715. I'm not sure why, but at 530 there's no flailing for the snooze button and crawling back under the duvet, curling back into the bit still warm. I tumble out and rub my eyes. The cat looks at me funny, if he's there. Sometimes he's gone for an early breakfast, and is returning up the stairs, surprised to find me stumbling down in the other direction. My legs take awhile to work in the mornings, due to a condition called 'getting older' and getting down the stairs is precarious to say the least. At 715, I know I can get away with a minute here or there. An extra 9 in bed can be made up by skipping a shave or espresso. In fact, my espresso machine is on the fritz at the moment. Verging on calamity, that.

At 530, though, there isn't time to mess about. If I've set my alarm for so ungodly an hour, it's because I have something to do. Make wine; catch a plane; make a train. Something that just won't wait is afoot, and somewhere along my staggered road to being a grown-up, I've managed a degree of diligence in such things. I don't like it. I like waking up at 930.

930 is early enough that you can have breakfast without it reducing the appetite for lunch, while still giving you the satisfaction of not waking up at 530, 630, 730 or 830.

In any case, I made my train with ten minutes to spare. The tube was quiet, and the train nearly empty. Heading north as the bleak turns to dreich. It's a random trip, this. I'm not sure what on earth I'm doing, but hopefully I'll work it out by the time I head back tomorrow.

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every bit as crowded

The tube home at about midnight was every bit as crowded as the one heading into town at about six, though there were a fair few more drunks. 

The plan was BBQ, but the BBQ place had a 2 hour wait, so we traversed Soho and hit the Mexican instead. There wasn't a quiet restaurant to be seen, but the Mexican had only a half hour wait and a tequila bar downstairs. So downstairs we headed to get margaritas and quickly the girls accompanying me became fixated with our bartender as danced with the cocktail shaker.

The drinks were good. I was hungover, so the sweet and sour and salty citrus acted as a sort of rejuvenating ambrosia. By the time they were finished, our table was ready. More margaritas an another beer. The chat turned towards veganism, as we were to be joined by a vegan. We all agreed it was probably best not to talk about it at all once she arrived. So we howled with incredulity that anyone could be a vegan and then the vegan arrived and shortly after that, the food came. Bright, technicolour dishes laden with veg and spice and meat and cheese and sour cream. 

We ate and talked and I felt somewhat bemused at being the bloke at a table of 4 women but there you go. Full and shocked at our gluttony, we stumbled out the door and headed towards a cocktail bar that's something out of the 20s. Dark and moody, with pristinely prepared drinks we sat and sipped and soon the conversation slipped me by. They talked about boys and men and sex and laughed at jokes told in some sort of code. I sipped my drink and nibbled on the odd spiced nut or olive. 

I faded fast; we all did. Out into the cold London air we poured and went our separate ways. I went Westbound Piccadilly, where the tube home was every bit as crowded as the one I took into town, though there were a fair few more drunks.