MEDITERRANEAN MEANDERINGS

22ND SEPTEMBER 2010

The week approaching today's Autumn Equinox has been a very quiet one for me in Kapparis.  I am just getting back into the routine of my life here. According to the Cyprus Mail we are still getting temperatures that are 5° above the average for this time of year, so as you can imagine I am not able to get very far in the day as there is only so far you can walk without melting in the direct sunlight. The evenings are now getting cooler, however, and I am sleeping without the fan again. As always though my body gets cold when I am tired and it doesn’t take any notice of the external temperature. On Sunday I was so tired and my hip was incredibly painful (which was my own fault as I will explain later) that I had to get the old cherry stone pillow out. This brings the warmth back into my bones and when I told myself to get a grip and go out to the pub quiz in the evening I realised that it was actually quite warm in the real world! 

The reason my hip hurt was that Sandra had a party for her 60th Birthday at the Barleymow on Saturday night and I do love to dance. It was a lovely party and I had a great time. I made the decision to enjoy myself knowing the price that I would have to pay and I don’t think it was a bad deal. Jimmy Spender (yet another person called Mick, as I have said everyone is called Mick or Sue!) provided the live music and also provided fabulous conversation when his set ended. Despite the fact that the official figures say that Protaras has had a good year, Mick was saying that he could not see how this was so and it is hard to see how they arrived at these figures. April was dead because of the volcano and there are still empty seats in all the bars now, despite the fact we are being told the contrary. Still economics has never been my strong point, so what would I know? He is always a good live turn and gave me plenty to dance to. The music he played on this occasion was obviously tailored more to Sandra’s taste than mine (I know, how selfish of her) but I can dance to anything – even the Mavericks and that song winds me up possibly more than MacDonald’s! It was lovely to see Carl, Sandra and Pat’s son, who was over for the party. He now lives in Hove, so I was also able to meet up with him when I was back there, where he took me to a pub that only serves road kill – but that is another story! He was his usual flamboyant self and had put a lot of effort into making the Barleymow look festive. Unfortunately, although I love to dance, dancing does not love me and partly due to the heat, partly due to my weight and partly due to the pain in my hip, as the sweat drips off me it makes me look like an amorphous soggy mass (or should that be mess?). Still I am not blind enough to think I am likely to pull even if I sit there pristine, so I might as well enjoy myself! For some reason though, it only seemed to be me and Carl who danced most of the night, along with Gill - who is involved with every dance activity in Cyprus – I think she only had tap, salsa and line dancing this week, so she needed a bit of freestyle on Saturday night - although other people did get up to join in on occasion. 

The other saga of the week has been that of the washing machine. As I said at the end of the last blog I had been unable to get any power to it. Lovely Charlie, the electrician – who used to be in an Abba tribute band, but that too is another story – came out to check that it wasn’t just me being thick and that there was no power. He firstly humiliated me by pulling the washing machine out with one hefty pull, after I had spent hours pulling and fussing at it. He checked the plug; he took off the top of the machine and checked the electrics inside. He could find nothing wrong with it at all, but still we could get no power to come on. By this time I was running out of clothes. I had no idea how I was going to get to the launderette as, although it is only a 15 minute walk away, I would not be able to walk there carrying a bin bag full of clothes. My trusty steed Laurenciou had been stolen while I was away – although what anyone wanted with a rusty old trike that is prone to punctures is beyond me – so I didn’t even have that option. I had been worried about how I was going to collect my water from the old posimo nero machines, but Davide had found an old trolley in his cupboard and Gill had found a bungee cord, so I had managed to go and get that without too much trouble, but a big bag of washing was another thing. In the end Sandra came to the rescue. She said she would pick me up to take me to the coffee morning on Thursday and we could drop it in on the way. The lovely lady in the launderette (which sounds like a Beatles song) dropped it off to me at the Charity Shop on Friday afternoon and so Gill gave me a lift home with it. I truly am very fortunate in the people that I have around me. Anyway, to get back to the washing machine, two Cypriot repairmen turned up first thing on Monday morning, switched it on and it worked perfectly! Their English was not brilliant and my Greek is pathetic, so they left just thinking I was completely barking (probably very astute of them), completely oblivious to my comments of: ‘but even the electrician couldn’t get it to bloody work!’ And before I give Charlie a bad name, he is the man who fixed my extractor fan and who is well known around here for being very good at what he does. So what was wrong with it remains a complete mystery. In line with the oneness of life and its environment, I seem to have the only washing machine with ME. It was just too tired to work and when it felt rested enough it started again!

I managed to give the bus service a try again yesterday, as it was time to pay my bills. It has already shrunk from its over-optimistic beginnings. There is now no bus to Larnaca Airport as the taxi drivers protested until it was removed. There are still circular buses, (that is buses that run on a circular route, not cylindrical buses!)  but they run fairly infrequently. Still, at least they are running at all, which is an improvement on none. It also enabled me to provide my service as Bodhisattva of The Bus Routes. I always think I look like a tourist, but there must be some invisible sign on my head that says: ‘ask her’. So, I provided my usual service of telling people not to worry that there hadn’t been a bus for a while, one would turn up when it was ready, along with my secondary facility of calling out to various people along the route: ‘this is your stop’, after they had asked me how they would know where to get off. It is nice to know that I can be useful for something as that is an issue that has been much on my mind lately. 

I have found myself at the edge of the pit this week, one short step away from plummeting into the darkness, but I will not allow this to happen. I have got that gnawing and nagging nervy feeling in my gut that I cannot assign to anything in particular. It is possibly just the time of year - the Autumn Equinox being the date that day and night are of equal length means that as from tomorrow the darkness starts to eat into the light.  It maybe just to do with my constant worry about money, but it seems to be more than that at the moment. I have taken a long hard look at myself, as I often do and, as is just as often the case, I have found myself wanting. Just what use am I? What is the point to me? There does not seem to be anything that I have the desire to do with my life. I have no urge to do anything apart from be free and to be in the sunshine and near the sea. That is not a career! I don’t have any ambition; I don’t feel drawn to do anything. All I want to do is read, and even then it needs to be what I am free to read – as soon as I am told I have to read something I lose all interest in it. As I have said money is a big worry to me at the moment, but I don’t even have the urge to do something in order to combat that. It seems to take all of my energy just to survive. I use up big spurts of energy, as on Saturday night, only to know that even now four days later, I am paying for having a few hours of fun. My life is incredibly fortunate in so many ways. I have an amazing existence in the scheme of things, but I look around me and I have to ask myself what am I contributing back for all that I receive? I know that comparison is pointless, but I see people working so hard and I feel worthless next to them. There must be something that I can do for all the wonderful people in my life. While I was back in the UK my mother and my brother helped me out no end, again! Yet what do I ever give to them in return? Unconditional love, and obviously I send out my prayers and chant for them every day, but that does not keep them in the luxury which they deserve in return for all they do for me. So what is the answer? I have no idea. It is one I will ponder on time and again, until something tangible turns up that I am good for. In the meantime I will use all that is fortunate in my life: the sea; the sun; the warmth and the amazing people that turn up around me wherever I go in the world to keep myself from the precipice. If it wasn’t for that fact that this has sunk me in the past I would just say it was PMT!

So au revoir chaps and here is a Japanese proverb for you: ‘We’re fools whether we dance or not, so we may as well dance.’ or as Samuel Becket said: ‘Dance first. Think later. That is the natural order.’ and obviously where I have been going wrong. More dancing and less thinking from now on!

MEDITERRANEAN MEANDERINGS

13TH SEPTEMBER 2010

Well here I am back in the sunshine and once again (comparatively) pain free. Not only that but the dust cloud has dispersed with the brief rain shower we had in the night and the hills are looking glorious from my balcony. They are so clear you can actually pick out details. The last time I was able to see them this clearly was in the spring when they were green and lush. Now they look sandy and sparse, but still magnificent. The ruined luxury hotels of Famagusta/Varocha stand out in the foreground and all along the coast you can pick out coastal villages. I truly am very fortunate to live here. 

As expected I broke my heart saying goodbye to my cat again and arrived at Gatwick Airport looking like Alice Cooper. She is such a beautiful animal and I feel awful that all she gives me is unconditional love and I come and go as I please. I know she is very happy having gone into luxurious retirement at my mum’s, I would never have left her without knowing she had such a good home, but this doesn’t decrease my misery at not having her company, which is the best company in the world. She is completely undemanding, incredibly independent and highly affectionate. She just makes herself comfortable and assumes that you will do the same, which is very relaxing. However, as stated in previous blogs I would not have an animal in Cyprus. It would be entirely selfish of me to bring her out here just for my own gratification as that would not take into account her needs in any way. So I have to take responsibility for my decisions and know that the price for having all the other wonderful things in my life is to have a Parkin-free existence. 

At this point I really should put in an apology to my brother. We have always had a very easy relationship (well easy in that we get on, rather than easy on him being my brother – which as you can imagine is incredibly hard work!) and part of this has been due to the absolute silliness of which we are both capable. So when I found myself in his kitchen the other day and heard his key in the lock it was just second nature to clamber into a cupboard. Unfortunately the second I jumped out at him with a roar of triumph I remembered that he had been having palpitations recently. Luckily for me (and probably more importantly luckily for him) he didn't collapse, as my first aid training hasn’t been updated for many years. We got him to the pub next door and a glass of red wine perked him up a bit, although he later told me that it was about three days before his heart rate went down – as he has to check on the monitor-thingy he has. It was incredibly difficult for me as I didn’t know which to do: laugh or apologise, so I compromised by doing both profusely for hours. Still, it is a slight comeuppance for all the times he jumped out at me while I was in the middle of my panic attacks! Sadly, this doesn’t make me feel any better and I still feel guilty. Mind you we all have to make sacrifices to the art of comedy, although Danny would be quite a big sacrifice to make. 

Coming back from the Robert Plant gig last week (don’t worry this isn’t going to be another panegyric on Percy Plant) my train got me into Portslade station at about half one in the morning. There are no buses at this time of night so I walked back to my mum’s, which is about a fifty minute walk (on my short little legs anyway). It is quite a pleasant walk in the dark, but it made me realise how quickly we become used to things. As I was walking up the High Street out of Portslade Old Village I looked up and saw an animal ahead. My first thought was ‘oh, another stray dog’. It took me a nano-second to realise it was a fox and that you don’t have stray dogs wandering around in the UK. Stray dogs are something my brain has got very used to seeing, whereas foxes aren’t any more, so that was the immediate story I put to the picture. If it is true of something as minor as that, how often must we do that on a daily basis with other things in our lives? Just presuming that something is what we think it is rather than taking the time to look more closely and see what it actually is. 

The other thing that confused me briefly when I got back to the UK was toilet paper. In Cyprus the pipes aren’t wide enough for you to be able to flush toilet paper down the loo so you put it in a bin next to the toilet. When I got off the plane at Gatwick I was very tired and I found myself in the toilet turning around in circles wondering where the bin was for the paper until I realised that I could just flush it away. Conversely when I got back I had to make a concerted effort to remember not to do the opposite. Luckily the majority of ladies’ toilets in Cyprus have big signs up advising you not to flush any paper, so I didn’t have to think hard. Maybe that is something that we should start in the UK – signs that say: ‘Oy, Johnny Foreigner, it is perfectly acceptable to put your paper in the lavatory’. 

It was lovely to see everyone back in the UK and to have done all the things that I managed to do, but I am relieved to be back here in the warmth. Although it also has to be said that everyone here has said that I went back to the UK at the right time as they have had the hottest summer here in ages. Apparently it has been unbearable. On more than one occasion there was a 95% humidity reading. Buddhist Sue who was staying at my flat for a while said that when she got into the car, which is in a covered parking bay, the thermometer read 49°. When we left the meeting in Nicosia yesterday it was 41° in the car and people have been saying how much cooler it is this week. So it probably was good timing, as without a car I would not have been able to get anywhere in that sort of tropical intensity. 

On the last few nights before I left the UK the pain in my hip became agonising again. I got very little sleep, partly because I could not lie on it and partly because I spent most of the night getting up to reheat the hot cherry stone pillows, which I always find to be the best pain relief. I said to my mother that it was definitely time for me to be leaving the country as my body had started to react to winter being on its way in. Here in this heat, as I said at the start, I am more or less pain free again. I am happy with more or less, I don’t expect ever to be completely pain free, but being able to walk, lie down, stand and most importantly function is pretty brilliant as far as I am concerned. In fact, one of the things that I love most about living here is walking outside and feeling the air literally swallow you with heat. It is like being wrapped in someone’s very warm arms and I, personally, find it very comforting and comfortable – although I am aware it is not everyone’s cup of tea. The warmth, also surprisingly gives me more energy, as when I am cold I spend the whole time curled up just trying to get warm and to stop my body from hurting, which is actually exhausting. So I feel a good couple of inches taller here as I am not walking hunched in on myself trying to get every atom of warmth into my bones that I possibly can. And, possibly the most vital thing that the sunshine adds to my life, is that it makes me smile. I look at the sun outside the window and my body immediately responds with pleasure, which in turn makes my mind understand that today it is worth getting up. There is joy and beauty in the earth that I often seem to lose sight of in the greyness, which is the bane of my life. 

Another thing that is very nice is that Buddhist Sue has moved to Kapparis in my absence (although whether she will move out of it now that I am back remains to be seen!). This is lovely because it means that we are able to do things without having to worry how the other one is going to get back across the island. It also means that there is someone nearby with whom I can do Gongyo, which is always nicer when performed with someone. On Friday evening she invited Chris and I to be with her while she enshrined her Gohonzon (the Buddhist scroll upon which we focus when we chant) in her new house. This was delightful and it is always nice to chant in a new place because, whatever else you think it is or it does or does not do, it irrefutably lifts the energy in that place. So, it was nice to share that. She also cooked us a beautiful meal and we sat under the trees in her garden drinking wine in the warm Mediterranean evening. How civilised! Although if you had heard our conversation you probably wouldn’t think we were at all civilised, but the three of us always laugh a lot when we are together, and as you probably know by now, this is of the utmost importance to me. Sue’s house is absolutely charming and is only a 15 minute walk from my front door, so adventures await. 

My frogs are still chirruping away – I am now thinking that they must be a permanent fixture and that I only imagined they weren’t here for the first few months of my residence. Unfortunately the mosquitoes are also still here and I have nice bites all over my feet and ankles again, which seem to be their favourite feast. 

It was also really nice to meet up with all my friends in the Pin last night for the pub quiz and quite frankly, as always seems to be the case, it didn’t feel as though I had ever been away. I am still working on being able to share my life between here and Totnes as having been fortunate enough to find two places in the world that between them are able to fulfil the majority of my needs, it would seem to be sensible to make the most of that. 

So I am now going to see if I can even begin to shift the washing machine, as I have been trying on and off for hours now. It has stopped working and although the isolation switch is on, that doesn’t necessarily mean (apparently!) that the plug is working, but I am afraid that although I am healthier than I have been for many years, I have not turned into Wonder Woman overnight and my ability to lift large appliances is still pretty much nil. I think the agents are just going to have to send me an electrician anyway. 

So au revoir for now filis-mou. My quote this week is from Samuel Johnson: ‘He that will enjoy the brightness of sunshine, must quit the coolness of the shade.’ Absolutely right Mr. Johnson. We cannot expect to enjoy the fruits of anything without taking the inherent risks. To get the gorgeous tan you must have been prepared to burn. If we want to remain in the coolness of the shade then we have to be prepared to not moan about those people who are revelling in the sunshine. So, all you beautiful people, cast off your overcoats and come with me to dance in the sunshine and leave behind the shadows. Go on – you know you want to!

MILE OAK MUTTERINGS

5TH SEPTEMBER 2010

As you can imagine my last week or so in the UK has been hectic. There has been so much to fit in before I drag myself back to the sunshine. Still I expect I will cope when I have to go back on Wednesday.

I have talked before about my deep love for the Isle of Wight, in fact as their own advertising so aptly says “I Love Wight”. So my mum and I decided to have a day out. She hadn’t gone to the island by public transport since the 1970s and in all her visits in my lifetime she has had to drive round, and hence not been able to just enjoy the views. So off we trolled to catch the train and the catamaran. Unsurprisingly it was grey and drizzly when we left, but if we were going to wait for a sunny day we might never have gone. However, the Isle of Wight has never let me down yet and true to form the sun came out as the tide came in. We had lunch in Cowes and no matter where I travel around the world it is still one of my favourite places. The whole vista of the mainland stretches out in front of you with yachts, ships and lively sea filling the middle ground until you reach the beautiful stone walls of the esplanade that frame the entire picture. There is also a particular smell to the Solent. No other sea in the world smells the same. I don’t know if it is a certain type of seaweed, but it is unmistakeable and I love it. Although the sun had come out I did still have my pashmina underneath my snotty yachty waterproof which was done up to my nose because the wind was so cold – it does have to be said that my mother thought that I was being a wimp, but then she had found Cyprus too warm in April, when I still had my cardigan firmly on. 

On Monday I met up with my ex-husband for a drink. We hadn’t seen each other for about 4 years so it was lovely to catch up with him. The last time we saw each other we were trying to sort out who was going to divorce whom and I was in the middle of a nervous breakdown, so it hadn’t been the most salubrious of meetings. I had heard he was living back in West Sussex and, while trying to clear some things out of my mum’s attic, I had found some of his stuff that I didn’t know was still around. I thought, therefore, that this might be a nice opportunity to erase any tension that may have remained between us. We decided to meet in a pub in Portslade Old Village called The Stag as this was between our two bus routes. He was there when I arrived and he indicated that he was going to drink up so that we could leave the place immediately. Sadly Brighton had been host to an EDL (English Defence League) march on Monday (although to be fair only fifty people had shown up to take part in that, while 200 people turned up to protest against them, so well done Brighton) and some of the stragglers had arrived in The Stag who, when ordering a drink, had requested ‘anyfing as long as it ain’t black’. We thought it probably wouldn’t be a good way to begin the evening if one of us started a fight with someone at the bar for being an ignorant pig. While we are on the subject – how can they be the English Defence League when they can’t speak the English properly that they purport to be defending, or is that just me being picky? As I have said many times: ‘I may be common, but I am not a peasant!’ Anyway, we tried the pub a couple of doors up - The George. I hadn’t been in there since I was a teenager but I swear they used to at least have carpets! So after a drink in there we decided to try the Battle of Trafalgar which was about ten minutes walk away. I had noticed by this point that the theme of the evening did seem to be jingoistic pub names. We finally settled in here as we couldn’t be bothered to wander any further, but when I went to the toilet I did see that the doors were still the ones where you had to put pennies in the slot. Portslade as Brighton and Hove’s dodgy relative - surely not. The long and the short of the evening was that Simon and I were able to part on good terms and it doesn’t matter if we see each other next week, or not again for 50 years, we can do so now with no bad blood between us. I may be unusual in this but I cannot see the point of antagonism between people after they have split up. Yes, there is the initial anger, after all if there wasn’t a problem you would still be together. But when that has passed then you have to remember that this person shared your life for no matter how long or short a space of time and therefore you must have cared about them at some point. You don’t have to see them regularly but it is nice to know how they are doing. I feel like that about all the people who have come and gone in my life, whatever the relationship. You may both move on and thus not need the relationship any more, but that doesn’t mean you don’t want them to have a pleasant life. The evening was also an agreeable reminder as to why we got together in the first place, as when you have split up with someone it is very easy to wonder what on earth you saw in them. Don’t get me wrong I do not want to get back with Simon and I know that would be the last thing he would want either, but we had a good laugh together and that is not something to be sniffed at. 

I was chatting to Simon about the blog and I said to him you do know that as I am going to see Robert Plant this week, you will have a much smaller paragraph than him (no change there then I could see him thinking), but I do seem to have wittered on for a while. Not like me I know!

So – Robert Plant. I could so easily have called this week’s blog Ponderings on the Plantmeister or some such thing and used up every single word just talking about his voice and stage presence, but when it comes down to it, there is so little to say that can even convey a small part of the effect that he has on an audience just by walking on stage. You have to experience it to know. He can raise an eyebrow and the whole crowd just sway with him. I have to say that I am a huge Led Zeppelin fan but I am with him wholeheartedly in his refusal to regroup. I would give a limb to have been able to see Zep at their height, at which time I was about 2 years old, but it was over 30 years ago. These people (apart from Mr. Bonham obviously who is no more) are all still fabulous musicians but you cannot, whatever walk of life you are in, do the same things in your 60s as you can in your 20s and 30s. You may be able to do better things, or different things, but not the same things. Robert Plant’s voice has mellowed and matured and listening to ‘Since I’ve Been Loving You’ in the car the next day it is obvious that he would not sound right doing the visceral wailing that he did then. His timbre is deeper for a start. It must also be galling to be remembered for only 12 years of your professional career when you have since had 30 years of a successful solo career. During the concert there were the obvious calls of ‘just one more concert with Jimmy, go on’ and he just laughed and said ‘Ah...England!’ He is respected all over the world for his music, but as per our very British psyche we like to live in the past. I may not have liked everything he has done as a solo artist but that is just from sheer individual musical taste and not an indication of the quality, which has always been brilliant. However, I totally understand his need to constantly be trying something new and not getting stuck in a rut. 

The ‘Band of Joy’ group and album, for which this was the preview concert, has a sound that I can only describe as heavy bluegrass, although this doesn’t really begin to cover it. It is very blues and gospel based, but it still rocked. I struggled with some of the more country aspects of the concert, but again we are back to taste. He took a back seat for some of the show too as the Band of Joy consists of six musicians and Buddy Miller in particular was fabulous with Planty on harmonica. Patty Griffin also has a great voice and their duet on ‘Monkey’ was amazing. He did perform some Zeppelin tracks, but he chose ones that suited his voice and which had been rearranged to give them a new feel. ‘Houses of the Holy’ was stupendous, but as always it was ‘Gallows Pole’ that brought the house down. Most importantly though, you could see that he was enjoying himself and quite frankly the audience reaction was secondary, which I think is as it should be. Going out there every night and doing the same songs for 45 years in a tired fashion does not actually give the audience what they want despite the fact that they think it is. What we want to see is Robert Plant the singer, not an automaton - which is what could have happened had he not chosen to constantly explore new avenues. Also, of course, it has to be said, that even at 62 he is still gorgeous, with his flowing mane of hair and beard speckled with grey which just serves to accentuate the crags. Attractiveness, for me anyway, has never come from pretty boy handsomeness, it is all to do with the life in the eyes; the charisma; the voice and the intelligence that a person exudes which all come together to form a whole. I have no interest whatsoever in Robert Plant as a person. I don’t care about his politics (although I am pretty certain he is not a member of the BNP!), where he does his shopping, who he is currently married to, or any other of the minutiae that seem to make up celebrity magazines. One of the things that I have to say always disconcerts me when I see him live is the amount of middle-aged, middle-class men that seem to be unable to control themselves from shouting out: ‘I love you Robert’. Bless them. As he has famously said: ‘you know, people can’t fall in love with me just because I am good at what I do.’ Yet as a culture don’t we try and do just that. All I know is that over the last 25 years the sound of his voice has cheered me when I have been in the darkness, which is more often than I care to remember right now; and perhaps more importantly when I have been in the light he has provided the soundtrack to my life and made the light shine brighter. However, I think what said it all about the concert was a remark I overheard as we were walking back to Kentish Town Tube station. Someone said with great relief: ‘well, that was better than Bon Jovi!’ Talk about damning with faint praise! 

So, I have run out of space again and I haven’t discussed the day spent watching Aidan and Luke play cricket on Southwick Green while Stuart, Becky, Carl and Natalie made me rock with laughter. Or the family tea we organised on Wednesday where Aidan and I (as the two youngest, although at 34 I really should start associating with the grownups rather than the 10 year old, but I think he speaks more sense) hid in the kitchen. Each time we took a drink out, or some food, we were taking the mickey out of how often war was discussed. He would come running into the kitchen and whisper '27 seconds that time’. Obviously I remained out of the conversation as I didn’t want to start an argument; until I could bear it no longer and had to state that it took just as much courage, if not more, to be a conscientious objector, as you are being vilified by your own side as well as the enemy. At which point the garden became very quiet and I went back indoors to giggle with Aidan. 

So just to end my Plant-themed prevarications, here is a quote from ‘The Battle of Evermore’ that fits in here quite nicely: ‘The pain of war cannot exceed the woe of aftermath.’ and I think that has never been more apparent than the age in which we now live, where we are trying to pick up the pieces in a world ravaged by constant war and suffering.

MILE OAK MUTTERINGS

25TH AUGUST 2010

Bomb the Bass once sang about ‘Winter in July’ – what madness, people cried and yet here we are in the middle of winter in August. One good thing about gale force winds is the fantastic waves. I expect it is a surfer’s paradise at the moment. Driving back along the coast road from Alfriston on Monday we could see the waves crashing over the walls of Brighton Marina and the ruin of the West Pier always looks far more striking and eerie against a backdrop of gunmetal grey waves, which crest and crash over its poor withered frame. I think this is why the prettiness of the English countryside does very little for me. It is pretty, I can see this rationally, but I think that true beauty, as opposed to prettiness, is found in things which are more dangerous - such as the raging sea, which, to personify it, would be horrified at being called ‘pretty’. 

My life is of a far different nature here in Mile Oak than it is elsewhere. I think it is partly because all of us tend to revert to type when we are with family or old friends. It has long been a cliché in film that the violent and evil criminal can’t stand up to his own mother (although it has to be said that my mother is a sausage). I find myself reacting to things in the way I would have reacted 20 years ago because that is how people are expecting me to react. When I actually react as the Catherine I now am, rather than the stunted, tired and repressed Catherine I once was, it takes people by surprise and they become uncomfortable. We all have characterizations of people in our heads and when they change we baulk against that, because, and this is the cruncher, it means that we may need to change to accommodate them and the majority of us are terrified of change. Another cliché, in novels in particular, is that of the parent who after being with one partner for many years suddenly finds themselves single for some reason or another and starts to behave in a different way. How appalled the ‘children’ always are by their embarrassing parent’s behaviour, woe betide that their dad or mum should finally start having interests or opinions outside those that they have had hitherto; and definitely woe betide a person growing. It would be easier if we all remained stunted and never changed. It is tiring fighting against this and I am blowed if I am going to pretend that I am someone who quite frankly the real me never was in the first place. My opinions are treated as bizarre by some members of my family, or friends, yet little do they take into account that I actually find their opinions bizarre. In fact I find some of their ideas pretty gruesome, yet because these particular ideas are in line with the current media propaganda it must be my ideas that are wrong or outlandish. So because I dare to think or say something that the general populous might disagree with this automatically makes me mad or weird. Personally I think that hatred is weird; not caring about the planet we live on – utter madness; and closing our eyes to the world around us and the effect we have on the rest of the human race absolutely bonkers – but what would I know. I am, after all, completely barking!

Saying that, I have been doing some nice things whilst I am back in Sussex. I went to meet a friend in Arundel for lunch last week, which was lovely. Arundel is a very pretty town with a castle and a cathedral that dominate its winding streets and indeed the countryside for miles around. My sister's mother-in-law has also arrived to stay for a while from South Africa, so we went  to have lunch in Alfriston for her birthday. This is a beautiful little village which nestles in the South Downs, near Cuckmere Haven. The oldest pub there has had a license since 1397. All the buildings are hundreds of years old and are built in the local flint. This, although being pretty, has a very grey effect and thinking about it I wonder if that is why I associate Sussex so much with greyness, as flint buildings are everywhere. On the way home we drove by the Long Man of Wilmington. This is a giant figure that has been cut into the chalk; however, there is much controversy over whether this is actually Neolithic or from a much later period. Whichever it is it is very impressive as it is 69 metres high. Nearby the village of Litlington has its own white horse carved into the hillside, although this is definitely 19th Century it doesn’t make it any less attractive. 

Also, in honour of the South African visitors, we went on a hay ride over the Downs from Mile Oak Farm on Saturday. We all turned up in the pouring rain in the morning as, being British, we weren’t going to be deterred by the weather – we had made an appointment and dammit we were going to keep it. The top of the Downs were shrouded in mist and I couldn’t help but say to all the dripping people: ‘look, I’ve got a certificate to say I’m mental, what’s your excuse?’ The farmer, Mr. Cross, appeared to agree with me and suggested we came back later in the day when he might actually be able to see to drive his tractor! So, we trolled back up the farm in the afternoon when it was relatively dry and the mist had cleared. We sat ourselves down on the bales of hay in the trailer at the back and started our odyssey over the hills. What we had all forgotten, and I certainly hadn’t realised, was that it was the Shoreham Airshow that day. So from our vantage point heading up Southwick Hill – from where on a clear day you can see the Isle of Wight (unsurprisingly we couldn’t quite see that far on Saturday!) – we got a free air display. It was commemorating the 70th anniversary of the Battle of Britain, which my father (aged 7 at the time) had watched from Whitehawk Hill the other side of Brighton. So, we had Spitfires and Hurricanes darting around over our heads. We did tell the South African contingent that we always arranged flypasts for our visitors, but I am not sure they believed us. As you can imagine I wasn’t terribly comfortable with the whole war plane thing, so I paid very little attention to them. Besides, there was real beauty to be seen back down on the earth. There was a kestrel hovering over its prey; beautiful horses; the old dew ponds at which the shepherd’s used to water their sheep and once we were atop the Downs the whole of the Bay from Brighton to Worthing stretched out before us, with the rolling Sussex countryside bringing up the rear. Why on earth would I want to look at metal weapons of war spinning about above me? This, you will not be surprised to hear, is one of my weird and outlandish views!

On Thursday I went to the Komedia with my brother to see Steve Hughes. He was the main act, but there were also other acts. The Komedia do this every week with different comedians. The first spot is given to someone fairly established, then the middle shorter spots are given to people who are up and coming, or who need to practice new material, with the final spot being taken by someone better known, all ably and amusingly emceed by Stephen Grant. All this for £8.50! Bargain; get yourself down to the Komedia! Anyway, Steve Hughes was brilliant. I was with him every step of the way. He was very effective in that he made us laugh until we were nearly sick and then started highlighting some issues which made the room quiet and uncomfortable, before making us laugh again. My brother, although he thoroughly enjoyed it, found this quite difficult, but I said to him that people don’t ever think about things until they are brought to a point of discomfort. Until then they carry on with their everyday lives and don’t care about the consequences. I mean, just look at J. B. Priestley’s ‘An Inspector Calls’ – case closed, I am sure you will agree! However, what I found most bodacious (I know, a tad American for me, but I love the sound of the word, although you do feel you need to add ‘dude’ to it really) about Mr. Hughes’ act was his closing sequence on all time being an illusion. This is something I harp on about a lot. I seem to spend most of my life trying to explain the fact that time is holographic and just something that gives our lives framework, but that it doesn’t actually exist. People have been known to take the mickey out of me quite frequently when I ask what time it is: ‘what do you mean what time is it, all time is now, right?’ Which isn’t helpful when I am on the way to an appointment! Anyway, Steve Hughes has now given me the phrase: ‘look have you ever seen an animal wearing a wristwatch?’ That and: ‘the future is a fucking concept, deal with it!’ Absobleedinglutely Steve! So, I would be eternally grateful to him, but in that there is no eternity, just this constant dimension that we are all living in at the present, I will just be grateful ... now! Quantum physics, Buddhism, Mysticism, modern psychology – take your pick, but they all agree that time is a fallacy. 

As you can imagine, fitting in catching up with people and doing all that I have been doing has led to a fair amount of collateral damage. So, I have also spent quite a while (well, when I say quite a while I mean no time at all really, but it seemed like ages!) lying on the sofa. I had forgotten just how comforting it is to lie there with my cat. I know I haven’t mentioned Parkin since I got back, but I do adore that cat. Within minutes of my return she was sitting with me and purring, her head against my cheek, as though we had never been parted. (Which we hadn’t, because she is a cat and all she knows is that I am here right now – oh blimey, this is getting involved!) We are inseparable once more and she is the best company in the world. So, I am going to break my heart all over again when it comes to leaving her. Last time I didn’t stop crying until half way over France! My mother and my brother saw me off at the airport and I was being quite dispassionate saying goodbye to them, after all they are only a Skype away these days, but I was sobbing my heart out over the cat. ‘If anything happens to her, let me know and I will be on the first plane back’ and my last words as I exited towards the departure gate: ‘take all my love to Parkin’. I know, pathetic really, but she is just a huge ball of gorgeousness and unconditional love. 

Reading back over last week’s blog, I found I wanted to say something about the people I have met in Cyprus. I was raving about Totnes, because I love it and its people so, but I also love Cyprus and the people I know there. I need both. Without all the amazing people I have met in Cyprus, who amongst many things have taught me the following fabulous lesson: its fine to have fun just for the sake of having fun. This is something my puritan soul has always struggled with and now I understand what the point of pleasure is. Without this lesson coming from all the wonderful people out in the sunshine I would not be able to appreciate the life of the mind and soul that Totnes offers me. Yet, without Totnes having taught me all that it indubitably did I would not have been ready to learn the lesson that Cyprus was waiting to teach me. So thank you, all of you and a big thank you to all the lovely people here, who put up with my chameleon-like behaviour every time I come back. There are a hardcore group of people, who know who they are, that I would welcome anywhere in the world and who have coped with me through all my incarnations. Bless you all, you are all Sausages First Class (which are obviously vegan sausages, because they are non-violent and not full of balls!) 

I was going to end with Albert Einstein’s quote: ‘The only reason for time is so that everything doesn’t happen at once.’ but I’m not going to. Instead I am going to go with Douglas Adams, who is just fab on a stick, and who said: ‘Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so.’ I would say that I would write the next one in about a week, in which I will deal with the fact that nothing in the universe exists until we take notice of it, but thankfully the fact is that it is probably already written and you’ve all read it already, so we can all go down the pub instead!

TOTNES TITTERINGS

15TH AUGUST 2010

Ah Totters, Totters, Totters! I am afraid I spent so much time tittering in Darling Totnes that I am only just writing this now, back in the still of Mile Oak. However, I will come back to that in a minute as I have the small matter of Gay Pride to get through first.

Well, to coin a cliché, I was incredibly proud to have been at the Gay Pride Parade. It was fabulous as always. It was a riot of colour, music and political statement. I am afraid I had a tear in my eye on a regular basis as I felt so moved by what had been achieved in tolerance over even the last twenty years. The RAF felt able to have their first float this year and what a huge step forward that is. The dogs in the crowd were just as well dressed as their owners and were a vision in pearl necklaces, fairy wings and tutus. Yet, what I think is great about it is that it is a family day out. People were there with their children, all enjoying the fairground rides, the music and the atmosphere. There were thousands of people filling Preston Park and it was wonderful that in one place you could see such smiling, tolerance and love as nobody had any judgement about anyone else. Straight, gay, lesbian, bi-sexual, transsexual, transvestite or hermaphrodite it genuinely didn’t matter. Still I think the thing that moved me the most about the whole event was the group of teenage boys I saw. These 13/14 year olds were obviously straight, but a couple of their friends were just as obviously gay and it was of supreme indifference to them. They were all just friends together having a fun day out. Now how many places in the world can you see a young teenage boy being totally accepted for being gay without being bullied? Sadly the answer is very few indeed. Stonewall are running a campaign at the moment which has been written by schoolchildren and it very baldly states: ‘some people are gay, get over it!’ which just about says it all really. 

On Sunday I was at my nephew’s 10th birthday party. It was quite strange as most of my family (from great aunt down to nephew, taking in various aunties, uncles, cousins and old family friends on the way) were there. I am seen as the anomaly in the family – nobody knows quite where to place me, or even what I really am as I don’t fall into any convenient box, aside from the one marked ‘nutter’. You can see that some of them have panic in their eyes as they do not know quite what to say to me and I, to be frank, have even less idea what to say to them, so end up rambling incoherently, thus proving their point. Yet, there are many there it was great to see and with whom to catch up. On his birthday, slightly earlier in the week, Aidan had been showing me his presents and I found myself unsure whether I was in Southwick in 2010 or in a Surrealist gathering in 1920s Paris. I know I am out of the real world but quite honestly I think mine is more rational – and that is really worrying! My mum had given him ‘Dragon Quest 9’ for the DS and after he had explained to me what a DS was (with much exasperation and raising of eyebrows as if he couldn’t believe that anyone could be that stupid – fair point!) he started playing it. With complete sang-froid he announced to me that he needed to put on his celestial stockings as the Cruelcumber was coming. I mean, really, I mean! And they say I come out with some new age rubbish, well I aver at this point that the world I live in is nowhere near as bizarre as that. When I asked him on Sunday how his celestial stockings were he replied with a completely straight-face that he had sold them and brought a hairband instead! Still, Dadaist leanings aside, Aidan is a lovely boy and the two of us went out for sushi last night as we both love Japanese food and I had a very entertaining evening with him. 

So, now, back to Gorgeous Totters! Well, I have to say it gave me a great shock. I discovered that there was a part of the UK that I can’t live without. I was staying at the Bay Horse at the top of town. This is run by my friends Kathy and Rob and it is fabulous. It is a listed building and full of atmosphere. As you walk out of the front door and into the Narrows the castle dominates the skyline behind. Strangely, for a military structure, it seems to watch over the town in a benign manner rather than exuding the air of Norman menace that so many castles still have a millennium later. You wind your way down the street passing all the shops that announce their goods are free of parabens, or are home-grown, organic, fair-trade – i.e. non-commercial. These shops are also mostly individual traders; there are very few chain stores in Totnes. There are still two independent record shops – one of which proudly announces in the window that it is a ‘Simon Cowell free zone’. There are butchers, bakers and greengrocers and, a favourite to many Totnesians: ‘The Happy Apple’ which is a general store, but which sells necessary things like Kombucha and carob-covered dried bananas alongside cornflakes and cola. Most important for me, however, is books! Well quelle surprise I hear you sigh. There is obviously the Totnes Bookshop, which is fantastic, but it is the charity shops that make me so excited. Totnes charity shops do not survive on donations of Danielle Steel, Dan Brown and Catherine Cookson. Totnesians seem to have a love of words and a love of recycling which leads to the charity shops being full of (no there is no other word to describe it) literature, as well as easy reading. I have been looking for ‘Bitter Lemons’ by Lawrence Durrell for a while. It was written in the mid 1950s when Durrell was living in Bellapais near Kyrenia in Northern Cyprus and is quite difficult to track down. The first charity shop I walk into in Totnes there it is waiting for me! E.M Forster shares a shelf with Elizabeth George and Khalil Gibran brushes shoulders with Patricia Cornwell – so whatever your predilection there is something for you. 

However, what I love about Totnes the most is the people and hence the conversations I have there. I feel I am constantly learning. There are talks on various topics on almost a nightly basis, depending on your interests; and workshops galore. These workshops also vary from learning practical skills such as woodcraft, through serious talks on quantum physics  or the environment to the more esoteric angel workshops and you find your own level of interest and comfort and, probably most importantly, enjoyment. I used to go to a weekly tarot group when I lived there and they had kindly asked me to attend while I was back in town. The ladies who make up this group are some of the most beautiful people in the world. In some ways it is more of a circle of support than a class. We did our opening meditation together and as I held the hands of Charlotte and Pascale, who were sitting either side of me, I felt immense love and peace such as is very rare in this day and age. Evelyn, who is our teacher and is wise in so many ways that seem to encompass psychology and compassion as much as tarot (which is only one of her many strings anyway), always leads us on such wonderful journeys together and I always leave feeling uplifted. What is important is that these ladies are also very down to earth and practical people who live and work in the so-called ‘real’ world every day – you do not have to be fey to seek for knowledge. 

I was also very pleased to be able to get to a talk given by David (who some of you may know as Og from ‘Og’s Blog’). As always it was full of interesting information with occasional arcane knowledge thrown in as an added bonus. Plus, of course, I was able to meet up with Bob and Barb to do evening gongyo and get some great chanting in. 

I met up socially with the tarot ladies too and indeed not a day went past when I was there that I didn’t get together with at least two or three people from my dark and dingy past –I wish I could talk about each and every meeting as it was so lovely to see everyone and chat about such varying things. I think about how bizarre people thought my conversation was when I first moved to Cyprus but it is so normal to make a comment such as: ‘well it’s not surprising really as his Venus is conjunct Saturn’ in Totnes that you forget that other people don’t speak that way. I have rarely had a conversation about energy and vibration anywhere else on the planet and telling people that their Chakras need realigning can cause complete incomprehension! 

The pub conversation in the Bay Horse late at night is also fantastic. It is a pub that attracts many sorts of people, but rarely the hard-drinking louts, who tend to stick with the Bull over the road. So, it felt so wonderful to be able to be in a conversation where one minute we were being incredibly silly and laughing over something inane and seconds later to be quoting Goethe at each other. My friend Wesley impressed me greatly one night as after 5 pints and at twenty to one in the morning he still managed to use the word ‘recidivist’ in general conversation and completely unselfconsciously. Well done Wes! On Friday night David (Og) a Cornishman born and bred and Bob (local historian and Ghost Walk leader), a Devonian through and through, were having a very friendly competition about whether certain folk stories were Cornish or from Devon and they both burst into song. No one else in the pub batted an eyelid. I can’t imagine that happening in many places. 

The Devon burr is also very comforting. I was sitting at the bus stop when I heard someone mutter into their mobile phone: ‘where’s Geoff to?' and I smiled at the complete gobbledegook of this statement that makes complete sense in this part of the UK. Another lovely thing I had managed to crowbar in was to come back from Dartmouth by river instead of by bus and this meant that I got to see a Grey Seal as we headed upriver past Sharpham. How absolutely wonderful. 

Here is what I suppose gave me the biggest shock. I was homesick for Totnes. This completely amazed me. It is very strange as I had spent my time on Sunday answering people (totally honestly so I thought) that there was nothing I missed about the UK and that I was happy in Cyprus. This is true to a certain extent. I do not miss the landscape – I can see it is beautiful but I feel more at home in the dry and barren sandiness than I do in lush greenness. I do not miss Britain as such at all. What I realised I missed was Totnes itself: the constant learning and vibrant conversation. It is my spiritual home. But what I also realised  was that what I wanted to do was to lift Totnes bodily and put it down in the Mediterranean. I do not need the rest of England that surrounds it at all. I know that without the sunshine of Cyprus; getting to see the sea every day; being free from aches and pain; and the general fun of my life there I would go back to being the walking misery I was before. A number of people came up to me while I was in the town and said ‘are you the lady who moved to Cyprus?’ When I said that I was they told me that they hadn’t been sure as I looked so much happier and healthier than I did before and that my eyes in particular were full of life instead of pain and unhappiness. 

I need both temporal and spiritual stimulation in my life. I need a down to earth life and a life of the mind and the soul. To risk sounding incredibly Totnesian this is the constant battle between my Aries sun and my Scorpio moon. The long and the short of it is I have understood that my life needs to be balanced; I have to find the middle way. I cannot give up Cyprus as a home in winter because I have never been this healthy in my life, but to keep myself sane and to keep up with my constant need for information and growth I need Totnes as a home in the summer because apart from anything else it reminds me every time that no matter what the question is, love is the answer. So, thinking caps on chaps and solutions by return email please! 

I think the answer for me might well lie in this quote from Howard Thurman: ‘Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go and do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.’ I want to be alive  and not merely surviving and for me the recipe is equal amounts of sun, sea, laughter and knowledge and I know the nearer I get to getting the recipe right the more I am able to give back to the world and, despite appearances at many times in my life, I know I have a hell of a lot to give.

MILE OAK MUTTERINGS

5th AUGUST 2010

Sorry this is late but for my first few days back in the UK I was mired in a swamp of lethargy and apathy, which began as we descended into the clouds over the English Channel and emerged into a shower over Kent. I am now starting to acclimatize back to my surroundings and becoming a bit less of a miserable old witch. 

The studied contrast I presented as the Catherine who boarded the flight in Larnaca in the midst of a humidity warning as the heat was due to hit 45° and the Catherine who alighted at Gatwick with a pashmina wrapped firmly round her shoulders and hunched up against the cold air was vast. It is as though all my positivity drained away as soon as I entered UK airspace – what is that all about? The night before I left the people in the pub were laughing at me because Greek Air Traffic Control were on their annual strike and that day the flights had been delayed 15 hours. ‘Don’t even think about it’ I had declared. ‘They would not dare to delay my flights that long. My flight will go as planned. In fact I’m not having it any other way.’ This obviously amused them even more but as we boarded the flight with only a 20 minute delay I still felt positive. The pilot explained that they had managed to re-route the flight around Greek airspace and therefore the flight would take slightly longer. This only turned out to be about 40 minutes and was much better than 15 hours in the airport. However, this didn’t stop half the passengers moaning about it – but plus ça change! The flight was completely full except for the two seats next to me, so I had three seats to myself and hence a very comfortable flight looking through the clear skies to the plains of Turkey and the forests of Bulgaria and Croatia. When I wasn’t looking at the sights I was reading ‘Paperweight’ by Stephen Fry. It was a good job I was sitting alone as I kept giggling out loud. This had already occasioned a number of conversations in the airport lounge as people wanted to know what I was reading. Still I managed to get on the flight without being carted away. So it was with surprise that the familiar stress, irritation and panic started to hit me as we waited nearly an hour at Gatwick for our baggage, which seemed to be dribbling along the conveyor belt one suitcase at a time. My brother phoned me from the arrivals lounge to find out if I had been refused entry back into the country and I snapped at him. Yet I still felt positive as I came out and saw him and much to his disgust jabbered at him all the way down the M23. 

The trouble began the next day when I opened my eyes and instead of sun and sea I saw greyness and the roof opposite. So I shut my eyes again. When I did get up I had to put on a jumper and my pashmina despite everyone telling me it was warm. So already I wasn’t in top form – as you know from my previous blogs cold and grey are my two least favourite things on earth, even MacArseholes and Nestle don’t depress me as much, even together in the same sentence, and that is saying something! My poor mother then took me to Sainsbury’s. All I am saying is she should get a medal. Within seconds of being in there that old familiar friend of mine, the panicky claustrophobe, emerged from wherever she had been hiding for the last 8 months. By the time we left amidst my sobs of: ‘I just wanted olive oil, not 87 different bloody types of olive oil – why is it so difficult’ and trying to remember when I had last seen so many people in one place pushing and shoving and generally being ignorant (what is it about English people when they get behind a shopping trolley – they seem to lose all decency and think it is perfectly ok to barge into anyone they like without apology) I was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. So as soon as I got back to my mother’s I decided I had to escape on a bus. I was hoping to get away without having to talk to anyone as I was not in a good place and I was going out before I snapped (even more) at my mother. So when two very old friends and neighbours kindly stopped to say ‘are you pleased to be back’ I immediately answered ‘no, I wish my mother lived anywhere else.’ Needless to say I have spent the last few days beating myself up about this. There is no excuse, but if I had one it would be that I was tired, cold and trying desperately to adjust to the feeling of no escape that Mile Oak always engenders in me. 

At this point I should say a few words about Mile Oak. It is not a bad place. In fact if you are happy here it is a lovely place. It is surrounded by the South Downs on three sides and to the south of it is Portslade-by-Sea, so you are at the coast in ten minutes by car. With a few exceptions over the last 34 years the people here have been kind to me and my mum loves it. She grew up only a few streets away from her current house and never wants to leave it. Buses run every 10 minutes into Hove and Brighton and if you drive the other direction you find yourself in the glorious Sussex countryside. So, I hear you asking, what is my problem? This blog is too small to even begin to explore the many and varied issues I have had here over the course of my lifetime and, more than that, it would bore the arse off you. Suffice to say that I do not, and never have, felt at home here. It makes me feel small and suffocated. Yet, I say to you, these are my issues and Mile Oak should not be judged on my words alone. I will just point out that if the bloody sun came back out I might feel a bit better! 

The next day I caught the bus into Brighton and despite the fact that I would not want to come back permanently I do think that Brighton has so much of which it should be proud. When you grow up in a place you become blind to its attributes and it is only by dint of separation – having lived away in Totnes and then in Cyprus – that I can see those merits. Brighton is a truly cosmopolitan town. There are no rules and anyone can make their home here without fear of judgement. Growing up in the vicinity I had never noticed the variety of people who lived here. It is only since living firstly in predominantly white Devon and then in Cyprus, where strangely although there is a wide variety of nationalities living together there are very few non-caucasians, that I have noticed how global Brighton is. Sitting on the bus the other day I looked out of the window and within 20 people passing by the stop in Churchill Square I must have seen every race and creed. How wonderful is that. There was a woman in a sari chatting to a man with blonde dreadlocks piled high on his head in a bizarre fashion; a striking woman in full African dress holding hands with a Japanese man; youths of all colours dressed in the uniform of English Teenagers and none of them noticing their differences, because, and this is the crux of the matter, there is no difference. They are all just English teenagers out for the day enjoying themselves. An interview with a Brighton Alderman in Time Magazine from 1931 quotes him as saying: ‘In Brighton any man can sing anything – well almost anything – in any language he knows’ and this still holds true today. 

We are also in the midst of Gay Pride week in Brighton which will culminate in the now world famous parade this Saturday. This too is something that Brighton does so well, allowing people to come and be free in their sexuality without having to pander to people’s prejudices. It was always a refuge for Gay men in particular even when it was still a criminal offence and now a lot of the town’s vibrancy is due to the Gay community. Maybe growing up here has helped me to be free from prejudice, but I have never understood how it is a social death to love someone – anyone - but socially acceptable to hate, condemn and hurt. Surely love in any form is never wrong. I had to go and meet my Aunty Anne on Tuesday and was devastated to learn that this meant that I had missed Betty Swallocks’ Cabaret in Hove (although it was nice to see my Aunty Anne!). I am also going to miss the lesbian mud wrestling as that is on at the same time as my nephew’s birthday party at the weekend, but I will go to the parade and be proud that Brighton helped to change the attitudes of the world – although sadly there are still many people who for some bizarre reason feel threatened by people’s differences, and I have been on the receiving end of that myself on many occasions, but the world is changing and for that we should be grateful. 

Now we are all aware of the principle of Esho Funi – oh come on now you know you are! Well for the couple of you out there who aren’t I will explain. This is the principle that how you are feeling inside is reflected by your outer environment – obviously there is slightly more to it than that, but that is all you are getting right now! I had a prime example of Esho Funi on Sunday, having been brittle and snappy all day my front tooth cracked and broke in the evening! That’ll teach me – although I bet it doesn’t. I took my nephew out for the day on Tuesday and he was very kind in not being embarrassed by his gappy no-tooth old aunty. I managed to get an emergency appointment late Tuesday afternoon (busy day Tuesday!) and my brother, may 1000 blessings fall on his head, took me along there because, as is the story of my life – all together now – ‘it wasn’t on a bus route’. As we were sitting in the waiting room a sound like an almighty fart let rip. Danny and I looked at each other and both said ‘well it wasn’t me’ and started giggling like the grown-ups we indubitably are. The receptionist looked shame-faced and said that somehow the wind got under the flooring and regularly made that noise. At that point another woman came in and as she stood at reception the noise thundered through the room again. I don’t think mine and Danny’s roars of laughter helped alleviate the situation. When I came out of the dentist I found Danny examining the floor as the receptionist had said that if he could fix it my treatment would be free, sadly he is used to fixing trains and planes and not wooden flooring, but he did try. 

Just as a brief aside I think I became middle class for about 2 hours last Saturday. I went to watch my nephew, Aidan, and my friends’ son, Luke, play for their local cricket team. They were playing on Southwick village green and I fully expected Bertie Wooster and Lord Peter Wimsey to come out to bat at any moment. Luckily I finished the match as much of a socialist as I began, which was a relief. It was also pouring down, so no one brought out cucumber sandwiches and relaxed with their feet up and their panama hats tipped forward over their eyes, but it was probably the most English thing I have done in years. And don’t tell anyone, but I think I quite enjoyed it!

Anyway next week it will be Totnes Titterings, but I will leave you with a quote from Samuel Rogers, who was writing about Regency Brighton in 1829 when he said: ‘Brighton is still very gay and full of balls.’ Too right it is!

MEDITERRANEAN MEANDERINGS
24TH JULY 2010

As Andy Williams so aptly sang: ‘where do I begin to tell the story of how great a love can be...’ And I never do know where to begin to tell of my continuing love story with the sun and the sea. Once I am in the flow there is no stopping me, but as is the case with most people it is the opening sentence that flummoxes me. Still I have started now so I will get on with it.

I will get my now weekly bus update out of the way first. I am still finding it very useful, although there are obvious teething issues, which is inevitable for a change this big. I don’t think they yet have enough drivers to cover all the buses and it will take time for the drivers who used to have their own routes to realise they are now working to a set timetable and set route. They can’t just miss out a village anymore because they can’t be bothered to go that way this time. However, I am totally convinced they will get there. Unfortunately because it is always my way to put a positive slant on things and say how brilliant it is that it has even begun, there are some people who have gone to catch a bus and because they have had to wait as it hasn’t turned up when it said it would, or some other such hitch, have said to me: ‘well you said...’ Yes I did, but I have also been prepared to go and take the risk and try it out for myself and put up with all the inherent risks of getting stranded halfway across the island with no way home. Is it just me or do people have no sense of adventure? The minute something doesn’t go exactly to plan they go into panic mode. What is the point of living on a beautiful island in the gorgeous sunshine if you are going to moan? If there has been one thing I have learnt in my life it is that the more I moan, the more the universe gives me to moan about and conversely the more I smile the more there is to smile about. It is a common theme in my life that I have to pioneer and find things out for people. I remember going to meet my sister in Bristol for the day where neither of us had ever been before. I spent the whole day saying which bus stop we had to get off at and deciding in which direction to go. ‘How did you know this was the stop for the town centre?’ she asked. ‘Because there are shops’ I sagely replied!

One of the bus drivers that has been a regular on the bus route really seemed to have lost it last week. He has always been an ankle groper. So those of us who catch his bus frequently know to stand well back from his reach when letting him know you want to alight. He also has a habit of stroking your hand when he takes your money – which is pleasant. (I hope the sarcasm came across strongly there, I am never quite sure when I am writing whether you can hear my voice.) This week he went even further. To every woman who got on the bus aged from 12-102, of all shapes and sizes, with partners and without, he replaced his usual question of ‘yes please?’ to ‘sex please?’ Then when everyone was sitting down, usually looking very bemused, he started barking like a dog and purring like a cat. He would then shout out ‘sex please’ through his window at various women we passed. I have to say I found this highly amusing, but then I knew he was harmless as I have seen him regularly since I have been here. Those who had arrived in Cyprus the day before must have gone back to their hotels with a truly skewed opinion of Cypriot men. I mean, for Goodness Sake, what did he expect to happen? Did he really think that one of us would say: ‘well ok then. I’ve got nothing better to do and I was just thinking I could do with a jolly good rogering. Do you want to pull over here, or shall we just use the aisle?’ I was sorely tempted as I thought he could do with a bit of humbling as some of the women were looking decidedly nervous, but I reminded myself that this was a Middle Eastern country, albeit a very laidback one, and the sarcasm, once again, would get lost in translation.

Saying that, I never feel unsafe in Cyprus. I happily walk home from the pub in the early hours without a qualm. I have never felt threatened or worried in any way. Last Saturday I was, you will not be surprised to hear, a complete Dilbert. I took Scruffy for a walk as I needed to go to the bank to get some money out. When I got there the ATM wasn’t working, so Scruffy and I stopped for a drink of water and then headed up the hill to Orfanides (about a further 20 minutes walk). The temperature was in the late 30s and both of us were flagging by this point. I got to the next ATM only to find my purse was missing. Poor Scruffy looked incredibly cross by this point as she realised that I was about to drag her back down the hill again, as the only place I could have left my purse was at the bank back at the bottom of the road. If I had been on my own I would have carried on, but I couldn’t make Scruffy walk any further in that heat. So I rang Sandra and bless her within minutes she had sent Pat out to rescue me. We got back to the bank but my purse had already gone. So Pat drove me home where Scruffy refused point blank to get out of the car as she thought I was about to take her on another route march. Anyway the long and the short of it is that I behaved as a paranoid Englisher and immediately cancelled my bank cards. I felt incredibly protected as there wasn’t a penny in my purse to lose, as the evening before I had been to the shops where I found that the connection to the bank was down. Obviously this meant that I couldn’t use my card but had to use up every last scrap of cash I had on me. Pat and Sandra kindly lent me some money to last me until I could get to the bank on Monday with my passport (it being Saturday the branch was not open) so I ceased to worry about it as there was nothing I could do and I hadn’t really lost anything. The only problem was that I was due to be back in the UK in ten days and without a bank card I would not be able to get any money out while I was there – which to say the least would be irritating. About half past five that evening my phone rang. A lovely Cypriot couple had found one of my business cards in my purse and were asking how they could return it to me. It hadn’t occurred to them that I would rush out and cancel things; this is not the Cypriot way at all. They had gone to spend the day on the beach at Protaras and were only just on their way back in this direction, so hadn’t thought to ring before. They drove out of their way to get my stuff back to me. The lady said to me ‘Do you really do reiki; it must be my karma calling you to me.’ I thought trust me to get the only hippy Cypriots to find my purse – how wonderful! I thanked them profusely and told them they could have a free treatment any time. If I had trusted in the goodness of the people here I would not have given myself all the hassle of re-ordering my card, although that too did not turn out to be anything to worry about. When I explained my predicament to the lady in the bank on the Monday morning, she said that the card would probably take a few days to arrive, but that I shouldn’t worry. Friday morning I got a text to say that my card was ready to collect. I do love Cyprus.

Buddhist Sue and I went to get our cultural fix last Sunday evening as Frenaros was holding their Watermelon Festival. It was fabulous. The village square was filled with tables and chairs all heading towards a stage. As you entered (for free) you were given a huge tray of watermelon (also free). We elected to share one between us as there were also many other goodies on offer. We had kleftiko and then chocolate and vanilla crepes whilst watching the dancing. Sadly, we had to leave early and so missed the live music. We had heard them warming up earlier in the evening and they had sounded great. What more can you ask for than sitting outside on a hot summer’s evening whilst being plied with good food and entertainment. Did I mention that I love Cyprus?

On the complete opposite end of the cultural scale I went to see Bobby Lee, the drag act, at the Corner Pin the night before. This too was a fun evening out. The Pin were doing a fish and chip supper which, I have to say, was extremely tasty. Being the token southerner I managed to give everyone on my table a jolly good laugh by just saying the sentence: ‘do you know I have never eaten mushy peas before’. Looks of astonishment, followed by thick Derbyshire accents proclaiming what a posh, southern softy I was, came my way. They obviously don’t know my part of the country very well if they think that I am posh! Needless to say this has followed me around all week. Everywhere I go I am now greeted by people saying to me: ‘have you really never eaten mushy peas – you’ve never lived.’ I hate to break it to them but the likelihood of my ever eating a mushy pea again is extremely small.

On Tuesday I had been due to go to Kyrenia on a boat trip. I had been looking forward to this and I had somehow got it in my head that it was to celebrate Turkish Independence Day. It was only upon hearing the sirens last week that I put two and two together and realised that, despite it being called Freedom Day, it was actually to commemorate the 1974 invasion. Once again I will say that I do not want to take sides on the politics of this, but even so I could not bring myself to attend. If I had gone I would have had to go and ask for a large H, for Hypocrite, to be tattooed on my forehead. I spend my whole life speaking out against war and violence. I have refused to take part in Remembrance Day activities in the UK for years because I will not glorify the terror of war in any way. How uncomfortable would I have been watching a military fly by – I will leave that to you to work out. I also think that it would be incredibly insensitive of me, living where I do, to take part in something that to all extents and purposes celebrates a day on which nearly all my Cypriot neighbours lost if not family, then land and livelihoods. It would be like asking Germany to celebrate VE day, or the victims of Hiroshima to take part in VJ day activities. The day passed without comment on this side of the green line. As I said would be happening the sirens did go off early in the morning – similar to church bells ringing to signify the start of the two minute silence in the UK – but nowhere did it say what it was about. Indeed I spent a lot of the day explaining to bemused tourists why they had been awakened by the sirens as there was nothing anywhere to tell them. So, instead of being on a boat, which I love more than anything, with people I love and who are not involved in either side of the conflict, I spent the morning standing on my balcony facing the area of land that still bears the scars of that day and chanting. I chanted for the land to be loved again, for the people to remember that they are all Cypriots and to love each other without recrimination and for peace and reconciliation to come soon in spite of the power hungry politicians on both sides that seem to be doing their damndest for the conflict to continue. A wise friend said to me this week: ‘you know that fighting for peace is like fucking for virginity’ and she is so right. We just have to want peace, to each live our lives in a peaceful fashion and to rid our hearts and minds of all things that remind us of war, hatred and violence. So I will crowbar my Gandhi quote in this week and I stand by this with all my heart and soul: ‘I am prepared to die, but there is no cause for which I am prepared to kill.’ Not only do I love Gandhi, but have I mentioned that I love Cyprus! It's because of this that I want so much for it to be healed.

So, next week my Mediterranean Meanderings will be Mile Oak Mutterings – watch out UK!