why this weekend won't be like last weekend and other tales

There are times in my life when I will admittedly regress to my younger self. Well, that's what I think I'm doing. I feel like I'm chasing some version of me that could drink more, party longer and get up the next day without any sign of the damage from the night before.

Last Thursday, for example, a bunch of us went to a whisky tasting, including four genuine-actual-really-grown-up booze trade professionals (myself included). We were excited. Not just because it was a whisky tasting, but because it was an Adelphi Distillery whisky tasting, and they bottle some utterly spectacular drams. So we were professionally excited, kind of, and excited because pretty much everyone of us (six in total) loves whisky. We met beforehand and had a bite and some overpriced beer and pretty much all we chatted about was what was going to be available to taste? Apparently, everyone at the table was an adult. I ate a massive burger, deluded that this would provide adequate ballast against the 5 whiskies to come.

We left the pub and skipped down towards the hotel where the tasting was being held. A queue for tickets indicated we were just in time and sure enough it sold out just seconds after we took our seats. Many disappointed whisky fans had to be turned away at the door. We were quite close to the door and oozed schadenfreude at their misfortune, thumbing our nose at both them and karma. Oops.

The tasting was full to the brim and all five whiskies showed well. We delved deep into the mind-numbing analysis of whisky chat, but always with our tongues firmly in cheek. No one had the same favourite, though quite a few had the same least favourite. The outing of a Talisker-skeptic caused the always rambunctious and legendary Broomie to howl in outraged disbelief, hurling insults of such epic fury that I daren't transcribe them here. Too much would be lost.

The crowd grew louder the more drams supped and the remains of the tasting bottles were raffled off for extra drams. I won far too many. The majority of whiskies were cask strength, never less and often more than 50% abv. At this point, they were going down like ambrosia, and I just happily glugged away. We all did, but I probably glugged a little bit more.

We went to the pub after that. We didn't need to, but we did. Then Broomie and I went to another pub and I remember us attempting to barter for the remains of a bottle of Tio Pepe sherry they had in their fridge, to no avail whatsoever. Broomie is usually quite the barterer when it comes to leftovers. The barmaid was having none of it and so we simply supped our pints and muttered in the language of drunks, not listening to each other while nodding sagely at changes in volume. There was live jazz too.

Megan walked me home as she didn't think I'd make it on my own, and she was right. I woke Friday to a brickbat of a hangover and a cat in my face, demanding food. I stumbled, made some phone calls, cancelled lunch and went back to bed. When I finally left the house it was for a hair-of-the-dog pint and a chicken and ham pie at the the Crit. There was a beer festival on and the pint tasted good. I didn't hang around long as I had the weekend's next big event the following days.

The Luvians Wine Fair and I have a long history, with me both as a customer and employee. It is a Bacchanalian extravaganza involving well over 150 wines and finger food. Students, adults and adult students all descend upon it with a thirst and a glass and everyone gets gleefully merry over the course of a Saturday afternoon in October. While not unbiased, I can assure any reader of this blog that it's a pretty spectacular bash and the wines are exceptional. It takes a lot of work to pull off, and every year it seems as though we're on the verge of disaster but it all comes through fine in the end. 250 people have a great time and stagger off into the fading afternoon light while the Luvians crew has to clean up. And do something with all the half-empty bottles of wine.

So we went for the obligatory after-wine-fair pint or two and then headed into the dark and foreboding suburbs of St Andrews for the aftermath party. It's one thing to see 150 wines spread over 15 or so tables on 2 different show floors. 150 wines on one small kitchen table, spilling over to the countertop and coffee table is all the more imposing. It started in a rather stayed, gentrified fashion. I searched for wines I'd not tried at the fair, or was curious in sampling again. There were quite a few. The chat was almost civilised, with the possible exception of the odd roar when a new arrival appeared at the door. I switched somewhat into elder statesman mode for awhile and regaled all with tales of wine fair after parties in the days of yore. I made the mistake of mentioning the one particularly painful party where some undrinkable Portuguese grappa made its way into the room. Faced with its undrinkability, some people started snorting it.

Snorting booze is irredeemably stupid. Really, really dumb. It is so dumb that animals sniff booze and instinctively flinch. It goes against every shred of intelligence we've evolved since the dawn of the universe.

Broomie brought out a bottle of Spanish grappa. Not quite as vile as its Portuguese cousin, though fairly undrinkable nonetheless. He also produced a snuff box, complete with snuff inside. By this point I'd tried a few more wines. I was perhaps becoming less selective. My mental images are certainly more impressionist than photographic. My judgement on all things was certainly, and beyond question, impaired. Everyone's voices became louder and I lost track of how many people were there. Amateur boxing played out silently on the television, for reasons unknown. A teaspoon appeared and someone poured grappa onto it - too much.

The guitars and the bongos came out, much to the neighbours' disdain. We sang and shouted and some people left and more arrived. Whisky made an appearance with a couple of teaspoon encores as well. I retreated from the snorting (whisky, snuff and grappa) and grabbed a beer. Its merciful bubbles washed clean the tannic remains of the day's wine tasting. I phoned a taxi and headed home.

Sunday morning I woke to find my flatmate had bought me a breakfast roll. Not just any breakfast roll: a Munch breakfast roll. I rose slowly and unsteadily and devoured its fried-egg-bacon-sausage-tattie-scone-haggis-y goodness and then retreated back to the warmth of my bed. I slept another four hours. When I rose again I found Alex and Jamie in the living room discussing tunes and contemplating dinner. We went for a curry. When we got home, we watched Anchorman and called it a night.

Thus ended four days of drinking, hangovers, sleeping and revelry. Sometimes all at once. I certainly didn't recapture any youth, though I did discover that being older doesn't stop you from acting like a moron. Or having fun.

last whining about being sick post (promise)

The last time I relied this much on 'symptom-killers' was in the Autumn of 2007. Knee damaged, overworked and illness-ridden lead to the consumption of anything that would dull the pain to the point that I could function. It wasn't an addiction by any means. I never took more than advised and would often forget to take any at all. The bad mornings though, those were the days of paracetamol/codeine/espresso cocktails. They left me numb to the pain but buzzed, fuzzy and tweaked for the rest of the day. Comfort, which was all I sought, never came.

Now, three years later, I'm typing this with a sinus headache that punishes movement and even the slightest change in altitude. I've given up on the pills and am drinking a beer that will be followed by a wee dram. My ears need popped every minute or two and I don't cough as much as I should because it makes my head hurt too much. Bizarrely, the only time my head feels clear is when I'm running. I've done two days in a row, a six-miler and 4-miler. There's no pain at all. There's clarity and it's keeping me sane at the moment.

It's not comfort, but it'll do.

sniffles

My change-of-seasons cold is clingy. I can't shake it no matter what I do. Lemsip, running, not running, Sudafed, rest, lack of rest, whisky, beer, wine; none of it works. Instead of buggering off and leaving me alone, it changes symptoms. At one point I was incurably snotty, then the next it's a chesty cough and now it seems to have settled on a piercing headache. There is still nose-running and the odd cough, but all they seem to do is make the headache worse. It's made life a touch uncomfortable of late. It's not a serious enough ailment to phone in sick and one man's discomfort is hardly worth whining to the world about. Well, not when he can blog about it, anyway.

a pairing knife and penny buns

I grabbed the chopping board from the drying rack and lay it down next to the stove. The kitchen was untidy, but not messy. Next to the sink, in the corner, sat my 'shroom groom. I put it next to the chopping board. Fiddling with the light switch on the cooker paid off and suddenly there was illumination. The white paper bag bulged and the odd blade of grass and speck of dirt fell from it as I placed it carefully on the chopping board. Slowly tearing it along the seam revealed mushrooms of various shapes and sizes, pouring their earthy scent out into the kitchen. The ceps (or porcini or penny buns) were huge, their stalks caked in moss and soil, pine needles and blades of grass. The chanterelles were simply dirty and fragile, tearing along their ridges, their trumpets splitting.

On the other side of the cooker, From Our Own Correspondent played from the speakers of my laptop. Perfectly enunciated missives from every corner of the globe; from small tales about ordinary folks to interviews with the great and the good, a world in constant motion and reported as such. I took the small pairing knife from the block as one correspondent chatted about family farming in Sierra Leone. The largest cep had the most damage, so I carved the divets out from the cap and plucked the various bit of foliage that had become stuck. Cep caps have a pleasing, peculiar stickiness. Displaced islanders living in Mauritius spoke of how they yearned to return home and I whittled the soiled base of the stalks, revealed their pure white cores, then placed the peeled detritus into a pile next to the board.

It smelled of autumn and the forest. Muslims in New York expressed their views on the Ground Zero mosque while I took the 'shroom groom and brushed any remaining soil and woodland remnant from the fungi. I took more time than usual. A young boy in Africa was reunited with his family after five years on his own, living rough. His father didn't want him back. I chopped the cleaned mushrooms into big chunks and put them in a large bowl. Three onions from a string, and as I sliced them, their sharp, oddly sweet scent joined with the heady nose of the ceps and chanterelles. The boy's mother and grandmother were overjoyed to see him.

As the world continued in my ears I prepared the stock and started frying off the onions and mushrooms. The voices from abroad spoke over the sizzle of a frying pan. I stood in my kitchen, stirring my dinner, in my own world, to the sound of everyone else's.

the red sox post

I was going to write this in May. Then I was going to write it at the end of July. Something got started about a month ago, but I never finished it. In fact, I don't think I got through two whole paragraphs. The words didn't come. I did post a little missive on tumblr, but it was a small piece, and focused only on two players.

The last time I wrote a season-ending missive was after the 2003 ALCS. I wrote it as a letter to the Boston Globe but never sent it. It was an angry and defensive rant about the team, raging against the naysayers and curse-mongerers. I bet I wasn't the only fan who penned such a letter. I'm glad I saved it, as the catharsis of 2004 felt all the sweeter for that saved file lurking date-stamped but never printed in my Documents folder. The tone was belligerent and assured, that the Red Sox would one day win the World Series and that anyone who doubted that could go fuck themselves. I emailed it to my folks and my mom suggested that it could use some editing. My dad loved it.

So sitting at the end of the 2010 regular season and pondering what has just passed is quite meditative in comparison. I'm not crying into a beer and swearing at Dan Shaughnessy (well, possibly the latter). Instead I'm shaking my head, sipping a beer and remembering some of my season highlights. Watching Tim Wakefield out-pitch Roy Halladay in Philadelphia certainly stands out, though it's gutting Wake didn't have the form he did last year. I have a witness who can confirm that I called Daniel Nava's first-swing grand slam (as did, apparently, Victor Martinez). Darnell McDonald's first appearance as a Red Sox resonates, beating the Rangers almost single-handedly and giving the first glimpse of a team turning the corner from a dreadful start to the season. I was at Opening Day when Dustin Pedroia led the comeback against CC and the Yankees with a dinger over the monster. The Dodgers game where he smacked a 100mph fastball into right for the walk-off winner played live through my flatmate's laptop onto the TV in the living room. We all knew he could do it. I was also at AT&T Park and saw Pedey foul off his foot, take the walk, hobble to first base and then back to the dugout, without any idea of the significance of it all. There was the series against the Tigers in May, where David Ortiz homered twice in one game against pitches that didn't seem hittable by anybody (I'm sure he drove one of them with his knuckles, it was that far inside). That was a late night. I remember my jaw hitting the floor the first time I witnessed a Beltre one-knee homer and the feverish excitement when we swept the Rays at Tropicana, a feat formerly commonplace and now so rare.

There was a lot to love. I liked watching Mike Cameron in the dugout, even though he was hurt, because he seemed like a cool guy to be on the team. Lester and Buchholz were a blast to watch, as were at least three of Dice-K's starts. Maybe four. The first three innings against the Yankees in May, where Beckett looked staggering just before he went crazy, crossed up 'Tek and then proceeded to hit the entire Yankees lineup with errant pitches. Victor Martinez's growth as a catcher and determined comeback from the DL (no rehab games) showed just how admirable a player he is. And Dustin Pedroia was the funniest second baseman on crutches I've ever seen.

That said, it wasn't all fun n' games. Watching most games on my laptop, enduring the five hour time difference, it could be incredibly frustrating. I stayed up until 3 in the morning watching Lester give up 9 runs and the Blue Jays trample us while the Jimmy Fund Telethon rolled on in the background. Day games were little consolation as the Sox seemed incapable of winning them. As for night games, to struggle through watching all the way to the bitter end only to watch the fragile bullpen blow a win was no fun. Sometimes I didn't stay up, but woke up early to check the scores and read about it all. Pete Abraham and Chad Finn provided some cracking reporting and commentary along the way. Sleep deprivation has become an accepted side-effect of the summer. If you catch me somewhere in Scotland on a June morning, I'll probably be yawning uncontrollably. But that's what being an ex-pat fan is all about. I probably caught more games this season than any since I left Boston, 21 years ago.

I don't regret it. As I mentioned above, there were some brilliant baseball moments, as fun and exciting as any full-on championship run. It was a fun team, and they played hard. All that lacks is the catharsis that comes from making the postseason. Rabid, longtime Red Sox fans have had a serious change to deal with of late: we've gone from perennial disappointment to the perennial expectation of success, even if it is the unromantic 95-wins-will-get-us-there philosophy. Gone is my outrage from 2003, and I'm pretty sure that in 2006 I was still so buzzed from 2004 that it didn't make a dent (I also didn't have MLB.tv). The rash of injuries, the under-performing bullpen (plus Lackey & Beckett) and all the impending free-agencies don't leave a bad taste in my mouth, they just leave me tired and a little curious. It was a long season for the devoted fan, and without the rush of the playoffs there's little point in spitting nails and grumbling.  And any season that starts and finishes with beating the Yankees can't be all bad, can it?

We'll see what happens. A new bullpen and staying healthy would help.

When does Spring Training start?

Update: 132 days until Pitchers and Catchers report.

sunday thoughts, musings and banter

Every time it looks to be properly Autumn the sun pops out, the wind dies down, the temperature climbs and the flies come back. So we're going to take a frisbee, a rugby ball and perhaps a cricket kit down to the beach and throw stuff at one another, hoping to catch it. In the brief time before this, my now caffeinated mind has been mulling upon some of the following:

• This blog is in catch-up mode. I had an amazing, fun-filled summer and there will be a lot of posts looking back on it. California, Islay and France all feature heavily. So there will be a stretch where this seems more like a travel retrospective than anything else.
• My cat is huge. And still sounds far too much like a seagull.
• My car is dead at the moment and may need quite a lot of work to resurrect it. I've been avoiding it up until now, but am beginning to feel claustrophobic without it. Considering how long I waited to get my license, that strikes me as funny.
• The more I realise I need a new job, the more clueless I become about what I'd like that job to be.
• St Andrews still lacks a wide enough range of lunch options. Those who follow me on Twitter know this to be an enormous bone of contention.
• I still can't bring myself to give up on the Red Sox this season. There is so little chance it's laughable, but whatever. Lost causes are no stranger to this team.
• Good Morning, Nantwich, Phill Jupitus's Radio 6 memoir, is a fun read.

Right. Off to the beach. 

misplaced monsoons, jet-lag and apple blossoms

The following are some snippets I wrote in early June 2010

The cat is launching himself throughout the flat, bouncing and arching his back, leaping up on the window sills and ambushing me from behind ill-concealing corners. From the edge of the curtain I see two striped paws stretched, claws extended, resting on my desk next to a stack of blank cds and a memory card reader. And then they're gone again, a stampede and a meow and the cat is elsewhere.

Spring turned into summer and I didn't realise. I turned 34 and didn't tell anyone. I flew to Boston again and saw my sister for her 40th. We had a blast and so did the rest. We walked through Harvard and beyond in the summer sun, we ate pizza and watched the Celtics/Lakers, we got along. One afternoon I insist on running. It's muggy, it's cloudy and by the end I'm dancing through a monsoon. Only in India have I seen rain like this. There are tornado warnings and the streets run like rivers. It's only a weekend and then it's gone.

Before I know it, I'm back in Scotland. Events tumble in some manner of domino order. For a brief moment, on a sunny day, I wander into the back garden. In the back garden lives the hammock, strung between two knobbly, knuckled apple trees. They stand in full blossom, their petals pink with hints of green and already they fall, three or four at a time, spinning on warm cushions of lazy air. I stretch out on the hammock, slowly, and deliberately rest one leg over the other. I tip my Sox hat over my eyes and fold my hands over my chest and in little time I snooze, letting the jet-lag take me.

When I wake up, I'm covered in blossoms and the sun is still shining.

old running shoes

I bought them towards the beginning of 2008. I was living in a flat on South Street in St Andrews and I'd not yet been to India. The Red Sox had just won the World Series and I was happily in my early thirties, rather than aimlessly in my mid-thirties. Their predecessors had served me well but were wearing out at every seam. I replaced the garish orange trim with a slightly more subdued blue trim. I bought another pair of Asics as I liked the last pair and they've always struck me as a 'serious' runner's shoe.

Not that I'm really that serious a runner. 

How many miles have they run? I don't know. For a while I considered calculating; working out my injuries and lazy periods, the recovery from my eye operation and hiding from bad weather and, of course, the cataclysmic hangovers. I couldn't be bothered. Why put a number on it when the answer's the same: they've seen a fair few. It's probably more than a thousand miles. They've run in Scotland, in England and in Ireland. They've run on both coasts of the United States: in California and Massachusetts. Sunrises, sunsets, and the glorious midday sun; howling gales, morning frosts and the odd hailstorm, their treads wasted smooth in all weather, at all times of day. 

The heels wore out first and I repaired them with packing tape. The jury-rigging lasted me about a year. 

I'd run the beaches and leave them on the landing outside the flat, coated in sand and/or mud. Some mornings they felt heavier than others. 

In the time I owned them I changed jobs twice, ran four half marathons, gained more weight than I lost and didn't write anywhere near enough. I've been on three different continents and helped make three vintages of wine. The Red Sox have not won a World Series since, and the Celtics won one World Championship, their 17th. I attended several weddings but not my own. Many friends had kids, some more than one. 

Can the lifespan of a pair of running shoes be a specific measurement of time? It's no more arbitrary than the calendar year, I suppose. A considerable chunk of life happened while these were my running shoes, and the breathless therapeutic rhythm of those daily exertions helped deal with the peaks and troughs of that life-chunk. 

I've not thrown them away. They're in my closet, unworn since I retired them. Outside the front door of my flat sits a shiny new pair of Asics. I've run in them three times and they've given me some brutal blisters. My feet have healed now though, and I'm ready to give them another shot. 

I don't know how long they'll last.

still here

In so many ways the title suits. I am still here. I have several blog drafts to finish and post. It's been far too long. I even reached a point where I thought of just wrapping up my blogs. In the end, I decided against it. Writing is proving difficult because I'm out of practice. My prose feels stilted; forced. This blog was meant to keep my writing limber, like stretching before a run. Its neglect has led to stiff prose and it may take awhile to sort out. In any case, if you're reading this, then thanks for sticking around. There's a lot more to come.

rainy sunday

The clouds didn't retreat this time and there's a steady rain falling without thunder. My legs are stiff and head a bit fuzzy from the ridiculous selection of beers last night and a probably-unneccesary nightcap of Balvenie Doublewood. There was Port too, as there usually is if I'm with my sister. The Sox won though, and the bar cheered when Youk hit a dinger. There was a loud, bellowing Jersey girl and two hipsters in bad hats slouching by the bar, trying to look badass. There was a faux hippy with dreads and a beard who still managed to look too concerned about his appearance. It was an amusing supporting cast. As we left the bar there were four or five yardies hanging out in the square laughing in the warm summer night.

The lazy ass side of my brain is using the rain and the stiffness as an excuse to avoid running. The arguments for and against batter about like a tennis rally, or battle-to-the-death on a squash court. It's Tom Hanks vs. John Candy in Splash type-stuff. I sip my coffee and ponder. The small blue ball bounces above the red line and back, smacking John Candy right between the eyes.

The coffee went down quick and now there's mutterings of breakfast. All this leads me further away from my run. My sis wants potato cakes with leftover veg. I'm still full from last night's burger. She's checking the movie listings and I still haven't decided whether or not to go for a run. The rain's falling hard now though, and my coffee cup seems to have refilled itself.