Bricking It

I am sitting here (actually kind of lying on the bed in a very teenagerish pose, which is quite apt actually, as I’m feeling quite adolescent and moody and generally hard-done by), building up to a possible rant of sorts by way of a long, unnecessary introduction composed of very long clauses inserted into unnecessary parentheses (and then using more pointless words to describe it) and making little or no sense.

Let me start again.

I am in my room because one of the children who is staying in the house I am also staying in, has the TV on. Loudly. Watching cartoons. Endlessly. It is driving me nuts. And keeping me confined to this space. Which is also driving me nuts.

It is raining. In a drizzling sort of way. I just spent an hour driving in the rain (so that SOMEONE can have a nice afternoon in the pub with his mate), narrowly avoiding collisions with cars, bicycles and – heartstoppingly – a small child. What is it about the rain that turns everyone into irresponsible maniacs who insist on darting out into the road in front of my car? While a big, yellow van sits on my arse because clearly he feels I am going too slow? The rain makes it all slippier and harder to see and more dangerous and I need to take it easy. I know I’m a granny in a Rover, but really, people should SLOW DOWN, not speed up. And take an extra second or two to check before running out from behind that parked car. God. In my mind’s eye, I can still see that small person cartwheeling in the air (do you think that would actually happen?) and landing with a sickening thump on the road.

The next door neighbours are drilling. This drilling has been going on for weeks, often accompanied by banging. DIY on the weekend? I thought that was illegal. It should be illegal. They also have baby twins who take it in turns to scream in that bloodcurdling way in which only very young babies are capable. It is too noisy around here. I need some peace and quiet. All these fuckwads are wrecking my tranquility. SHUT UP DRILL!!

(Oh, it stopped. Yay.)

Speaking of the neighbours (drilling is back. fuck.) all the banging and noise-making is because they are building an extension onto the back of their house. Which is fine, I guess. But in this case, the extension is an enormous, concrete monstrosity that they have clearly designed themselves and roped their friends into building. There are about 6 inches between the 2 houses now, and they built it right up against one of our bathrooms. So once where we had a window opening into the fresh air and letting in lots of natural light (which is the function of a window, if I’m not mistaken) we now have a brick wall a couple of inches outside the window, and a bathroom in perpetual darkness. Seriously, I trotted off to work one morning, and when I returned in the evening, this extension had been cobbled together and my bathroom was bricked in.

Bathroom window

Brick wall

Luckily, this is not my house, because if it were, I would be self-righteously knocking on front doors and having loud and obnoxious arguments peppered with words like ‘planning permission’, ‘inconsiderate’, and noisy brats’

Captain Hook

It was a random Friday in August. The sun was setting. The sky was pink.

We drank some red wine. We drank some more red wine. We drank even more red wine. We kept drinking red wine. We continued to keep drinking red wine. We drank….etc

My boyfriend lost his hand. He was so drunk, it just fell off. The dog next door jumped over the fence, grabbed the hand and ran off with it.

My boyfriend grabbed a garden fork from the flower bed.

‘I don’t need a hand, I have a miniature pitchfork,’ he cried

My boyfriend now thinks he is a superhero.

He insists I call him Captain Hook.

He insists I worship his Pitchfork of Power.

Young Skinny Bitch vs Fearless Leaping Lady

Back when I was contemplating The Big Adventure (ah, the good old days when it was all to look forward to), one of my leading worries was the undoubted overflow of young, skinny bitches floating round The Asia and The India, flaunting their perfect skin and stick-like bodies and thereby making me feel old and frumpy, insecure, and just plain nasty.

I thought I was being overly sensitive. That it was a side-effect of entering the paranoid 30s. I told myself I was better than that. Older, yes, but wiser. I worked on being free from resentment.

Oh, but I was right. I was so very, very accurate.

May I present Exhibit A:

Young Skinny Bitch

All through South East Asia, it wasn’t so much that you wouldn’t see local girls swimming in the rivers, and waterfalls and sea. But, they always swam fully clothed. Seriously. Jeans and T-shirts. Possibly even shoes. But swimsuits? Certainly not. I’m sure they struggle with the concept of a bikini.

Being conscious of local customs and not wanting to reinforce stereotypes (there is a slight chance that the huge paranoia I feel about my 30-something thighs rippling with 30-something cellulite may have been a consideration), I embraced the Asian way. Sort of. I had a pair of black shorts that basically became my swimsuit. Combined with a modest stomach-covering variation of the bikini top, I frolicked and splashed feeling confident that I wasn’t driving any young Laos monks to revoke their vows. Unlike young Exhibit A up there.

The freedom from visible bikini wobble was liberating. No need to worry about indiscreet boobs flolloping around in bids for freedom. No vague worry about the relation between an oversized lady-arse being responsible for a devastating tsunami within the dubious tenets of chaos theory.

Carefully and conservatively dressed, Fearless Leaping Lady made her debut.

Jumping Off the Rock

Splash!

Who looks like she’s having more fun? Huh???

How much cider can YOU drink?

Thankfully (and finally) the past week or so here in London has been warm. I’d even go so far as to tentatively describe it as hot. Which is about time really, because frankly, 15 degrees in July just wasn’t cutting it.

So yesterday, in the spirit of summertime in South London, we gathered some friends together and headed down to one of the nearby parks for picnic, badminton and drinking. Hours later, patchily sunburned and feeling only slightly tipsy, I did a quick count of the empty Magners’ bottles scattered around our picnic site, and realised that I had somehow consumed 6 bottles of the stuff. Big bottles, mind, not normal 300ml size bottles, but the oversized 600ml versions. Do some quick maths. Go on. That’s about 3.5 litres of cider that I managed to consume in one afternoon. Without sharing. And I didn’t even feel drunk. Nor did I have a hangover this morning.

Yuzzah! My alcohol gene has recovered.

I can’t even think of a title

Is there anything more frustrating than an expanse of white space which is demanding, supplicating, daring you to fill it? Well, yes, it is possible that there are many things more frustrating – waiting for a London bus, for example; drunken idiots who belt out Abba songs at the tops of their lungs, for an even better example; Radio One DJs, as a supreme example – but blogging sans ideas can make one want to throw things at walls. Heavy things. Expensive things. Even more so for the poor readers who have to soak up the drivel.

I’ve been coming up blank. Without the raw material of travel adventures to draw upon, my writing brain has gone into retirement. Or at least, on an extended holiday. Without me. Brain, where have you gone? Are you having a nice time? Anything happening that you want to tell me about?

While I’m waiting for that postcard from my mind, I’m going to go back to concentrate on the photos, which is where all my attentions have been focused for these past days and days. Just so you know. I have been busy. I haven’t only been sitting around drinking wine. Well, I have been drinking wine, but not exclusively. There’s also been beer, and vodka, and gin. Ha! Turns out, photo editing and drinking are pretty complementary activities.

Can I ask a favour? I’ve put an image up for consideration for JPG magazine. If enough people (and the right people – editors and their ilk) find it worthy, it may stand a chance of being published. If you vote for it, it may help to push it forward to their attention. Here’s the link. Thanks.

I promise to try harder.

Photo Maddening Madness

While I was off scooting around the planet, and doing all that fun traveling stuff, I found myself spending big parts of entire days wandering around with my face mostly obscured by a camera lens, sporadically embarrassing Mat with unsubtle photo pokes into all sorts of others’ daily lives. I couldn’t help it. Once you’re viewing the world from behind a glass peephole, it’s disturbingly easy to forget the restrictions of a 50mm lens. If a person’s face is tightly framed in your shot, odds are pretty high that you and your camera are probably more than politely close. Still, no-one yelled at me or chased me down the street. I feel encouraged.

So, I have returned with loads of photos. Shitloads, if I may be so uncouth. It’s been a month, and I’m still trying to edit them down into some sort of comprehensible order. Yesterday, I was shouting and swearing at my laptop because it was taking forever to copy a set of images into my photo library. I eventually realised that it was a folder with 1,200 photos in it – which probably goes some way to explaining the churning up of the Macworks – and that folder is just one of many, many folders. So, yeah, I took some pictures.

Now, here’s the thing. I studied photography at university – an experience that left me feeling alternately elated and depressed, depending on the whims of my tutors – and so while my interest has fluctuated somewhat over the past couple of years, it is an interest that has been with me for quite some time. And this trip made me realise something that has probably been shouting and banging on the closed doors of my preoccupied mind for quite a long time – I like to travel; I like to take photos. Can I put the two together and produce a side-career of sorts? It’s a challenge that I want to run with. It tickles me. Imagine, someone paying me to go to far-flung parts of the world to take lots of nice photographs.

So I’ve been investigating, and researching. And decided that a good place to start is with stock libraries. But it’s all new to me, so I’ve got to teach myself lots. Not least of which is how to use Photoshop meaningfully. And if you only have rudiments of Photoshop-ability in your brain, it takes quite some time to even just track down ‘How To…’ guides that are relevant and readable. And then there’s working out technical specifications. Searching for the ideal level of contrast. The perfect exposure. Deciding if the colour caste you think you see is red or blue or green or bloody what – and if you think it should be blindingly obvious to distinguish between opposite colours, you have clearly never spent time inside a colour darkroom. So there.

Finally, however – finally – hours later, you decide that you’ve done all the work you need to do. You are ready, your image is ready. You look at it one last time, ready to let go and move on. Cue the arrival of a particularly nasty little monster – a squirming, slithering, slimy bundle of doubt and loathing – that’s been surreptitiously scurrying around behind the scenes waiting for its moment in the limelight. It launches itself in full attack mode onto the flimsy facade of confidence that you’ve been working behind. And that nasty doubt monster whispers silkily, ‘Do you really think THIS image is good enough? Hah!’

Actually, I’m getting much better at punching that monster in the face and telling it to fuck off.

And so, between plugging gaps in my techno-knowledge and wrestling with slimy doubt-creatures, today I produced a whopping final product of five edited images. Count ‘em. Five. And that was a full and proper eight hours worth of ‘today’; not a half-hearted, couple of hours here and there version.

As I’m sure you’ll agree, though, five photos are better than none. So I registered to my chosen site, prepared to upload and submit them to a quality check system, and take my first tentative steps down the road of probable rejection. And, more importantly, to at least feel that I had something concrete to show for my day.

The rejection will have to be saved for another day. I discovered that my computer’s operating system is too old for the new-fangled website uploading tool thingey. I can’t submit them*. Really, I’ve only got myself to blame. It is a whoppingly archaic Macbook from the dark and dusty year of 2004. Clearly, only an idiot would expect their computer to stay abreast of technology for more than four fucking years

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*OK, yes, there are other ways, but that is so far from being the point. The point is that this is just typical, and I have square, bloodshot eyes and a chronic case of Photoshop fever, and no images in a library.

Real Life, Real Decisions

Real Life has returned. As of last week, I have myself a job. It’s a cheating sort of job, in that it is the same one that I left 12 months ago. Some of my colleagues were surprised to see me again. Others, I got the distinct impression, were supremely unsurprised. Importantly though, no-one seemed to mind when I turned up on Wednesday wearing the earrings that were my going away present last year. The fact is, I’m not the first in my department to act out this role of prodigal worker. I’m not even the second. Nor the tenth. Leaving this company is often less about cutting ties, than swapping the metaphorical rope for a very elasticated elastic band. One that stretches all the way to Australia without snapping, it would seem.

Even so, I wasn’t entirely sure if it was the best thing for me to do, and so I sat down with my soul and had a heart-to-heart chat. I then peered into my bank account. And had a heart attack. Big Adventures don’t come cheap – even at $2 a meal with 50c beer chasers – if you stretch them out for months. So, I’ve got to be pragmatic. Time will tell if I’ve made the right decision.

Meanwhile, to further hasten our decline into bankruptcy, on Saturday Mat and I went out a bought a car. That really is the best thing to do when you have no money and are looking to move back to a big city like London where you mostly get around using public transport anyway, isn’t it? Yes, that’s what we thought too. And so, after a full week of shopping around, test driving, and endless making and unmaking of minds, we settled on this. It is a Rover, and, yes, apparently it doesn’t exactly ooze street credibility. In fact, people on the internet opine that from a security consideration it is an unbeatable choice – mainly because car thieves would not be caught dead in a Rover. But how could we resist the leather trim seats and an onboard carpet in a particularly fetching shade of red? Mat fell in love, and I could not bear to come between my man and his car.

And finally, in this busy week of all things Real Life, we have found ourselves somewhere to live. It’s a temporary arrangement to keep us ticking over until we can move into my flat. We are renting a room in a share house with a couple of others. The room is a decent size, our house mate is very quiet and tidy, and – importantest thing of all things important – we have wireless internet. These last couple of weeks in the land of modernity I have found it harder to get online than I did in even the most remote parts of Asia and India. You just go and figure that one out. Or, don’t try to figure it out. Just wonder and gasp at the irony. I have been.

Reverse Culture Shock

I have left behind the frenetic pace of ‘Incomprehensible India’ and am now living deep inside the heartland of countryside England – a place of little noise and fewer people. No-one is shouting. There are no horns beeping stridently, and driving around involves using one’s indicators without even a blurp of horn tapping. Cars drive within the lane markings. And sadly, the only cows I’ve seen are wandering orderly around their fields. To be fair, if they were left to wander around freely, they would struggle to find enough cardboard boxes and plastic bags for an equivalent Indian bovine diet.

We are housesitting for Mat’s sister, a cultural decompression that involves enveloping ourselves in the privacy of a (modern! clean!) house, and the company of two friendly labradors, for a fortnight while the family are off on a birthday cruise. I know. Life is very difficult. The reality of work (blah. Panic! blah.) and flat hunting (blah. Shit! blah.) are still on the horizon. The Big Adventure is over, but Real Life is not quite here. Long may the limbo last.

My first night back, I struggled to sleep properly. I kept surfacing in a half-dreaming half-awake state, feeling like I was almost suffocating. The problem, you see, was the fluffy feather pillows. And the dreamy, thick duvet. The mattress was too firm and comfortable. I wasn’t sweating. Mat and I were in the middle of the bed – actually touching legs or arms – instead of our preferred positions of balanced precariously on opposite sides of the bed to ensure that NO body heat was being transferred between us. My feet weren’t hanging off the end of the bed. How was I to get comfortable, for crissake!

It’s been over a week. I have readjusted again. I now sleep the whole night through, without needing to replenish vital bodily fluids with litres of water 2-3 times during the night. This temperate climate takes some getting used to, but I have pushed through the pain barrier. Feather quilts and oversized beds are something I just need to take in my stride.

Oh! And, great news! One of packages we sent from the other side of the world – with presents for others, and of course, also for me – has arrived. I declare this to be Christmas in June, with the Laos postal service taking the honorary title of Summer Santa Claus.

Home Time

Tomorrow, that’s it. We go to the airport, hop on Virgin’s finest Big Plane, and 8 hours later touch down in London. Cool London. Comprehensible London. The land of no mosquitos. And honestly? I can’t wait. I can’t wait to dive into a freshly made salad – lettuce, cucumber, cherry tomatoes, avocado, olives. And cheese. A selection of cheeses. And crackers. Fresh bread. Can you guess that I’m kind of over the whole curry thing? I haven’t had salad for over a month. I miss salad. We have become slightly food obsessed of late.

These past five weeks in India have been alternately fabulous and frustrating. Overwhelming. Confusing. Amazing. I’ve learned how to haggle and hold my ground. I’ve learned to be firm and say no. I’ve learned that English politeness takes you absolutely nowhere in this part of the world – a well aimed shove with the shoulder will get you much further. And I’ve shopped, oh boy, have I shopped. India is practically one enormous market, chock full of clothes and jewellery and textiles and scarves and paintings and just about anything that you could possibly want to fill up your home with. Now I just need to sort out the home.

For 4 months I’ve been traipsing around, lugging a bag full of my meagre and dirty belongings from place to place. I’ve seen and done so many amazing things – some of them I managed to record here, others are sitting in my paper diary, possibly never to be looked at again. But, you know, I’m done. It’s time to go home. I want to wear something that I haven’t worn a gazillion times already and that doesn’t have dirt and dust ground into every seam. I want to look in the mirror and have a version of me reflected that isn’t so sweaty and grubby. I miss domestic things that I never thought I would miss – having my own washing machine, cooking my own food, knowing that the bathroom has definitely been cleaned more recently than 2004. I tell you, some of the rooms we have stayed in – and some of the places we’ve eaten – it’s no wonder that our bodies have been ejecting food from both ends in recent days (in poor Mat’s case, going on 3 weeks now). Vomiting out of moving vehicles is becoming my forte these days – a trait that I can certainly live without.

Above and beyond the whole backpacking adventure, though, is the excitement of getting to see all my bestest friends again. It’s been a whole year without the guys and gals I’ve been calling my own for, gosh, about 8 years now. A whole year without them. Coming home really is one of the best parts of going away. I’m just so damn excited!

We have an adventure!

While India has been brimming with experiences of the eye-opening, soul-squeezing and brain-bending variety, the extreme heat and sheer energy-zapping nature of merely getting from A to B, has left us little energy for throwing ourselves into situations that can be counted as truly adventurous. Although, in many of the places we’ve been, just walking down the street, and surviving (with all toes intact), is a feat of which we are justifiably proud. Not to mention gambling the health of our intestinal comfort on the lure of roadside sweets and savouries.

But then we visited Rajasthan. And went on a camel safari.

The place is called Jaisalmer -  a small city that incongruously sprouts out from the middle of the scrubby Thar desert in far western India. Known as the ‘Golden City’, the skyline is dominated by a huge sandstone fort that rises up from the desert like an enormous yellow sandcastle. The buildings of the old city are similary made from sandstone, a labyrinthine confusion of intricately decorated havelis (very old buildings formerly used as residences) lining narrow, crooked alleyways. The result truly is Golden.

The main draw for tourists to Jaisalmer is the opportunity to go out into the desert on a camel safari – a lure that’s impossible to resist if you’re passing through the area. Even if it is a seemingly life-threatening 45 degrees, with minimal shade. We weighed up the pain of potential sunstroke against the once-in-a-lifetime chance to ride around with the camels. We decided to jump on the camel train. As a compromise, we opted for a sedate day and a half trip, rather than the usual three day adventure.

I was expecting the camels to be grumpy. I thought I might get spat on, or even bitten if very unlucky. But, really, the camels were lovely. My camel was especially good natured, and holding the reins, I was able to ‘drive’ him in the direction I wanted to go. He didn’t even walk me into any thorny trees (although the same can’t be said for some of the others). Riding on the camels is a serene and calming experience; walking slowly through the hot, dry desert; no sounds apart from the camels walking and the chatter and songs of the camel men; occassionally passing goats or deer.

There is an aspect of the journey that is slightly, well, stinky. Camels, it turns out, are particularly flatulent animals. Like cows, they fart a lot. And boy, does it stink. Not to mention being sniggeringly noisy. Still, you get used to the odour after a few hours, especially when the main focus of your attention becomes your thighs and hips, which feel like they are slowly being stretched out of their sockets. Camels have broad backs, and unless you’re an olympic gymnast with elastic muscles, hours of sitting in a riding position with legs stretched widely apart are going to take their toll. A tip if I may: if you see a camel safari in your immediate future, start some exercises to loosen those hips. Immediately. 

Apart from the well behaved camels us tourists were riding (there were 6 in our group), there was a very naughty camel in our midst. He was a grunting, whining bad-natured steed that none of us wanted to go near under any circumstances. He really looked like he just couldn’t wait for any of us to get within spitting or chomping distance. The men explained to us that they had only had him for about 10 days, and so he was still being broken in. He huffed and whinnied and shook his head around, but the men (very bravely in my eyes) were able to get him to sit down and stand up while they sat on his back refusing to be shaken off.  The camel was visibly annoyed by the entire arrangement, and that evening, took it out on the other camels at dinner time, trying to eat all of the hay and headbutt any of the others who came too close.

We trekked out to some sanddunes near to a village in the desert, where we had dinner cooked for us before we settled down to sleep for the night. With just a blanket under us and the stars above, we slowly drifted off to sleep. It took me a while to get comfortable, as I kept thinking the camel lying in our vicinity was going to accidently walk on top of me during the night. Eventually though, I nodded off, blanketed only in the odour of camel farts and the silence of the desert.