Italy, Wanderer

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16:39 saturday 24 june – restaurant ” est est est ” , gatwick airport
south terminal

damn . i’ve succeeded in booking myself onto today’s flight of doom .
i spoke to a few agents on tuesday and purchased a dirt-cheap seat on a plane operated by one of the myriad charter firms of which nobody’s ever , ever , ever heard .

but as i sit here waiting for my voucher-subsidised pizza , my 15:45 departure receding into the distance ( latest estimate – 19:00 ) , it somehow seems less of a consumer triumph .

the desk where one might expect to find an unctious company rep remains resolutely unattended , a phone cursorily left in front with a number to call . the number , though , has been amended by hand and rendered unintelligible . a shifting coterie of nervous-looking package fodder huddles around it , left rootless by this unforseen gap in the stream of commands by which they secretly prefer their holidays to be organised . nobody is telling them what to do now . even the muttered complaints sound hesitant , half-hearted .

we ( suddenly a community , our uncertain fates fused in this hermetic city , our common submission to the invisible ” them ” who hurl aircraft between continents ) have been issued with ” light refreshment vouchers ” . my experience suggests this is a bad sign . it happened far too quickly . something must be seriously wrong with the plane and the i won’t be surprised if the19:00 prediction slips back further . i dislike the way that airlines routinely lie to their customers , announcing an iterative procession of further delays rather than squaring up right away with the true prognosis . it is as if they wish to toy with us , manipulating our hope and despair on the ground just as they manipulate our sleeping and waking in the air .

—

the pizza has come and gone . a modish confection of roasted vegetables ( scarcely cooked ) on a tomato base ( unseasoned ) with rocket and shaved parmesan . the environment is pleasant though . light wood , modern chairs and white walls . quite unexpected in an airport which aspires more than anything to resemble a shopping mall . indeed one of the syntheticically cheerful voices which springs from the ubiquitous speakers every now and then celebrates the ” south terminal shopping experience ” where ” tax-free prices ” are available to passengers ” for all destinations ” . it is as if the various retailers have collectively willed themselves into a parallel universe in which intra- european duty free was never abolished . presumably they hope to take a few passengers with them .

the last time i flew from gatwick was in december 1998 , on my way to australia . on that occasion my flight departed six hours late . or was it twelve ? or twenty-four ? time somehow changes its substance in these places . incongruously i am reminded of lapland and perpetual daytime . but that experience is one of freedom as opposed to this confined purgatory .

i am glad to have the company of my powerbook , my backlog of correspondence , my scribbling book , the reading i was meant to do for michael young , books by george soros and plato . enough to tide me over , i think . however long i must remain here in limbo .

—

18:04

latest prediction – 20:30 . apparently a replacement aircraft was flown in … and found to be defective . aircraft number three is being sent down from luton . or perhaps they’re constructing it out of the remaining pieces of aircraft numbers one and two ?

—

20:05

about quarter of an hour ago we were all shunted off on the crummy monorail thing to the deserted north terminal . the screens indicated that our flight was now boarding … except that there was no plane at the indicated gate .

an aircraft has now rolled up , with ” european ” painted rather generically down its side . somebody with limited english made an announcement . it sounded like they were informing us we’d be landing at verona rather than bergamo , but surely that can’t be right …
surely … ?

—

11:06 sunday 25 june – express train , stresa to milano

verona it was . by the time my flight entered italian airspace last night bergamo airport was closed . milano’s two airports were too busy to accept additional traffic . so verona it was . we landed around midnight . i explored various options for getting to milano and the party i knew was underway . but it was hopeless .

my night’s accommodation came courtesy of a couple of fortuitously non- showing packageers . their room in a rather grand hotel had already been paid for so i blagged it . what i didn’t altogether grasp was that their hotel room was in stresa , three hours’ drive away on the shore of lake maggiore . i arrived there at half three this morning , feeling slightly jaded .

waking up this morning to the lake , the moutains , the cool air and the hot sun soon put paid to that though . what a gorgeous and unexpected place to spend my first morning in italy . my room had a big terrace surrounded by camelia blossom . i could have asked for nothing more .

now i am on my way to milano on the alpine express , destined beyond that for geneva and venice . it’s a beautifully designed modern train . my ticket cost 18600 lira , about six sterling . a similar service in britain would cost three times as much .

the drive from verona to stresa was a good introduction to northern italy . the road was lined with factories , each with its impeccably designed logo . i don’t get the impression this society is ashamed of old-fashioned heavy industry in the way that britain is . there’s obviously a bit of a fad for high intensity light projectors at the moment , used as a promotional device . i noticed about a dozen of them along the route , tracking their silent beams across the bellies of low clouds .

—

21:15 – fabrizio’s appartment , via solferino , milano

it’s taken a couple of hours to set up but i’ve finally got a free dial-up account working properly . i’ve been phoning bobo every ten minutes or so to get off-the-cuff translation of crucial bits of registration forms i couldn’t work out . he’s working on a painting at his apartment round the corner .

it’s been a fabulous day . brilliant to be with bobo . feeling excited about italy in general . but i’m tired and expect to sleep well tonight . down to work tomorrow .

: cH

Sandhurst, Wanderer

d e v o i d

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00:54 thursday 8 june – sandhurst , gloucestershire

the desk at the end of my parents’ sitting room . mum asleep upstairs . dad away in salisbury .

my powerbook sits amidst evidence of several weeks of my habitation . piled letters and documents . boxes of slides . a quarz-banded pebble from cornwall . a left-over ten dollar note from australia . were it not for these signs i wonder if i would believe in my travel , my activity .

this has been the longest interval between despatches since i began them sixteen months ago . several have been started and abandoned . i am not even certain as i write this that it will be completed and transmitted , but i hope both will be achieved .

perhaps i grow more self-conscious ? all the time i am over-brimming with thoughts and observations , things i yearn to share . yet i remain silent . impotent .

since my last words i have not been static . in cornwall i celebrated my sister’s birthday , met with warren langley and ann tonkin , walked gloriously free of my crutches . in glasgow i attended the launch of the latest school for social entrepreneurs and was newly inspired . in london i planned the next steps for the sse learning web and the circus organisation , caught up with friends old and new . in cambridge i discussed my potential involvement with virt-u , a project to develop a european virtual university . i also dropped in on ray jobling , my old tutor at st john’s , and on ann cotton , a fellow-student from the sse who runs a charity working to increase educational opportunities in sub-saharan africa . ann’s charity , camfed , is funding me to spend a month setting up a project in northern ghana .

indeed , i should have departed for ghana on 6 may . but my project is reliant on a stable electricity supply and that in turn is dependent on the completion of a new building . work on this building is somewhat behind schedule and the rainy season arrived before its roof did . consequently my project cannot begin until october .

it is odd how unsettling this shift has been . i have grown comfortable living with almost complete uncertainty about where i will be and what i shall be doing from month to month . but it threw me off balance to have something which i had regarded as certain suddenly become fluid .

the new timetable is a blessing , though . apart from my ongoing commitments most of my attention is now wrapped up in trampoline and there is a lot of work to do over the coming months. progress seems agonisingly slow , but probably my perspective is distorted . i am typically impatient . the truth is i feel greatly intimidated by the hurdles which lie before me . most of my weaknesses will be exposed by the kinds of task i face : distilling a set of concrete proposals from my maelstrom of ideas , expressing these proposals in a succint and accessible fashion , constructing simple financial models , undertaking structured market research . i have another mountain to climb in my learning about venture finance and investment . somewhere in the midst of this i must try to keep hold of the ideas which sparked the whole thing off . i am unquantifiably grateful to warren langley , james smith and everyone else who’s helping me proceed .

for the months before i leave for ghana i’ve been thinking about taking a house in cornwall , though i’m also considering spending the summer in milan . i’ve scarcely seen my friend bobo since he returned to his roots there and i’ve wanted to learn italian for ages .

in the meantime i’ve been very glad to spend these weeks here in gloucestershire with mum and dad . it’s a long time since i saw so much of them and i certainly don’t remember it ever being so harmonious in the past . the last year hasn’t been easy for them and they had some news from me about my sexuality just before i left for australia . so all in all it was a good time to be with them .

this feels complete so i shall send it before any second thoughts creep in
. i doubt it’ll be such a long time before the next one .

: cH

Broken photo links, Sandhurst

b l i g h t y

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23:27 easter sunday – sandhurst , gloucestershire

i arrived back in britain last tuesday . malaysia was amazing , different
from anything i anticipated .

finally some photos :

http://www.charlesarmstrong.net/2000-03-08
http://www.charlesarmstrong.net/2000-03-27
http://www.charlesarmstrong.net/2000-04-14

as i awoke this morning i watched a mosquito walking slowly backwards on my
ceiling for what seemed like ages . it struck me as strange .

happy easter everyone

: cH

Australia, Wanderer

d i a g n o s t i c s

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19:54 tuesday 11 april – laura place , melbourne , australia

finally , after several false starts , i’m leaving australia . in four hours i shall board a flight for kuala lumpur , connecting with another to kuantan on the east coast . from there i shall travel north up the coast until i find a quiet village with a nice beach where i can spend a little while reflecting on the past six weeks in australia and looking ahead to a month in britain and the coming adventures in ghana . generally getting my thoughts together really . i aim to get back to britain in time for granny’s birthday on the nineteenth .

it was confirmed this morning that i fractured my right heel in my daredevil fence-top leap . it’s a week since i decided to speak to a doctor about the non-diminishing pain in my foot . the gp prodded at it and sent me for an x-ray .

the hospital to which i was sent was very quiet , very clean , earily empty . you could actually hear the air conditioning . despite the fact i had no appointment i was in and out within half an hour . the film came back with a brief analysis from the radiologist suggesting that the pain was nothing to do with my fence experiences but was in fact due to a tiny spur of bone growing on the base of my heel .

$80

yeah , right .

the gp shrugged her shoulders , prodded my foot a bit more , and said she didn’t know what to do . i could go to an orthopedic consultant if i liked but they were a strange lot , tended to be rather abrupt , too much time looking at bones . she didn’t know any , and gave the impression this was through choice more than chance . when i said that yes , i would quite like to see a consultant , she shrugged and pulled out a phone directory . started scanning her finger down the columns . maybe a female one would be friendlier . and one in a convenient neighbourhood . bingo ! a name was scribbled on a scrap of paper with an address and a phone number .

$120

i smiled , paid the bill and left , my faith in the australian medical profession somewhat diminished . with no intention of calling upon the gp’s random consultant i began to ask everyone i met if they could recommend someone . in the end it was charles young who came up trumps . during a meeting on thursday he called his father , a doctor , and within minutes he’d lined up an appointment the following morning with mr henry bryce . charles had some childhood memory of pushing this fellow’s rolls royce , which sounded encouraging so long as the medical insurance held good .

arriving at mr bryce’s consulting rooms i found them a little less grand than the harley street style leather and potted palms i’d imagined . in fact they were slightly seedy . a scarcely-converted office suite at the top of a tower in the centre of town , with concrete-blasted ceiling , flourescent lights , flimsy partition walls which actually seemed to amplify sound , colourful magazines on thin paper from a year or more ago and people in the waiting area who looked like they were having a bad time of it .

but mr bryce himself was splendid . businesslike and convincing with a very occasional deep wry chuckle . he seemed to have two patients on the go at any point , like an expert cook or a successful polygamist . somehow when he prodded my foot it felt more useful than when the gp did it . he held my x-ray up to the window in a professional kind of way , screwed up his eyes , hrrumphed and bade me look closer . he traced out a line which i could not for the life of me see . could be a fracture , he said . the radiologist’s verdict had been dismissed with a contemptuous grunt .

to be certain i’d need to have a bone scan . more phone calls . i’d have to be there in half an hour . flurry of taxi-hailing and route-finding . another expensively quiet hospital . seriously expensive machines with science fiction names . machines which filled entire rooms , entire floors . and not a hint of taxpayers’ money .

they injected me with something radioactive and stuck me on a trolley . they angled a big metal dish over my foot and i could see my blood sparkling on a screen . when my right foot went under it sparkled a lot more than my left foot .

$350

i returned to mr bryce this morning for his verdict . yes , there is a fracture . no , there’s no time to put a plaster on . yes , i can carry on to malaysia so long as i’m careful and i use crutches .

$150

so i’ve got some crutches , which i aim to exploit for every bit of sympathy i can wring from my surroundings . particularly if i can get an upgrade on my flights . the woman i dealt with at the chemist where they came from dropped them off about an hour ago . amazingly kind .

$20 ( including free delivery )

my faith in the profession is much better now .

i’ve got loads of digital photos from the last six weeks which i intended to stick together before leaving . but heck , i haven’t got round to it .

in about half an hour my thai friend pum will arrive to take me to the airport . we spent a great weekend exploring daylesford and the hills , and area which seems to be filled with rather smart , commercially-astute hippies .

for the next week i shall be disconnected , off-line , 100% tangible . then the mayhem begins again .

: cH

Australia, Wanderer

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22:44 saturday 1 april – port campbell , victoria , australia

two pine bunk beds . grey walls . a hardwearing carpet . a single bulb fixed in the middle of the ceiling . the gunshot soundtrack of cheap tv from the lounge next door . middle-brow jazz from a nearby restaurant . occasional twang of a guitar .

i lie on the lower bunk by the window with my powerbook on the pillow . across the room stef ponders today’s edition of the australian and barbara sleeps . it’s been a long day .

this is my first taste of hostel life since i was last in australia . the familiar check-list springs back into action . mattress = good . linen = clean . inmates = free of psychopathic tendencies . obvious ones at least .

i left ross’ flat in sydney and flew down to melbourne last monday . since then i’ve been staying with stef and barbara in their house in fitzroy , the city’s funky/organic/bohemian quarter .

the dull pulse of a commercial house track joins the gentle mellee of sound . where’s it coming from in this little backwater ? stef reckons it’s somebody’s car . i think it might be the video jukebox in the pub we visited earlier .

i like melbourne . it’s more or less flat so cycling is a breaze . the ubiquitous tram tracks are a new challenge though . the vehemence of melbourne’s rivalry with sydney is incomprehensible to anyone outside those two cities . but the contrasts are obvious . sydney lives in primary colours , melbourne in subtle secondaries . it’s more relaxed , less brash , not so beach-centred . the grass is literally greener . i’ve been carrying on with my work but also getting about and meeting people .

this morning stef , barbara and i hired a car and drove west along the great ocean road . a dramatic effort which follows the coast through a succession of landscapes . steep sandstone cliffs , wide-beached bays , temperate rain forest , scrubby savanna . we stopped at various points to explore and watched the sun setting from a deserted clifftop with sage-coloured brush around us and the pacific surf rolling against the rocks far below .

finally we arrived here in port campbell , a small settlement whose economy is , i presume , largely dependent on the tourists who come to visit the nearby apostles , a series of tall rock pillars standing just off the coast . there are six restaurants and three motels on port campbell’s main drag and little else . we ordered fish and chips in a neon-lit room where visitors’ business cards and photos were arrayed beneath the plastic table covers . the proprietress handed us numbered tickets . when i took my seat i found a ticket with the same number as my own ( 84 ) amongst the cards for concrete pourers and munich hairdressers beneath the plastic in front of me . a small co-incidence .

a greater co-incidence last thursday . i joined stef for lunch with a couple of friends of his who are interested in digital community infrastructure . what rapidly emerged was that one of them , vaughan , who’d trained in medicine before getting involved in the web , has been thinking along uncannily similar lines to me . he too is in the early stages of setting up a venture , one which is potentially complementary to trampoline rather than in competition with it . we experienced a depth of common understanding which was unexpected for us both .

we spoke again last night at the drinks to mark his departure from looksmart.com , australia’s most prominent web firm . it ended up with the two of us huddled over a table gabbling intensely . i’ve extended my stay in melbourne til the end of next week so we can talk more .

i’ve been hobbling a bit , having locked myself in stef and barbara’s garden on wednesday morning and resorted to jumping off the fence , barefoot , to escape into the back lane . it provided a good excuse to spend much of wednesday afternoon static on a beach . but i feel very silly .

it seems much longer than two weeks ago i was walking in the blue mountains with duncan . a lifetime since i arrived in sydney .

: cH

Australia, Broken photo links, Wanderer

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12:58 friday 24 march – mundarrah street , clovelly , sydney

onelist.com , the service i’ve been using to host this mailing list , has been assimilated by its main competitor egroups.com . since there was already a list called wanderer on egroups i’ve been compelled to modify the name . so it’s goodbye wanderer and hallo worldwanderer . it’s grossly cheesy , but heck , i couldn’t think of anything better .

i’ve been here in sydney a month now . the days have alternated pretty equally between sun and cloud , for which i’m grateful as it’s made it much easier to maintain a balance between work and shameless lounging . it also means i’ve got a modest tan rather than terminal skin cancer .

last weekend i escaped up to the blue mountains for a couple of days with duncan , a fellow brit i met a couple of days earlier . it was great to be amongst the trees , the aromatic air , the never-silent hush .

one of the main objectives in coming to autralia was to advance another stage in my mobile working endeavours . it’s twenty months since my first step in this direction , when i spent july/august 1998 roving around the isles of scilly , cornwall , gloucestershire and cambridge whilst continuing to work on a website for decca records with a team in london . back then it was just me and my little psion , which restricted my interaction to email except when i was able to hijack someone else’s terminal . i remember being enraptured by the novelty of lying on a beach and being paid for it .

my next step was when i came out to australia in december 1998 . i borrowed a computer out here and carried on working with a couple of clients in london . but my input was still essentially text-based . i didn’t get a whole lot of work done , to be honest . but i learned a lot .

after that came the experiment of spending a whole year in the isles of scilly . this time i had my full battery of equipment with me and was able to participate in a much wider range of activities . i was principally doing work for the school for social entrepreneurs , including consultancy , web production and print production . whenever i left the islands i relied on my psion to maintain email contact .

then in january i got my powerbook , opening up the prospect of being able to continue working on a full range of tasks from anywhere in the world , so long as i can get occasional access to power and telecoms . this trip to australia is the first trial of that theory . after a month it’s working well . i’ve put together a brochure for the sse , which i can send to printers in cornwall via email . i’m much of the way through producing a new website for the sse . i’ve been continuing to play a development role with the scillonia digital workshop , and will be producing a website with its members . i’ve also taken the first steps towards setting up a software development venture , whose working title is trampoline , based on my research over the last eighteen months into dispersed collaboration , learning and decision-making .

in all of these activities i’ve been working with groups of people in different places . these interactions have been structured in ways which enable me to feel i’m involved in ongoing discussions , that part of me is there with the other participants . these are delicate psychological considerations . the potential for misunderstanding , paranoia and defensiveness is much higher in a dispersed collaboration than in a conventional one . the development and sustenance of trust is critical . so in a way these experiments have been about trust , exploring different interactive structures and strategies , seeing where trust flourishes and where it perishes , where i feel like an active participant and where i feel remote , where i feel stimulated to contribute creatively and where i feel inhibited .

trampoline is the result of everything i have learned . i have come to see clear patterns in what works and what doesn’t work . from these insights has emerged a concept for a way to organise communications which will enable organisations , especially information-based organisations , to increase their creative potential .    i am particularly eager that the non-profit sector should benefit from an infrastructure tool like this . charitable organisations are typically under-resourced , thinly-spread and dependent on a wide network of influence and support . they are also blessed with high levels of commitment and shared purpose . trampoline will enable such organisations to marshal their resources more effectively . i am hoping to establish the venture in such a way that non-profit organisations will have access to services on a free or non-profit basis .

these plans took a significant step forward a couple of weeks ago when warren langley , ex-president and ceo of the pacific exchange in san francisco , offered to help guide the project through first-stage financing . there’s an amazing story behind this . at the start of may last year i was on st agnes , packing my belongings into boxes , preparing to move out of tamarisk farm . it was a fresh spring day , plump thrushes hopping about and flooding the breeze with song . there was a knock at the door and i saw a fellow clutching a laptop . warren introduced himself and explained he was staying with tim and sue hicks down at troytown . he was having trouble picking up email and they’d suggested he drop in on me in case i could do anything .

i was completely useless of course , fiddling about for a bit before sheepishly suggesting he should call the support line . but it turned out that warren was interested in social entrepreneurship , particularly social invesment , and we spent the next hour or so in conversation . we’ve remained in touch since then .

as for what brought warren all the way to st agnes , his wife ann had visited many years before on an archeological project and had been returning ever since . fate is indeed a remarkable beast .

oh , i’ve finally organised some photos from my previous trip to australia . nearly two hundred of them in fact . start at
http://www.charlesarmstrong.net/oz98 .

: cH

Australia, Broken photo links

s u n c h a s i n g

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13:07 friday 3 march – mundarrah street , clovelly , sydney

lots has happened since my last transmission . the main thing , though , is that i’ve shifted myself out to sydney , where i’m staying with my friend ross near clovelly beach for a few weeks .

some pics of the journey here , and of my new surroundings at
http://www.charlesarmstrong.net/sunchasing .

i’m continuing to access email via my usual addresses . whilst i’m in australia my phone number is + 61 415 985794 .

: cH

Cornwall, In transit, Isles of Scilly, Wanderer

e x e u n t

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07:58 saturday 12 february – steamship company office , hugh town quay , st mary’s

i sit here keeping out of the way of the frenetic ballet of forklifts on the quay outside . the gry came in yesterday afternoon with a full load . as i walked round to keith’s yard at porthmellon one of the steamship company directors commented to me that he’d never seen her so low in the water .

there are still stacks of flower boxes waiting on the quay to be loaded . i reckon she might be an hour later than the scheduled eight o’clock sailing time . no matter . i am content to sit and observe .

ian is phoning round the islands letting them know the lyonesse lady’s revised movements . there’s so much freight to despatch that she’ll have to take it in two runs .

the sky is grey and troubled but for the present the wind is not too severe . ian says it’ll rise over the next two hours .

everybody looks at me as if i’m mad when i tell them i’m going over on the gry . it has a reputation for being less than the most comfortable way to travel between here and penzance , particularly in rough weather . it has been known to take seven or eight hours in a heavy sea . but today there should be a following wind and swell , even if they are a little on the large side . people seem to regard it as some kind of ultimate sea-sickness endurance challenge . because she has a shallow drought and the wheelhouse is up forward the motion can be quite unpleasant . i’ve never succumbed in the past and rather hope to avoid it today .

ian’s just handed me the latest weather fax from the met office . southwest force 7 or gale force 8 with the strongest winds around the isles of scilly . sea state rough to very rough . hehe !

10:09 – gry maritha , a couple of miles out from scilly

i was eventually called at twenty past nine and hurried down the quay. i threw my bags onto the deck then grabbed the rail and heaved myself up . we slipped berth five minutes later . the sky has cleared . we are rolling about quite a bit .

10:19 in the last couple of minutes the ship’s motion has changed noticeably . we rise up and down each wave more steeply . the hull judders as we pitch into each one and there is a constant swish of spray breaking across the deck . my rucksack falls over in the cabin as i write .

10:26 i went out on deck and was confused to find the islands already out of sight to stern . then i poked my head over the rail , looked forward , and there they were . i blinked and checked again . but we were definitely heading * towards * the islands . no wonder i sensed a change of motion . i went down to the mess where the crew was variously sitting and lying with cups of tea . i enquired why we were going back . to drop me off , they teased , to answer some tricky questions for the police . but it turned out a fuel line had burst , spraying diesel all over the engine room .

this creates a slight problem for me . at two o’clock a van will be delivered to the quay at penzance for me to drive all my stuff up to my parents in gloucestershire . i need to be there to brandish my licence and sign some papers . i’ll phone and try to delay it .

12:05 we have just cast off from st mary’s quay for the second time today , having arrived three quarters of an hour ago . it felt earie to be returned like this having bade the islands farewell . the fuel line couldn’t be repaired and the decision has been made to proceed to penzance anyway . could be a slow journey .

13:58 no land in sight from the main deck , though there probably would be if i climbed up to the wheelhouse . we have passed out of signal range for my mobile phone . following a flurry of calls to the penzance harbour office , the steamship company office and the van rental company i am left with very little idea whether there will be a vehicle waiting for me , and whether its keys will be locked in an office somewhere .

there is nothing more i can do . the crew gave me some tea and a pack of biscuits . i shall settle down to some reading .

21:32 bodriggy street , hayle , cornwall

we docked at penzance at half past five , eight hours after the initial departure from st mary’s . by this time the uncertainty regarding the van had been augmented by the possibility that my belongings were not even aboard the gry . the crew could find no trace of my two palates and bicycle in the hold . my feeling of exasperation increased a couple more notches .

but some anxious communications with st mary’s drew assurance that they had been loaded into a big steel container on deck , though this would not be confirmed until we arrived in port .

the quay was crammed with articulated lorries waiting to collect shipments of flowers from the islands to deliver across the country . we drew in , lines were thrown , i leapt across with my rucksack , my powerbook , my camera , my saxophone . as the holds were being opened i scuttled up to the steamship company office , where i found a waiting van . but no keys in evidence . and nobody around . i returned to the quay to find the first of my palettes and my bicycle unloaded . encouraged by this i went back for another search of the parked van . the keys were tucked in the sun visor . i suddenly felt a lot lighter .

i drove down to the quay , tore the plastic wrap off my palettes and transferred everything into the van . three children emerged and started firing a stream of questions at me : where had i come from where was i going could they come with me what was in the boxes why were all the lorries on the quay what was it like to ride in a ship ?

i shouted my thanks to the master of the gry and made the twenty minute drive here , the home of my sister anna and her husband adam . i’ll continue up to my parents tomorrow afternoon . so what was the voyage like ? well the sea was big and ship rolled around a lot , but to be honest there was nothing very exciting about it and at no point did i feel even the tiniest bit queasy . almost a sense of anti-climax . but this was the right way for me to leave the islands .

: cH