Yearly Archives: 2007

Italy, Wanderer

m a r y

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[ 23:08 saturday 28 july – piano imperatore, abruzzo, italy ]

i’m sitting on a limestone crag at the edge of a vast grass-covered plain, one and a half thousand metres up in the appenine mountains. the plain is ringed with mountains reaching up to three thousand metres, some forested on the lower slopes and some barren rock. everything is on a massive scale.

christian and i reached the plain just before sunset, after a tough trek through five miles of forested gorge rising nine hundred metres along its length. christian’s asleep now in our tent atop a flattened hillock below my current vantage point. the wide landscape is bathed in pale light from the not-quite-full moon. dogs barking at a shepherd’s hut the other side of the plain echo among
the mountains, reverberating sometimes beyond a second.

every sunday for the past four weeks i’ve cycled to waterloo station in london, slung my bike on the train to norbiton and visited my step-granny mary in kingston hospital. she was admitted in june with intestinal problems. i found her with one tube going into her wrist, another in her nose and an oxygen mask to help her breathe. her first comment to me expressed mortification that her “old ladies’ feathers” hadn’t been trimmed.

when i got up this morning i learned that mary died in the day’s first hour. a week on monday would have been her ninety-first birthday. she celebrated her ninetieth last year by going sky-diving, earning her a measure of notoriety in the world’s press. her decline in the last couple of months was sudden.

mary was a magnificent lady, full of spirit and laughter. she and my grandfather were married in 1985, shortly after my grandmother’s death. their twelve years together were ludicrously happy.

my initial visits to the hospital were chatty. i took flowers and a big photograph of a labrador puppy to tape over the television screen beside her bed. she wasn’t afraid of death and was curious about what, if anything, might come afterwards.

last sunday mary was a lot weaker and less responsive than previous visits. her speech was barely audible and much of the time i was there her eyes remained closed.

previously i’d asked if she’d like me to read her anything. her eyes had lit up and she’d asked for dickens’ “the old curiosity shop”, adding it was her favourite. so i brought a copy with me, rested it on the pillow beside her head and started reading softly just a few inches from her ear.

i couldn’t tell whether she was following the story or not but it wasn’t important. in two bursts i completed the first chapter. at some level i understood it was the last time i’d be with her. i cried more than i wanted to and lingered when it was time for me to go.

this afternoon in penne i bought a funerary candle and added it to my rucksack’s contents. now i’ve come to sit vigil for mary in this beautiful place. the candle is burning on a rock just in front of me. through tonight it will be visible for miles around, a point of light in the vastness of the plain.

: c :

London, Sandhurst, Wanderer

w a t e r w a t e r

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[ 01:18 wednesday 25 july – shipton street, london ]

since the weekend mum and dad have inhabited an island surrounded by flood-waters from the swollen river severn. there’s water lapping at the bottom of the garden but mercifully it hasn’t advanced further than that. nobody can get in or out of the village except by boat or helicopter. the water supply was cut off days ago. there have been periods without electricity but at the moment it’s working. mum and dad have moved everything valuable upstairs lest the water rise a few more inches.

i remember one year when i was at school there were severe floods, though not on the present scale. initially access to the village was tidal, with the roads becoming passable twice a day when the tide was low. then we were cut off completely.

we’d brought up a small dinghy with us from cornwall and i remember going out with dad to deliver supplies and sandbags to farms that had become completely cut off from the outside world. my most vivid memory is of going out on my own one evening and rowing through a neighbour’s apple orchard at twilight, navigating carefully to avoid catching the oars on the wizened trees.

: c :

London, Wanderer

s u m m e r s o l s t i c e

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[ 23:26 thursday 21 june – hampstead heath, london ]

sergio and i cycled up here to the middle of hampstead heath to mark the solstice. we’re sitting at the top of a hillock crowned with a circle of pine trees. i always found this place interesting. at the other side of the coppice six or seven people are sitting in a circle chanting. the sound of drumming drifts over from the other side of the heath. it’s almost midnight but the western the sky is still light.

as i write a curtain draws silently across highgate hill in front of us and shortly afterwards a fine drizzle starts to fall. the sound of drums grows more distinct and a walking band of half a dozen african drummers emerges from the trees and crosses the hillock behind us.

all in all the atmosphere is pleasingly strange up here. i thought we’d be alone so it’s good to see other people making an effort to celebrate today’s mid-point of the solar year.

one of the things i find most dis-spiriting about city life is the almost complete detachment from natural cycles. the same food is in the shops all year. the streets are light around the clock. concrete and steel stubbornly refuse to sprout and blossom in the spring.

what i miss most of all is the connection to the lunar cycle i felt on st agnes and stromboli. living there the nights around the full moon felt palpably different from other times and i think everyone in the community shared this consciousness. the effect it wrought on the environment was absolutely startling. here in london it’s possible for full moon to come and go completely unnoticed.

this year i decided to try and stay better connected with the planetary cycles, even though i’m here in london. so every full moon i cycle out to some patch of grass where there are fewer streetlamps and watch the moon for half an hour. and tonight, the solstice, i wanted to get away from the cars and buildings for a moment so here I am.

: c :

London, Photography, USA

f o t o s : a m e r i c a

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[ 21:12 sunday 10 june – brick lane, london ]

right, time for some catching up on the photographical front. here are three sets from forays to america during february and march:

– nine photos from washington dc and boston (frozen potomac, eastern market)

– seventeen photos from san francisco and stinson beach (aerial views, rainy beachscapes, seaweed)

– sixteen photos from the o’reilly emerging technology conference in san diego (friends, wacky tech)

: c :

In transit, London, Wanderer

b r a s s

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[ 19:57 friday 25 may – paddington station, london ]

monday is a public holiday so this afternoon i decided on impulse to spend the weekend with mum and dad. my train should have departed quarter of an hour ago but it hasn’t even arrived at the station yet. no matter, i’m content to sit here cross-legged on the great western information desk, listening to the station brass band playing next to me on the concourse.

i remember hearing the band many years ago but i assumed it had been swept away in one of the recent spasms of privatisation and modernisation. nowadays the security services would probably see this thirty-five piece ensemble of mostly elderly folks as a sinister threat to the nation’s transport. but no, against all odds here they are still pom-pom-pomming away.

the most delightful thing is the way the train staff wait for each song to finish before announcing the latest batch of delays. only once has the announcer cut into the middle of a song. the conductor chose a suitable hiatus at which the band sustained a chord and waited for the announcement to end before continuing the song.

: c :

Spain, Wanderer

z a r a g o z a

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[ 07:22 friday 11 may – hotel oriente, zaragoza, spain ]

i woke up around four and have remained awake since then. i watched the darkness melt into the blue pre-dawn light and the first rays of sunlight pierce the little plaza beneath my window. sometimes when i can’t sleep i feel agitated but today i’m serene, my mind drifting unhurriedly from one thing to the next. in an hour i’ll meet rebecca in the lobby for breakfast.

zaragoza is a beautiful city. spectacular roman, moorish and mediaeval buildings are counterpointed by bold art nouveaux and contemporary structures. it’s large (i’m told the fifth in spain) with an air of ongoing prosperity but there is no pomp or heaviness about it. few people speak english and my lack of spanish is infuriating, but everyone is generous in trying to understand my mash of italian and guesswork. i’ve visited mallorca twice. once with ben and keiran when we stayed in katherine hamnett’s farmhouse in the mountains, then with henry, which was a turning point in my life. but amazingly this is my first time in mainland spain. it makes me want to come back and explore more.

there’s something about being in a mediterranean city that makes me feel immediately at home, some deep foundation to the life and energy that’s become a part of me. there’s also a small edge of sadness, since it reminds me how lacking in delight i find london and how much more alive i feel when i come south. but i’ve long made my peace with that knowledge.

i arrived late on tuesday night for the innovate europe conference. my presentation went well, i met some interesting people, mission accomplished. back to london this afternoon.

: c :

Caribbean, Wanderer

g r e n a d i n e s

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[ 00:47 thursday 26 april – shipton street, london ]

arriving on bequia on easter day i was looking forward to recording a stream of despatches on my uber-phone. unfortunately said phone and i parted company a few days later in a rather rowdy bar called “penthouse” in a shack just up from the port. so, it is only now i come to write about my travels in the caribbean, four days after my return to london.

mum and dad have been sailing in the grenadines a couple of times and out of all the islands bequia made a particular impression on them. then three years ago a childhood friend of mine, meg, set up home on bequia with her partner and baby daughter after several years’ wandering on a yacht. put these factors together with my well-known fondness for islands and it was probably inevitable i’d arrive there sooner or later. in february anna suggested it would be a fine place to recover after completing the investment deal and it seemed like the perfect thing to do. i dropped meg a line, she said “we’re expecting you” and that was that.

bequia is a small place (six thousand people, seven square miles) but it’s still the largest of the thirty-two grenadine islands, most of which are so small they’ve been left uninhabited. getting to bequia from london is not straightforward. i flew into tobago, close to the venezualan coast, where i stayed overnight before connecting up to barbados, then on to st vincent. finally i got the ferry to bequia which runs four times a day and takes an hour. that’s where i wrote my previous despatch.

after everyone’s descriptions of bequia’s divine tranquility i was a bit taken aback to arrive in the middle of what appeared to be a frantic party. the streets were filled with music, stalls and dancing crowds. it turned out i’d arrived in the middle of the island’s principal festival of the year, the easter regatta, which involves four days of yacht races and four nights of partying. i danced like a madman and loved it but it wasn’t what i’d expected at all.

then after a couple of days i woke up and it may as well have been a different island. the regatta was over. the streets were empty. all i could hear was birdsong and the waves lapping on the shore. little by little i started exploring the island, setting off on foot to traverse different parts of the coast or snorkeling around the abundant reefs. the glorious underwater spectacles prompted me to do something i’ve been meaning to do for years; i learned to dive. living on the isles of scilly and stromboli i always had friends who were divers and they urged me to try it, but i never did.

from the first moment i loved it. more than anything it felt like flying over an alien planet populated with the most bizarre and spectacular life forms. my modest experience with the yoga practice of pranayama, in which one’s respiratory process slows down, seems to mean that i can conserve my air supply for longer than usual; which is a tremendous boon. i made three dives in different locations, each of which was a completely new experience. i saw delicate sea-horses, swaying in the current with their tails hooked to a coral anchor. lobsters, crouched irascibly in their hidey-holes with long antennae twitching at intruders. eels of a hundred different patterns and colours, poking their fanged heads out of burrows or slithering amongst rocks in search of prey. a forest of corals of every shape and size. fish of a million iridescent hues and behaviours.

i swam with turtles off the tobago cays, following them as they munched on algae at the sea bed then pushed to the surface for a gulp of air before descending one again. i pestered a sting-ray that meg found dozing in the sand and watched it grudgingly flap along a few metres before settling down again. i fell completely in love with puffer fish but each time i found one and tried to hug it it would wobble off with its adorable contrary flapping of lumbar fins. the high point of all my underwater experiences came at the end of my third dive, when three eagle rays swam past in formation. this was the most mesmerising thing to behold. each creature had a wingspan of a metre and a half, the three of them passing perhaps ten metres from me, undulating with silent elegance and grace. i understand it is rare to see such a thing and i should count myself lucky.

during the second week of my sojourn meg and i went off on a bit of an adventure. we set out at dawn on the friendship rose, meg and alan’s seventy foot schooner which they charter for trips to the tobago cays and mustique. at the cays we transfered to scaramouche, another local schooner, to reach union island (population 3,000) where we stayed a couple of days to explore. from here we took a speedboat over to mayrou (population 270) across a choppy sea which duly soaked us. after a night on mayrou we hitched a lift with a dive boat which took us back to the cays where we liaised with the friendship rose and thus returned to bequia.

there’s lots i’d like to write about. the quiet undercurrents of racial and colonial trauma. the balance between native and ex-pat populations. the strange and pervasive mythology of “lovely bequia”. patterns of entrepreneurship in the islands. competing attitudes to development. it’s all fascinating, to me at least. but life being as it is i probably won’t find time to write about any of it.

most importantly, for the first time in six months i don’t feel tired. it’s wonderful!

: c :

Caribbean, In transit, Wanderer

k i n g s t o w n

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[ 18:42 sunday 7 april – port of kingstown, st vincent ]

easter sunday, a little after sunset. i’m sitting cross-legged at the taffrail of the day’s last ferry across to bequia. the ramp below me scrapes and squeals in the rolling swell. bob marley songs pump out from a pick-up parked on the quay below, which is surrounded by a knot of people dancing and talking. lights start to pepper the surrounding mountainsides as the post-sunset sky darkens. the air is sultry, tinged with an acrid edge of diesel.

it’s barely 36 hours since i left london but it feels like i’ve been traveling for weeks already. last night on tobago i stayed with a security guard everyone calls the doctor who lives on the sea behind the airport and keeps a few guest rooms with his sister ruth. he drove me up to scarborough, the island’s main port, where we got some supper and soaked up the atmosphere around the market.

a lot of people had come over from trinidad for the evening’s beach concert by buju banton. some of them had brought seriously tricked-up cars with custom paint jobs, flashing lights, lots of chrome and big sound systems; which were parked along a stretch of road for people to admire. when we got back to the doctor’s place i clambered down the dark rocks and sat by the beaking waves with the hot wind on my face until i was ready to sleep.

this afternoon i flew on to barbados in a fifty-seater twin prop aircraft that seems to be the staple inter-island transport here. after an hour in barbados’ earily gleaming airport and a couple of delightful conversations i boarded another flight to st vincent where i arrived an hour ago.

my first impression of the caribbean is of strong warm people who are confident in their cultures. it’s easy to speak to people. it’s particularly interesting to hear opinions of america and europe. there’s a much more balanced, critical view than i would expect.

as i write the ferry’s ramp is raised, the engine throb gets higher and we cast off. in an hour i’ll be on bequia.

: c :

Caribbean, In transit, London, Wanderer

t o b e q u i a

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[ 12:18 saturday 7 april – gatwick airport south terminal ]

being marooned at gatwick is as close as i ever wish to come to a concentration camp. airports are grim places. british airports are especially joyless. but there’s something uniquely brutal and dehumanising about gatwick.

staff seem to be trained in a chilling gritted-teeth cheerfulness. efforts to sell over-priced crap to trapped passenger are raised to new levels of intrusiveness. the architecture is cramped and offers no hint of redemption.

but despite this, and a two hour delay to my flight, i have a light heart for i am on holiday for the next two weeks. later today i shall arrive on the island of tobago where i’ll find somewhere to stay the night. then tomorrow i’ll fly to barbados and on to st vincent’s, from where i hope to get a ferry to the tiny isle of bequia to visit my friends meg and alan.

the prospect is indecently glorious. even gatwick cannot damp my spirits.

: c :