I went to see a film called London To Brighton on my own two nights ago. Despite knowing it was about prostitutes escaping their London pimps and fleeing to Brighton I was still shocked. It was not a happy film at all. The Brighton scenes pulled at my heartstrings but a few things irritated me. They got the train at Victoria from platform 10 ish, and it should be 16. The seats on the train weren’t right at all and you don’t get polystyrene cups for coffee. They went from Brighton Station to the beach and in order to do so got a bus from the Marina to the Pier. Clearly quite wrong. There was a short scene shot outside the all-night diner and it made me yearn for a drunken fry up at 3 am.
On Saturday we got a taxi to the beach and it was the best day yet, the waves were gently tickling the shore and the water was marbled with various hues of blue. A local lifeguard called Alberto swam out with John, James and I to a coral reef. It was very beautiful and completely unexpected. At the edge, the reef just sank away into darkness and swimming around the side of it felt like floating around a spaceship with the vastness of space at your side visually dragging you away from the safety of the rock/ship. I remember when I did scuba diving that at times I couldn’t control where I went, if I was moving alongside a coral wall then I would just float towards it like a magnet, subconsciously trying to avoid drifting too far into the darkness. I think a coral reef is the perfect example of a place that is simultaneously beautiful and terrifying. And understanding the fragility of a coral reef ecosystem it pained me to see Alberto steadying himself on rocks and snapping off bits of soft white coral to give to us as souvenirs. The swim back was exhausting, as we had drifted about 300m out. Collapsing on the sand I then felt a burning desire to be ‘one with the beach’. So I half buried myself in the sand and let the waves slowly immerse me, smoothing out the edges until, looking down, I appeared to be a large item of flotsam/jetsam, stuck in the sand – like a shipwrecked corpse or a severed tree limb. I try to just lie there and burn like everyone else but its so satisfying to cover yourself with sand, throw yourself back in the sea and repeat the process until the novelty has worn off. I could quite happily design a modest dwelling in the tropics that laps the ocean with its creaky jetty, live day to day spearing fish for lunch and working sporadically so I can visit huge cities like Tokyo, New York and Rio DeJeniro, feeling a good balance between wide-eyed wonder and rural nostalgia.
I just sat down with my landlady Cheri (not Sheila it seems) and had a good 5 minute conversation in Spanish telling her I am going away in 11 days for 8 days to a place called Vinales and I would like to pay a reduced rent. She agreed, all was muy bien, and I even said that the meal we had today was the best so far, because the chicken was delicious and there were potatoes and beetroot and yummy salad. There was lots of smiling and understanding and now I am on such a language high! Woohoo, I could so easily have grabbed Larissa and asked her to do the whole conversation for me. Ah, good feeling. I am also very much looking forward to my birthday because in the evening we are going to the ballet and I have presents and I am going to have lots and lots of Rum. and then mroe rum. And then Alice will have to look after me. talking of which, she is making me an omlette tonight because she saw me trying to steal some of Ruth´s. Can´t wait. Also, Bruce Willis brought some flan over that his mother made and its possibly one of the best puddings Ive ever had. thats saying something.
