The old and the young

In the charity shop two of those volunteering to help the aged are themselves suitably advanced in years. Currently, they are involved in a heated debate concerning what they perceive to be the Great Global Warming Conspiracy. Their shared wealth of experience is impressive and the evidence, apparently endless. I imagine that the conversation began on a contemptuous note regarding the current forecast in which we have been threatened with dangerously high speed winds. Despite the fact that traffic is at a virtual standstill at the Wallisdown junction (which, it’s true, is nothing out of the ordinary), whilst billboards and other assorted rubbish fly past the windows, I don’t doubt that these two have dismissed prevailing conditions as nothing less than typical for the time of year. They must have picked a starting point somewhere back in the dark ages because as I enter they have just reached the winter of 1963.

Aged Volunteer One is bemoaning the fact that they were advised to move south that very year as the gentle climate in Bournemouth would be far more temperate than in his home town. The bloody ice never looked near to melting point until March says he. End of, remarks Aged Volunteer Two. Bloody right says AVO; then there was the bloody floods. From there on, they recount meteorological adversities for almost every year up until the millennium which is when I interrupt apologetically to purchase a small folding stool for £4-99. Of course, it goes without saying that none of the events they describe bear any resemblance or comparison with those that they were privy to in their shoeless childhoods. I ask AVT if he was housed in a box in his infancy and he regards me with some suspicion. In the back room, a young man with ginger dreadlocks and a bandana is pretending to hoover some clothes whilst smiling silently to himself. I feel this to be a far more unusual past-time; indeed, one which I have never observed before and make a mental note to test on knobbly TK Max jumpers. The aged ones are oblivious.

On yet another endless train journey, for which, bearing in mind recent experiences, I have had the foresight to bring two books and a small picnic, we stop at Southampton Central and a veritable gaggle of noisy young men brush past on their way to minding the gap. There is a distinctive fragrance attached to unshaven, red-eyed Sunday morning lads: the pervasive combination of unwashed tee-shirts, stifled alcohol, a memory of after-shave and the vagueness of deflated testosterone. They all carry hold-alls for, were they not on a return journey, they would still be wrapped up in their own or someone else’s sheets.

Collapsed

I’m off work in a state of disrepair. Exhaustion says the kindly doctor who, considering she’s only eleven, appears to have accumulated a wealth of experience for one of such tender years. Her prescribed remedy is to sleep and read as much as possible and see friends often. Good grief! I had no idea they offered qualifications in common sense these days. My perspective of the NHS could be in danger of changing at this rate. Sleeping and reading can both be done in bed and finally I am nearly at the end of Great Expectations. Previously, I had none of these myself but now there is a distinct possibility that I may actually finish this tome and move onto the next in the pile that, happily, awaits my attention.

Being in a state of collapse means that I have discovered that my aspirations and expectations were not as complicated and unachievable as I had imagined. Kindly and well-meaning friends and family have suggested a number of solutions ranging from selling my house to purchasing a gigolo. With regard to the latter, a more prosaic companion pointed out that I wouldn’t want this unknown being rolling around on my new carpet. Spot on! Can’t think of anything worse; especially if I was expected to roll around with him. Far better to know that, at least for a few precious days and nights, I can go to bed when I want, be that at seven o clock or after midnight, and arise when I want. And, having got up, go swimming or go back to bed if I choose. It’s too simple.

Here’s another strange thing: you might think that being down in the dumps means my house is also in a state of disrepair. Let me tell you, it’s never been so spotless. You know that old adage….if you want something done, ask a busy person….what a load of rubbish: a busy person drags themselves in from work, doesn’t open the post, looks at yesterday’s washing up, adds a bit more to it, ignores the phone messages and assumes a Scarlett O’Hara philosophy…I’ll worry about it tomorrow. A person who has been told to take things easy tidies up behind themselves, hoovers, puts out the rubbish and washes floors. Slowly. They listen to the afternoon play on Radio 4 and they don’t have to wait until Sunday for the Archers’ omnibus.

That exhausted person finally finds the time to take their beloved car to Quick-Fit. I’m not a car person but I do have a potential loyalty to my vehicle because it saw me safely through my year in France and yet I don’t treat it as it deserves. I went to get the tyres checked out which was just as well as they, too, were, apparently, on the point of collapse. A large man invited me to inspect them and pointed out their many faults. I smiled inanely and asked if I could use his phone to alert my friend who I was supposed to be meeting for lunch. I’d lost my own phone. Said friend, who is also incapacitated due to a new knee, arrived at Quick-Fit by taxi whereupon she, too, had mislaid her phone. You’re a right pair said tyre expert. We both smiled inanely and told him we’d be in the pub if he needed us.

Saturday Doors

Despite the fact that he constantly claims to have given up the weed, by which he means buying his own, the man-child and I open the back door of the Bay Tree to partake of a cigarette. It’s difficult to see to the other side of the porch: a wood panelled sardine tin crammed with the detritus of a dozen smokers sheltering from the rain that’s blowing in off the bay. With the exception of Hywell, who is eighty, they're all female. Hywell doesn’t smoke but he’s come out of the packed bar because he knows there’s a lot of women out here; plus a spot of impromptu cabaret. The reason for the existence of all these people is that although having a fag is a good enough excuse anyway, it’s also the perfect venue to watch the fight that’s currently taking place on the pavement outside. The brawl is between two or possibly three young women…it’s difficult to tell. It peter’s out and one of the combatants hitches up her leopard skin tights, smoothes her long hair, asks us how her face looks and calls for a pint of lager. It’s Saturday night in Swansea.

Jack has had the good sense to suggest we avoid Wine Street which will, he says, be nothing short of carnage tonight. Not a good place to take your mother and not a good place to be anyway if you haven’t perfected a Welsh accent. Away from the centre, however, Swansea pubs are great at the weekend. Last night, we were over towards Uplands where, two terraced rows up from my B & B, lies Cwmdonkin Drive; birthplace of one of the city’s favourite sons, Dylan Thomas. Mind you, the bard doesn't make an appearance on the list of local luminaries apparently personally known to our taxi driver. On a six minute journey he manages to point out where Catherine Zeta Jones held her last birthday party, tell us about her new house in Mumbles and recall the number plate of Bonnie Tyler’s vintage Bentley. That was supplemental to a few snippets on Anthony Hopkins. And of course, he says, there was Richard Burton, pointing vaguely in the direction of the glowing fires of Port Talbot.

Swansea folk drink at the weekend. Big time. Old time. Thought the working class was dead? This is a sociologist’s paradise. There is no age demarcation in this ‘ugly, lovely’ town; all ages are out for a good time and they’re loving it. The best part of forty years ago, I had a boyfriend from those distant hinterlands to which we in the stifled south refer as Up North or Another Country. Come Saturday night, following an afternoon at the rugby, he religiously donned his three piece suit in preparation for an evening’s drinking. So ok, these are not our friends in the north, and there are few suits in evidence but everyone’s dressed in their glad rags to the extent that Jack and I, even though we’re clean, tidy and modern, stand out like a couple of under-dressed English thumbs.

In particular, the women are outstanding. Most are bleached blondes sporting carrot-coloured skin: an emblem of hard spent Saturday afternoons in the tannery. Their skirts are tight and short. Their tops are, without exception, very low. The prevailing ethos seems to be ‘here come my boobs; the rest of me’ll be along later’. Tattoos are conspicuous by their absence and because of this and these ladies’ absolute intent on having a good time, there isn’t an ounce of cheapness. It’s just the Swansea style.

Back in the pub, it’s jumping. The band is in full flow bringing out anthems old and new for the pleasure of those now dancing on the tables. Another drunk falls out of the gent’s toilets, arms flailing windmill-like as he shouts, to no-one in particular, Your Sex is on Fire. He’s quickly followed by a bloke on crutches who, I’m pretty sure, wasn’t in possession of the said accoutrements when he went in. Getting to the ladies’ is a far more difficult task as the door is located directly behind the bass guitarist. I politely fight my way through the fortieth birthday party, circumnavigate the amplifier, step gingerly over the leads and arrive safely. Getting back is more troublesome as the speeches have begun. I decide to take the fire exit, brave my way round the front of the pub, side-step the band who are huddled together having a quick fag break in the force nine that’s now beating off the adjacent shoreline, and re-enter, much to Jack’s surprise, through the door that proclaims this as a venue for Thai Buffets. Well, a bit short on the old lemon grass I think as the much impressed man-child asks whether I’ve dropped the baton in the relay I seem to have undertaken.

I spot my ex-husband at the end of the bar and point him out to Jack. Bloody hell, says he, it’s R.Green as I live and die. The bloke in question, sporting the trademark gerbil under his nose, is certainly drunk enough to be identifiable as the man I once married. Of course, this is, geographically, well outside his usual radius. However, for a person whose permanent address is listed as Pokesdown Station and who was last known to be on the run in Torquay, all things are possible. Mind you, there’s a lot of doppelgangers currently haunting the Bay Tree. For a start, Jack and some bloke have been acknowledging each other with raised eyebrows in half recognition most of the night. Do you know him asks my son? I don’t live here I say to the man-child who recently spent three hours drinking to the accompaniment of the Pet Shop Boys in a bar peopled solely by Freddie Mercury look-alikes before realising that he might be in the wrong place and didn’t, in fact, know anyone.

A fifty-five year old Elvis Costello dressed in an age defining waist-coat is busily chatting up a twelve year old in what we used to call hot-pants and base-ball boots. We go back through the door for another fag. Jack is wearing his football manager’s coat and someone asks him if he works here. Are you the bouncer? Jack is pleasant and funny in his response but inadvertently gives away the fact that he’s English. Proportionately, or, depending on your perspective, disproportionately, Swansea has the highest use of heroin in the UK. All the buildings surrounding his student accommodation are half-way houses for prisoners. The man who asked the question doesn’t like Jack now. He is threatening and a lovely evening is at an end. There are a number of doors to this pub. I choose one which I think will allow us the exit least likely to be observed. In an unexpected turn of events necessitating an unspoken exchange of roles, I walk my son safely home before catching a cab onwards.

Going it alone

Questions: Why is it that although you know you had a good dream you can never remember it? And why is it that when you've had the worst nightmare in the world....the one where you wake up too scared to go back to sleep and have to have the light on all night....you can remember it in explicit detail all through the following day? And although you know it so well and it includes all your work colleagues, you can't tell anyone because it's so awful. I put it down to a lack of alcohol. That's what comes of trying to have a wine-free week to avoid spillage on the new carpet. Or it could be down to the film I saw last night.

I took myself off to the Rex, the last known gas-lit cinema in the civilised world, to see The White Ribbon. No-one I know had heard of this Austrian film set in pre-world war one Germany and thus was not interested in going along. I think the Swansea-based man-child, who I spoke with on the phone prior to my departure, worries that I'm Norma-no-mates but the Rex is full of solitary women looking for a bit of culture so, no problem. Actually, regardless of the film, I love it there: there's a stair lift for the decrepit; the seats are the original sit up straight version; the music is care of the organ and the adverts are courtesy of Pearl and Dean. Wareham folk arrive and wave and shout greetings to each other across the tiny darkened auditorium as if they're in the post-office. Before the main feature, Kevin comes upstairs and asks us all if we'd like an ice-cream and after the rush he informs us that if we've all got our wafers and cornets, then he'll be off and ask for the film to start. It's all so comforting that we're lulled into a false sense of security which lasts about three minutes into this traumatising film.

Regular readers...and there are more than two...will recall that I quite like a bit of a fright. Bored by Blair Witch and reduced to hysterical laughter by Paranormal Activity, I was totally unprepared to be so dreadfully disturbed by The White Ribbon. And trust me, you will come to know this superbly acted film: it's already won the Palme d'Or and is up for an Oscar. It is big time creepy.

So, lacking in sleep and at the end of another day without a lunch break in the paradise that is work, it was a BIG effort to drag myself out again tonight on another solitary trip. I could've remained under a blanket on the settee in the unchallenging company of Judge Judy and not donned waterproofs and flippers before heading off in the direction of the King Charles. And I could've missed the treat of the year. (Yes, I know it's only the beginning of February). There is a growing and impressive arts community in Poole: musicians, writers, poets and artists of all shapes, sizes and ages gathered together to share their talents. And I do mean share. Being creative is a lonely occupation and I don't think I've ever met so many folk eager to exchange ideas, confidences and email addresses. Before you could say 'performance', I found myself in front of a microphone reading out some prose and poetry accompanied by guitarists and percussionists, simultaneously being sketched by those who'd arrived replete with paper and pencils. And I left with invitations to three other arts events. It's a brave new world out there even if it's a trifle damp.