Learning to swear

So Mark, our Managing Partner, and I are having a chat about football over a nice cup of tea. This is rare. Mark is a rugger bugger. He can’t help it. He went to a very posh school and prefers oval-shaped balls.

I mention that I want to take my boy Charlie to a match. But only when he’s older and knows more swear words. Mark smiles. This prompts a long forgotten memory about his son Joe.

When he was a mere lad, Joe’s Uncle Bertie took him to see Spurs play arch rivals Arsenal. He thoroughly enjoyed this first tentative step into manhood. However, he was rather confused by some of the more colourful language spewing forth from the terraces. Or, rather, wafting up to the comfy corporate boxes like over-cooked burger and rancid-onion fumes from the cheaper plastic seats below.

On returning home to the family seat, he enquired, “Daddy, what’s a ‘wonker’?”

You may not approve, but swearing is actually older than time itself.

You see, way back in pre-history, a suddenly wounded or trapped animal would emit a bloodcurdling howl to startle, injure or escape from a predator. In fact, many early human responses to dangerous life-threatening situations would have been similar. I know. I’ve watched One Million Years BC at least a thousand times now.

What’s more interesting is that many more prosaic cries would have developed from conversational vocal sounds. Think about ‘Yuk’, for example, upon finding a stray mammoth hair in the thick of your primordial soup.

In his excellent book, ‘The Stuff of Thought’, Steven Pinker notes how swearing might well have developed from these verbal responses to potentially fatal situations and everyday nuisances. Perhaps, they became standard responses or reactions to misfortune then morphed into taboo words, either as a cathartic reaction to sudden pain or a warning to a potential enemy.

Perhaps Darwin was right when he said that ‘verbalised outbursts were the evolutionary missing link between primate calls and human languages’. So, in short – to swear is to be human.

Charlie meanwhile, will have to wait before I take him to a football match. Having said that, he tells me he already knows the ‘most rudest word ever’. I enquire innocently what this might be.

He leans forward, looks around to make sure his mum and sister are far, far away and whispers the word ‘curt’ in my ear.

I breathe a sigh of relief. Yes, I tell him, ‘curt’ is a very rude word indeed and not to ever repeat it – ever, ever again.

Now and then though he lets slip that he knows other bad words too. ‘And just where do you learn all these bad words, Charlie? School? Cubs? Drama?’

‘No Daddy’, he replies nonchalantly, ‘I learned them all from you’.

‘Oh.’

It’s official. I’m a Bad Dad…

This post originally appeared at http://www.quietroom.co.uk/qr/2011/02/14/learning-to-swear/

27th Way

A friendly challenge issued by John Simmons at his ’26 Ways of Looking at a BlackBerry’ book launch was to come up with a 27th way: to rewrite the base text (a financial report by TH, inventor of the handheld device) in the style of a favourite author. I chose Charles Bukowski.

I was invited to some place up in The Valley by Sherman Hole, an ex-bum I once knew on Skid Row.

We drank together. Fought together. Fucked together. Then he got religion. Went all wholesome on me. Left the Row, while I continued to wallow in self-pity and disgust, but somehow still felt good – my soul intact.

Sarah drove me up there. We got in the puke-brown convertible which never cared much for second gear – or traffic signals for that matter.

We rolled up. Got out. Took a sniff of pure Valley air. I threw up. The freshness and sharpness of it disgusted me. Sarah fussed and wiped me off and I rang the door bell.

The door was huge. Mahogany. Expensive. Classy. I felt poor. Poorer than I had ever felt before. The lower orders had arrived from Slumville… To clean dishes, or till the fields. It was basically the same as it’d always been. Hadn’t changed much over the last five thousand years. There were always  those that lived in pampered luxury served by those less fortunate than themselves. People like me. Like Sarah. Like Sherman used to be.

A servant opened the door. Looked down his huge pointed nose at me. At Sarah. Felt the whiff of the street taint the perfect varnished wooden floor. Was about to close the door on us right there and then when I heard Sherman’s weasel voice mincing up the corridor.

‘Why… Well, I never. If it isn’t the great Chinaski and the fragrant Sarah – dooo come in. Come along now. Bryn can’t wait to meet you. I’ve told him all about you – you naughty boy!’

‘Cut the crap, Hole – where’s the wine cellar?’

‘Same old Chinaski, eh Sarah? Just how do you tolerate the beast?’

Hole had always had a thing for me. I had that affect on fags for some reason.
Maybe they thought I was an easy lay due to my downright ugliness? Maybe just felt sorry for me? Who knows.

I wasn’t interested. All I wanted was pussy and wine – but not necessarily in that order. Sarah provided both, even got me off the hard stuff, gave me ten more years of writing, at least. I thanked her by being obnoxious. She liked me that way.

The servant bought in a bottle and four glasses. I grabbed it from him, took a swig. It was good stuff. The best.

So, eventually Bryn breezed in. He was a young kid. Clean cut. No more than 25. I felt old. Haggard. Battered. A living corpse.

Bryn had never fallen in love with whores, lost all his money at the track or eaten from trash cans. He was a good kid. Bright and shiny – like a toothpaste commercial.

He wanted me to try a new kind of typewriter. It was tiny – you could hold it in your hand. But what would I drink with, I asked. Seriously.

He laughed. All he wanted me to do was try it then write about it. On the machine. The tiny typewriter.

I told him I’d rather suck Satan’s cock. He laughed some more. Said he loved my work and that was OK. Sarah scowled. We needed the money. Hadn’t eaten properly all week. But she still loved me all the same.

I felt rich. Surrounded by love. Engulfed by it. We drank some more. We talked. Life was good.

When we drove back it was dark. Bryn would go on to do great things. His company was going to be a huge success. All people wanted was tiny typewriters you could hold in your hand. Everyone was becoming a writer. I thought about setting up a union of real writers to keep out the tiny writers.

I never did of course.

We got back. I opened a big one. Took a good slug. Flipped the switch and Beethoven flooded the room. My best friend, apart from the full-glass. My only two true friends.

I thought about Hole. Spat. Smiled. Began typing…

 http://www.26fruits.co.uk/blog/27th-way/base-text/

Isaac

This is the ‘long’ verson of Isaac with a Drinking Glass. Part of the 26 treasures project that ran at the V&A last year – www.26treasures.com

It’s late.

I need another drink and wander down into town and land up at MacCallum’s on Union Street. There’s beery good cheer here. It’s the end of a long night and the booze has kicked in; inhibitions are discarded, suppressed desires unleashed.

A man plays loud guitar and sings his heart out. Another is dancing, badly. He hits on a girl who ignores him so he sits down next to me complaining unintelligibly. Slowly I understand. He’s Isaac, ‘like in the bible’, from Poland. He’s on ‘holiday’ as there is no work. We both smile. He has the most amazing piercing pale blue eyes. I’m transfixed, haunted.

He wants to be King of the Dance Floor, but he’s Mr No-Body, a long way from home. His breath smells of rusting, abandoned shipyards…

Elsewhere

It’s been a while since I uploaded anything so I thought I’d trawl my back catalogue and pluck out a few old ‘gems’ for your reading pleasure. These can all be found elsewhere. However, the frustrated librarian in me badly needs to store everything in one place. Ideally, this would be sorted alphabetically, or even in date order. I’d also assign a catalogue number and buy a National Health pair of specs and heavy-knit wool sweater.

Libraries, as we all know, are under threat these days as they do not make economic sense. This makes me angry. Livid in fact. ‘Libraries gave us power’ sang the Manic Street Preachers, inspired by the inscription above the former Pillgwenlly library in Newport. If there were no libraries while I was growing up, I would not have had access to the wonderful world of knowledge which is just a mouse-click away these days.

So maybe it’s true that libraries are obsolete now. That all that needs to be known is available online. But not everyone is online. And most of us, despite Kindle and iPad, still love books. Real books. New books for me are like freshly carved tablets from the gods. Apart from the ones written by Jeffrey Archer maybe.

Old books are even better. They smell like 1937. Their yellowing pages thumbed by countless readers; some inspired, some indifferent but all potentially wiser for the experience. Books feed the imagination and nourish the soul. In short, I wouldn’t be me and you wouldn’t be you without books.

And it just so happens that next Saturday, 5th February, is Save Our Libraries Day. Find out how you can get involved here: http://www.cilip.org.uk/get-involved/advocacy/public-libraries/pages/savelibrariesday.aspx

In the meantime, I’ll be digging down into the darker recesses of my hard drive to rescue my rank old words from obscurity, eliminating all the grammatical errors and flights of fancy, then recycling them and hawking them behind the bike sheds to anyone who’s even remotely interested. Hope to see you there soon…

Last Post

I left early after staying out late. The coach was departing at 6.30am, I was the first one there but the last man on as I didn’t have the right ticket. Wrong coach company and the next one was another hour or so. The driver and his supervisor had a chat, we had joked, I had meekly accepted my fate and they took pity on me and let me on. The other two passengers didn’t seem to mind too much.

When we stopped at Glasgow I nipped out for a ‘comfort break’ and when I came back a big handsome Spanish man was sat in the seat next to me. His name was Nick and he was actually Greek. He apologised as, being tall too, he understood the benefit of having two seats to spread yourself out on.

The driver, on the other hand, was a short angry man. He was receiving conflicting instructions and the ‘Fucks’ were flying as we made our way out through the city in the rain. I offered Nick a sweetie and he began talking for the next eight hours or so. He was fast and furious at first, but after a while he settled into a rhythm and all was well. The journey passed quicker for it. Nick was frustrated in his job, stuck up in Scotland when his girlfriend was in London. He had a lot of energy, lots of ideas – he shared them all, two or three times… at least.

When we pulled into London we swapped contact details and marvelled at the sunshine and early evening crowds as the coach crossed Oxford Street. It was both familiar and wildly exotic at the same time. There were girls. Lots of them. In short summer skirts. You could be forgiven for thinking that it had been October that morning, but here it was early July and for once the sun was doing what it was meant to do at this time of year; slow everything down to a languid pace and increase sales of lager, ice cream and bikinis.

We bid each other farewell and I was on the homeward stretch. A quick nip from Victoria to Vauxhall then back down to Kingston. I reflected that I had learned a few basic fundamentals of life on the trip:

• A happy man just walks and simply enjoys the motion, sights, smells and sounds of his immediate vicinity rather than contemplating the meaning of the universe before taking each and every step
• The vast majority of people are kind and will point you in the right direction when you’re lost (even if they’re not entirely sure that it is actually the right direction)
• Spontaneity is over-rated, planning is under-rated
• The true traveller is not concerned with reaching his final destination (‘Here, Here’, I hadn’t reached mine)
• And finally, Thurso has the best-kept public conveniences in all of Scotland

So, I was home after being away for 10 days. Not that long really. In that time I had skirted around nuclear power stations, said confession for the first time in over 25 years and shed a tear at the voices of angels. I had marvelled at mountains and been blown away on headlands and spoilt by unspoilt, deserted beaches. I had managed to hitch in one of the most far-flung parts of the mainland – without getting killed. I had felt at one with nature and drank with thirsty, lusty locals and lost souls in Inverness and shouted at sheep. I had slept in close confinement with younger people of the opposite sex from exotic climes. I may even have killed a seagull.

Yet nothing compared to getting back home and having a big meaningful hug from Mrs Wife then seeing a ‘Welcome Home’ banner hung in the back room by the kids, now sleeping innocently upstairs, dreaming of Dad, the Great Adventurer and, more to the point, wondering what he had bought them home as a pressie. Only later did I realise that Millie had hung the banner up for Charlie, who had spent one whole night away camping with the cubs.

So, as Dorothy said, clicking her sparkly red shoes together in the Emerald City, ‘There’s no place like home, there’s no place like home, there’s no place like home’ and she was right of course. But there’ll always be a small part of us, curious as to what lies just around the corner, then further – over the hills and far away – just in case it’s more interesting, bountiful and beautiful – and, of course, has better public lavatories.

And that’s it. That’s all I have to say for now. I hope you enjoyed the ride…

Man walks into a bar

I didn’t make it in the end. I failed to reach my destination. Cape Wrath was a windstrewn ferry too far, for the second day running there were no crossings. I had to give up and go home. I had run out of time and money. But, as Dylan nasally intoned ‘there’s no success like failure, and failure’s no success at all’. I wish I knew what he meant by that but I get the sentiment. To be honest, I wasn’t that downhearted as it meant I’d have to come up again some day.

It was a long way home and I would initially be heading back down to Inverness on the Bike Bus which snaked and skirted its way South East via Ullapool. There were only three of us at first, including the driver, plus a mobile bike shed clamped on the back and it would stop en route for any cyclists needing a ride. This would hopefully include Colin who’d set off earlier in the day to see how far he could get down the road. Holly was the only other passenger at first, we had met earlier that day, another cyclist who had hoped to get over to Cape Wrath that day.

We got on well and were in good spirits indeed as we were truly on a magic bus. It was without doubt one of the highlights of my trip. Every bend would yield another ‘Ooh’ or ‘Aah’ (and even one ‘Mmm’) at the purity and splendour unfolding before our eyes. This beat IMAX; stunning views in motion, bigger than 70mm – but no popcorn. A roller coaster ride through the Highlands and no one was strapped in. Occassionally we’d stop to pick up a passenger, often randomnly rather than at formalised stops and at one of these Colin hopped on, exhausted, and we set off back out the same way he had just cycled in, to get out of a narrow inlet and headed up into the hills once more. More oohs and aahs followed at every turn all the way into Inverness after a brief break at Ullapool where we bid Holly farewell.

We pulled into Inverness on a golden evening and I saw it in a completely different light from my first visit a few days earlier. Sunshine always changes your perception and feelings about a place and late afternoon is my favourite time of day – it makes everything look like an Edward Hopper painting. It also helped that Colin had recommended a hostel in a nice part of town, just up from the castle; there would be no fights outside McDonalds for my viewing pleasure tonight. I could cope with that.

It was my last night away and I had that end of term feeling. After eating and a couple of drinks I wandered down into town and landed up at MacCallum’s on Union Street. It was a basic sort of place, allegedly full of older tipsy ‘ladies’ preying like vultures on younger wasted men, but there was beery good cheer here. It was the end of a long night and the booze had kicked in. There was an atmosphere of wild abandon. Hair was let down, wigs were slipping down.

A tall woman at the bar who’d been attractive once was the centre of attention. She was sat on a stool being chatted up by a short, stocky man, who despite standing was still smaller than her. She glanced over with a professional eye when I lined up for a drink, maybe interested in me as a way out from shorty who was making no headway at all and had started to get agitated and was talking politics. I had no time for this, I was too busy picking up broken glass from the floor and making a neat pile for the barman. He thanked me but I got the impression that breakages were a regular occurance and no one paid them any undue attention.

I got my drink, took a seat, happy to just look on and take it all in. In the corner, a man played an urgent, bluesy machine-gun guitar and fired off popular songs. Some people sang along, some danced, some wandered around aimlessly with beatific smiles on red, drunken faces. Men in black poured in from the street and the energy level cranked up a few notches. I wasn’t sure if they were bouncers just come off shift or funeral directors on a team building night out. They danced wildly and girls joined in. Then, as quickly as they came, they departed and things wound down, the singer had sung his last song and started packing up. It was time to move on.

I wanted one more drink in one more bar. There was a band covering 80’s classics in a rather raucous not so respectful manner. This was fine with me. There was a birthday party and an attractive girl in her mid-twenties was having a big night out surrounded by friends. She was at the centre of her own social whirl. The eye at the centre of the storm. Everyone was drawn towards her. She looked fun, open hearted and gregarious. Her boyfriend smiled, he had every right to be happy; he was average-looking, had man boobs and a beer belly. I mused on how they had come to be a couple and wondered whether they would still be together in a city with a larger gene pool?

I sat out on the edges again, an observer rather than a reveller, making hastily scribbled notes like Jack London in a gold rush town saloon – or at least that’s how I romanticised it afterwards. A few tables away sat three fresh-faced boys in specs. You could tell they wanted to join in but just couldn’t bring themselves to get down on the dancefloor and get down. It was safer up here on the sidelines. They discussed their maths homework instead. Finally, two jumped up to dance, leaving one at the table, alone. He put on a brave face. He was fine sat on his own, with only his drink for company, while his friends danced to the band, closer to the action, but still not quite at the heart of it. Did the boy left behind silently seeth and berate himself for not having more spunk? Or, was he angry at his friends for breaking some unspoken code and joining in and abandoning him? Or, was he just happily drunk and confident in his own perfectly composed world, silently confident and relaxed in his own company.

I would never know. It was time for bed, then time to head back home early tomorrow morning. As last days go, it had everything; the romance of the road, a sunkissed evening, good food, beery joy, then finally, a heavy metal cover version of Michael Jackson’s Billie Jean. What more could a man ask for?

A Shelter from the Storm

There were rocks in the dorm…

… Lots of them, all shapes and sizes in a messy corner inhabited by two young Geology students, one ginger, the other one not. We were in an area of special scientific interest, a Geo Park no less. It was also of special interest to me as John Lennon spent childhood holidays here and his happy memories had filtered through into one of my favourite Beatles tunes, In My Life. I know that, firstly, because my good friend Peter Mac told me before I headed out on my trip and, secondly, as there was a small, humble memorial garden created for Lennon by the community centre up on a hill close by to where I was staying. Wonderfully understated and British. We are after all, a nation of shopkeepers and gardeners…

I had checked into the hostel at Durness, the most North Westerly inhabited village on the mainland,  after being dropped off by Rupacheeta and, for once, I had booked in advance. It was very remote and there were not too many alternatives. I liked the fact that the name Durness was like an edited purer version of my starting point ‘Dungeness’, both very different and at the opposite ends of the British Isles, but both very striking and beautiful in a rugged kind of way.

The hostel itself was basic but cosy. What looked like two corrugated iron sheds on first inspection, one red, one blue. The reception, kitchen and lounge were in one hut, the dorms in the other. This rural outpost overlooking the North Atlantic was managed by Mary Anne, a refugee from Islington with rosy cheeks and a mischievous giggle, a welcoming host who made the huts feel very homely. You had a sense of past times, travellers finding shelter from the howling wind by a cosy fire. Tales of adventure and lashings of cocoa, and, as ever, the smell of sweaty, soiled socks.

I had wandered out after checking in; looking for food, hoping for a stale pie or a portion of chips at best. It was a bit of a walk into Durness proper and it started raining but I could see a light up ahead and was hoping for a store that was still open. There was, but further on up the road was another light, which looked like it belonged to a hotel but turned out to be the Sango Oasis Pub. It was full, jam-packed with drinkers in the lounge watching Uruguay v Holland on a big flat screen. They also served food in take-away cartons. No need for plates and niceties here and my lack of table manners served me well for once. The locals seemed a friendly bunch, and I also heard quite a few foreign accents as the bar was right by a camp site on a cliff-edge full of caravans and sturdy tents pitched by hardy souls. Holland beat Uruguay which suited everyone, I wondered what would have transpired if England were still in the competition at this point – wishful thinking perhaps, but also a relief in some ways, I had assumed I would probably be the only Englishman up here at this time – wrongly as it turned out.

My plan to get out to Cape Wrath the following morning was scuppered due to high winds. You had to walk/hitch to a ferry then hop on a minibus unless you were a hardened biker and could go the long way round adding another 20 miles or so onto your journey. Even then there were hurdles, as this hunk of land sticking out into the Atlantic, is owned by the Ministry of Defence and they use it to play war games; testing bombs, firing bullets and scaring baby bunnies. Obviously this limited access at certain times of the year. Funny how I started at a nuclear power station and aimed to finish at a firing range…

I wasn’t that bothered, I liked the remoteness of Durness, which came without any bleakness and had a whole extra day to explore the local vicinity. Mary Anne suggested a circular walk out to the nearest headland then to loop back through the artistic community at Balnakeil. This appealed to me, it sounded really interesting and I could buy Rupa a cuppa to say thanks for the ride the previous day. I set off, there was a beautiful sandy beach less than half a mile from the hostel, with clear blue water and rocks tastefully scattered like a conceptual piece of art. No dead sharks though. I had it all to myself. It wasn’t cold, it was a bright blue day, it was just violently windy and sand whipped into my eyes. I felt like McLawrence of Arabia. Still, from what I could see, it was a world class beach, just in the wrong part of the world to attract any tourists. I felt absurdly happy, as if I alone had discovered this oasis of calm beauty – a special place unpolluted by deck chairs, stripey wind breaks and noisy ice cream vans.

Despite the dangerous conditions (earlier the wind had contrived to whack me over the head with my own iPod) I continued my walk up the road then headed off down a marked track past a field of sheep. They all stopped what they were doing (heads down, chewing) to stare at me nervously and I felt the need to reassure them. ‘I am not your enemy’, I proclaimed loudly, arms outstretched, ‘I mean you no harm, go about your business, friends’. One stared right back at me and bleated a nonchalant ‘Baa’. There was no comeback to that, I continued on my way.

I made it up to the headland and jumped down into a convenient look-out hole for shelter. An uplifting view embellished with great drama by the gale-force winds swirling around my head and invading my ear holes. It could have been a scene painted by Van Gogh in his later madder years. I was glad of that hollow. Snuggled down into it like a little lost lamb and shot a quick mpeg on my phone of the majestic panorama surrounding and engulfing me. Shot it upside down, then deleted it by accident.

I headed back down and considered crouching on all fours and impersonating a rugged mountain goat to prevent myself being blown away over the cliffs by the maelstrom, slicing into me menacingly – I felt like a reluctant kite, unwilling to take flight, safer on the ground. This was early July, summertime, when the living was supposed to be easy. I was at the mercy of the elements and found myself spouting – ‘Blow winds, rage and crack…’, King Lear said that – you can always rely on Shakespeare. To be honest, that was one of the only quotes I remembered from my youth, apart from maybe – ‘Hey Romeo, you nearly gave me a heart attack, hiding neath the window, hey now, your boyfriend’s back…’

I made it to Balnakeil, built by the MOD as an early warning station in the event of nuclear attack in the 50s, left abandoned then rescued from destruction in 1964 (my birth year) and renovated by a group of artists who lived and practised there, selling artefacts to visitors who sometimes came by the coachload. It consisted of 20 or so modest huts, soldiers’ barracks I think, each with its own small water tower. The concrete blocks were at odds with the beautiful surrounds but very much part of it – a unique craft village in the Cold War vernacular.

Rupa was covering for her artist friend, Ishbel MacDonald, I wanted to tell her about my groundless fear of the dark, damp hole the previous day. I found her hut but there was nobody home so I popped next door to a hut with reflective mosaic tiles stuck like crazy paving on the walls. There was an older lady spinning yarn, I just wandered in only to discover it was her front room in her own private home. Whoops. Her name was Noelle Bosa and although I had rudely interrupted her at work and broken into her lodgings, she smiled kindly and beckoned me in further. I felt like an time traveller, stumbling in on the past. We had a nice long chat, she had settled here years ago, up from England and mine was the first English accent she had heard in some time. She was like a character out of an old fairy tale, weaving her magic turning loose strands into rugs and jumpers on a wonderful old wooden loom. I thought I’d better let her get along with her work, bid her farewell and looked back after I closed the door; head down, totally engrossed in her work, a benign queen spider spinning her web, I envied her seemingly simple life but was sure there were a good few interesting and complicated tales in her life time.

I went back later but still no Rupa, a young woman was there, a daughter of another tenant recently returned from Manchester and she showed me around. Ishbel’s work was strong and expressive, I loved an original of crashing surf, a seabird gliding elegantly just above the waves, almost disappearing in the swell. You could almost feel the ocean spray against your skin. I resisted the temptation to dive in and buy it and opted for the postcard version instead, a bargain at £2.50.

I headed back to the hostel, the wind was so severe by this time that it blew my iPod tunes out of synch. I was listening to ‘Rubber Soul’, one of my favourite Beatles albums, and it jumped from tune to tune, governed entirely by the wind. Guess what song showed up at the exact point I passed the Lennon memorial. Yep, you guessed it, ‘In My Life’ – the end of a magical day.

That evening I headed back down the pub with Colin the Cyclist who I’d met that morning at breakfast. We had had a good long chat comparing stories and sharing travel trips. He was also heading to Cape Wrath, on a break from work and writing up his trip and contributing to simonseeks.com, a travel review website. He was earnest and thoughtful; good relaxed company, younger and fitter than me – admittedly no great achievement. The pub was packed again, with quite a few Geo students too from different universities who had been here for over six weeks on extended field trips. Our students were there, they were from Southampton and there was a bit of rivalry with their counterparts from Leeds, inevitably involving the mating game. The pub was also split between Spanish and German supporters who did their best to maintain national stereotypes. I shall say no more…

I stopped off to get web access on the way back from the pub  – literally a tiny self-contained room in someone’s house. I felt like I was intruding for the second time that day, but I popped my money in the slot and got typing, I only had enough for 30 minutes and whipped up ‘Death by iPod’ quickly which I posted tipsily and subsequently deleted. Two pints is enough for me these days to get all giggly.

How my 20 year old self would have despised the mid 40s version of himself! And what would I have said to the younger Andy? Drink less. Save more. Don’t take that job at the Nationwide Building Society. Don’t be too fussy on the love front. Stop combing your hair back – the Home Counties Michael Jackson look (Off the Wall era) is just not working. Your mother is right – study for a degree, you’ll actually enjoy it. Eat more fruit.

When I left it was after 11pm but still quite light. I felt exuberant. It had been a great day. Perhaps simple pleasures don’t make a great story; but the beach was special (one of three in Durness, all gorgeous), the walk was bracing, life-affirming even and Balnakeil was very inspiring. The next day, Colin and I would try and get over to Cape Wrath again. The wind would decide whether we would make it or not.