Wasting time, reasons to live, and eating surfboards.

Posted: January 17, 2023 | Author: | Filed under: Adventure Forever | Tags: , , , , | Leave a comment

My favourite thing is to waste time. I struggle with it on the job. I think it’s because I’m still aware it’s my time, and that I’m officially required not to waste it due to company policy.

Company policy says wasting time is bad for your back due to desk ergonomics, and if you’re not willing to improve your desk ergonomics then they’re going to part ways with you, which is fine until they mention this’ll include ceasing paying me money each month.

Another option is to die on the job. This would be a great way to escape the boredom and depression of working, but it would seriously inhibit my free time after work, which I’d prefer to spend having fun with my wife and kids, instead of being dead at my desk due to a bad back.

But then, it’s my own time and perhaps it’d return some ownership to me, so why not die on the job?

Because the chair’s uncomfortable? I agree.

But, that’s really because it’s a chair with a purpose, and that’s to waste your time, but not in the way that you really want to waste your time. There’s better things you can do with a chair, sitting aside.

You’d rather waste your time more appropriately, such as by inventing that new thing nobody knew they wanted, or writing that blog everyone knew they didn’t want but you really wanted to write it anyway.

And don’t forget jumping – as this is a marvellous way to waste your time.

‘Off of’ things of varying height and with varying confidence in the safety harnesses, or lack of them; ‘on to’ things which are preferably moving with speed, gusto, and sexy people already onboard; ‘into’ things, the wetter the better; and lastly ‘through’ things, which is perhaps best reserved for the more athletic time wasters amongst us.

Jumping ‘behind’ things is weird, don’t do it. And don’t tell me about it if you did.

Then of course, we must consider the more industrious ways of wasting time, the sort of time wasting that really takes a lot of effort, guts, and time.

Like opening that surfboard shop in the west coast of Devon, getting to know weird people with campfire and starlight, watching the wife and kids laughing a lot, and somehow making either a comfortable living out of it or discovering an ingenious way to find, craft, sell, live underneath and eat surfboards, for free.

This takes a lot of hard work, and is of course a waste of time, because most people would not do that (despite 90% of the UK having this exact secret dream themselves, with the other 10% being busy that day) and would rather make more sensible use of their time with grown up activities, like making appointments with their bank managers for fun, or simply spending some really solid time calming down following that overly exciting bowl of cornflakes.

And then there is wasting time unexpectedly, when you didn’t see it coming. This can be hard to deal with, wasting time out of the blue, letting it get in the way of those bank manager catch-ups or becoming nice and bored in some other way. One way of doing this, as we know, is simply saying “yes” to opportunities as they come.

How do we source the best questions to say “yes” to? Just keeping saying “yes” and you’ll work your way to the questions you want to say “yes” to, eventually.

And does your job, your career, your 9-5, provide you with those questions you want to say “yes” to?

Mine doesn’t.

Mine makes me want to say “no” a lot, regardless of the question.

Really, I want to waste my time in my own way. Perhaps worse paid, and with ‘attitude problem’ noted by recruiters next to my professional profile, but still my own.

All it takes, is finding that way to monetise me being me – ensuring that wasting time with writing blogs, parenting, and seriously, seriously enjoying my wife, can all be something that pays the bills until we can find a way to eat surfboards for free.

This is making me hungry and melancholy, because I’m still at work right now and I look forward to escaping to lunch.

But I must remember to say “yes”. It’s a great way to waste time in ways you can look back on with happiness, and it’s also an even better way to round off an overlong blog.

Sam

It’s Time To Travel

Posted: December 4, 2017 | Author: | Filed under: Adventure Forever | Tags: , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

It’s time to travel.

Question mark?

It’s time to travel because you have time to read this and, whilst this might be shooting myself in the world-dusty foot, travel is far more worth your time than anything I have to say.

And travel is worth your time, because you are worth your time.

All you ever really had was yourself and the Earth.

I think I’ll try some larger font sizes to encourage you to do it; maybe if the writing is thuddier – you’ll get to it.

Travel.

Besides the talent, brains, good looks and whatever else you thought others had to their advantage, you still had yourself and you still had the Earth.

So go plunder and soak-up the soak-up-ables of this world, because of the greatest regrets the occupants of deathbeds claim (other than not learning another language – which’d is hardly comparable to travelling: you’d just end up saying you regret not-travelling in stunted Francais) – the most claimed and most rued truth is the road most travelled having been merely stomped on by yet another.

Travel.

These are the times you need to think back in history, when the Earth was slightly less ancient and joining/being press-ganged into the military was your best chance of seeing the world and therein giving some kudos to the definition of ‘living’.

Travel, please.

‘Living’ isn’t in the cubical, nor is it the job title on the door to the office you’re yet to occupy.

Nobody looks back on their life wishing they’d played more Candy Crush, unless of course it were whilst whiling away the hours in the back of a tour bus – but that’s a real waste of scenery.

Travel, now.

I’d done a fair bit of here-and-there-ing in my 27 years of life, and whilst those times were tremendous – it was my 7 months of travel through South East Asia, Australasia, New Zealand and North America that really sealed the deal as to how I felt about Earth and why I was strolling around upon it.

Get gone and (no offence) just go away.

Now I’ve been home for several months now and have gone about day-to-day life as best I can, and thus I’ve had the time to process the experiences of my travel and what they now mean to me.

And here’s what’s key in my thinking: travel is not my everything, but my everything is very different now I’ve travelled.

It’s hard to return to the corporate world and give two tupenny tosses about the printer machine’s new button and how only Bodoni MT Condensed is the only font capable of truly expressing us as a company.

Instead, I remember flying…on a bus.

It’s an easily achievable method of motion once your driver realises that (1.) he is incredibly late for the tour’s scheduled arrival and (2.) you get more job satisfaction when you’ve put your passengers in surreal danger and gotten them out from it because you were dangerous.

We were hurtling our way through some ethereal mountain roads in Vietnam – heading north to Dalat at speeds illegal outside of South East Asia.

The view was typical of Vietnam; four feet away and consisting of a thick grey mist that a bus’s headlights couldn’t penetrate (but the rest of it certainly could at top speed) – with intermittent splashes of wondrous valleys and awe-inspiring mountains of that dark green that speaks such a wealth of nature one can only feel a little hurt at how the Earth has got so much going on besides you.

And despite our 10-moutains-per-hour speed – some corners required the nuances instilled from days as an experienced mountain bus driver. It was on one of these two-minute turns in which the passengers clenched their stomachs, buttocks and Candy Crush drenched Ipads in preparation for the imminent through-the-floor pedalling that our driver was treating us with, that I looked out of my window to see what locals were nearing the bus.

Three young children, looking very cold and very wet, took steps towards us in crappy plastic shoes, their hands upturned and out-stretched in the international sign for begging, though with that hurried professional assuredness that comes from knowing the passengers on board had gold to spare and the indulgence with which to sprinkle it like fairy dust all over Vietnam.

We knew they would act upon our pity, big eyes and little feet in even crappier plastic shoes than the last sentence, calling to us: “Please!” whilst we did our best to ignore; knowing that a dollar now meant it was less likely they’d ever be sent into school and have a chance to learn their way out of those shoes and down from the mountain.
Seeing life like that makes you put down the donut.

But what I saw next as we sped away from these three children made me want to throw a donut into the sky, thump it with a baseball bat with all the strength I could muster into the mouth of anyone who wanted to join the game, all due to the sheer fact that satisfying hunger is fine, but some things are eternally fun.

Another corner, another three children come into view, utterly and completely uninterested in the potential for making out-of-school money from enormous tourists…because they were – gleefully as I’ve learnt only people doing this can be – playing with a fireball.

They didn’t have lunch, but they sure as sweet hell had a fireball. And it was satisfying.
I don’t know where they got it from, but they had gotten themselves a fireball and were being entirely appropriate with it – picking it up barehanded, throwing it at (not ‘to’; fuck ‘to’) one another (the drizzle cooled them down), kicking it up and down the mountain and smiling their teeth into another dimension.

I’ve never seen humans do anything better than how those little Vietnamese children conducted themselves with their fireball guest of gusto, their small bundle of vibrant, amazing joy that excited them so much that hunger could go and fuck itself.

Additionally, I promise you that this is not metaphorical. They were holding a fireball and lobbing it at their friends.

I wish I had a fireball, and sitting at a desk, reading a snooty email either complimenting or complaining (I can’t be bothered to find out which) about my choice of font, I remember the two trios I encountered in those Vietnamese mountains.

The three hungry children and the three fireballers. Both living total alternatives to the life of a typical Englishman, and now I step forward knowing of them both.

That’s progress, that’s healthy, that’s an experience you tell the grandchildren about and that’s travelling.

And again, this experience was not my everything, but now my everything means something very different to me.

Travel – either do that or cure cancer with video games; one’s more likely and one’s possibly even more enjoyable (not that I’ve cured cancer with video games).

Fireballs and hunger, hunger and fireballs.

Travelling.

Sam

(P.S TRAVEL)

Is It The Beard? (Monkeys Don’t Like Me)

Posted: July 10, 2017 | Author: | Filed under: Adventure Forever | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

In my travel about the globe I’ve had many marvellous encounters with animals of a wondrous array, from the soft-shell turtles of Laos, with the enormous dangling Flying Fox bats of Adelaide, to the happily splashing elephants in the jungle baths of Thialand, and every encounter has been more than memorable.

Some have been pleasantly engrained, whilst others have been permanently scarring; sadly not in the attractive/romantic sense. No eye-patches.

Two monkey attacks, one gorilla and one squirrel.

These are the animals that have taken to me via fist and tooth (amongst sundry).

That seems like a tad too many monkey attacks for someone who isn’t looking to be attacked by a monkey.

Let’s rundown the bitter, bitter memories.

Why bitter?
Because I love apes (this reason is so applicable. Yes – I don’t have an example of how it’s applicable…because I love apes).

And I love monkeys.

And I was ambivalent about squirrels, until what happened in Central Park happened to me and now I really, really want to do all kinds of venting unto the squirrel population of New York. I wish they were vermin; then I’d hire a professional, not to exterminate on my behalf – but to teach me.

Onto the attacks.

Monkey Attack 1

Year: 2011.

Location: Dharamsala, India (Tibetan Government in Exile).

Here’s the scene.

Dharamsala is a mountain town in the foothills of the Himalayas, the home of the Dali Lama and the exiled Tibetan Government.

It is here you’ll find the views of the world that cause you to stop, say no words, and feel the beauty of where you are. The immeasurable enormity of the mountains, those shards of planet Earth that surround you, acres of snow and ice atop, with goats passing their time on the lower slopes as the brightest of sun rays lands upon them and their strange coats, eagles flying purely because it is appropriate, the bustle of the market filled with the indomitable monks, vibrant locals and in-the-know tourists of all varieties…and a background hush; as though every sound and every moment is echoing through the valleys and the mountains – making all so clear and yet so fleeting.

In Dharamsala the air is exciting, the people are even more-so, the world-shattering explosions in the night that everyone else seems fine with (I still don’t know what they were but I genuinely feared the Chinese were coming) are only another aspect of typical wondrousness and the monkey blowjobs are everywhere.

In the taxi to the town from the airport, up the mountain slopes; monkey blowjobs on route.

Outside the restaurant where the monks pass to turn prayer wheels and the youths race ancient motorbikes high and low through the streets; the monkeys are blowjobbing.

And right on my balcony, the view that broke my heart as it was so beautiful; epic insignificance of little old me whilst the mountains continue as they were, the snowy peaks glistening, the prayer flags fluttering, and the monkeys blowjob on my balcony.

Here’s an important fact regarding Yours Truly.

I’m a Sthilly Goosth.

And I get involved in things that are really none of my business.

(E.g. A hotel manager smashing up his Lovely Jubbly Hotel and putting me off my drink. I got involved. My fiancé is still angry with me over this but we were staying there that night and I didn’t want the owner waking me up and taking his anger out near my pillow.)

One such thing that I shouldn’t get involved with, and I can’t state strongly enough that you also don’t get involved with, is a monkey blowjob.

But it was on my balcony.

And in my world, a balcony is a sacred place (don’t say bad things about balconies near me; just don’t – please).

There is an alpha male, with greater fur around the head and neck, reclining back on the balcony wall, enjoying the view even more than I was I’d dare say, whilst a younger acquaintance of his saw to his genital dryness.

To which…I immediately leapt out onto the balcony, waved my hands in the air excitedly and growled happily: “MONKEEEEEEYS!”

Having made this experience of monkey oral sex an interspecies situation all of a sudden; both the monkeys acted accordingly.

The male, one of those baboon-looking sons of bitches, rolled onto his side, appeared to suddenly grow by about a foot, and then, seeing as he wasn’t needed here (and perhaps he’d heard the monkey blowjobs were preferable higher in the valley) strolled off.

I, meanwhile, was in a terrified stamp-battle with the screeching, screaming, clawing, gnashing female that had only seconds early been, to at least one living being, the loveliest thing in the world.

When I say “stamp-battle”, this is due to two things.

The female monkey was venting largely (albeit with a few swipes involved – thankfully missing) by hammering the ground at my feet – a condition wittily brought on by the removal of my feet from said area only a fraction of a second earlier.

As a result of lifting my foot out of the zone of conflict, I was perched upon one foot, looking rather zen for a fellow seeing his life pass before his eyes (featuring far too many monkey blowjobs).

That is until the female monkey, having seen the object of her masticating affection slip away, realised my remaining balcony-based foot was fair game for some further mastication (this time with a good deal more chewing).

She swiped again, I removed my foot again; resulting in my previous foot having to stamp down so as to regain balance…near the female.

And that really pissed her off.

So much so; she swiped at my offending foot, causing a cyclical circumstance that was only resolved with the introduction of the House Maid who saw the female monkey off with a tea-towel.

This was all my fault entirely.

Monkey attack 1: Complete.

The Gorilla Attack

Year: 2015.

Location: Denver Zoo.

Cause: I teased it and it charged me. Peakaboo with a Silverback Gorilla, through the ape-proof Plexiglas, whilst it is in its home of straw, females and unfathomable testosterone, is a cruel and bad idea and I wish I hadn’t done it.

But there was absolutely no denying that this gorilla didn’t like me anyway.

HE STARTED IT with the eye contact; I just escalated it with the raspberry blowing whilst peeking out from behind walls and columns.

Ultimately, with a sudden charge and a thud the likes of which I have never felt before (and it wasn’t even on me – he’d clubbed the glass) this gorilla taught me that he was pretty angry with my joviality and the difference between this and the Dharamsala incident was: he couldn’t walk away.

He charged, thumped, walked away without looking at me and then attempted to hide himself under a handful of straw whilst he ate a banana.

I feel bad about the whole thing and would like to buy him a banana someday to make amends.

Sad story, really.

But to this day, the power of the attack, such as it was, shook me. I am a flimsy, dainty, la-de-dah human and that testosterone-filled living erection would have buried me with one thump.

Monkey Attack 2

Year: 2017

Location: Laos, near a dried-out river, near a forest…geography isn’t my forte, whilst the English language deffo-proper-is-like, y’know?

Cause: Monkeys are bastards.

I fell asleep that night with images of an ever widening monkey mouth, filled with darkness, blood and banana, consuming all of everything whilst I lay there; feeling rather irritated.

I’d been bullied.

Bullied by a little monkey that I’d given so much to and had proceeded to be embarrassed by it oh so thoroughly.

As part of the tour, we had stopped in a village who’s economy, colour, flavour and identity was bananas.

Bananas further than you’d want the human eye to be able to see, and not a typical bunch either.

Like the fingers of a particularly swollen child; plus jaundice, with each entire banana amounting to one single mouthful, for man and monkey alike.

Having loaded up on these bananas, something like 20 for the price of half a brown and pre-peeled English-shop version, we made our way to the river bank, keeping eyes peeled for the soon-to-onslaught monkeys, as well as the plethora of creepy crawlies emerging from our banana bouquets.

One monkey, two, then in the collective plural of monkeys – the term of which I am unaware of but I’m willing to bet in called ‘an unneccesary of monkeys’.

These were the darty variety, the type of that steal your wallet, girlfriend and pride, yet is still somehow endearing to people still waiting to be attacked by them.

We disembarked the bus, walking down into the forest and keeping to a dirt path well-worn by the feet of multiple species, whilst our guide encouraged us to make hooting and squeaking noises (we excelled) in response to the odd shake of foliage and light-brown blur across the path ahead of us.

And then, having reached a clearing in the forest, we were massed-upon by the pack of monkeys that came meandering out and up to our shins; whereupon they were met by what they expected – a proffered banana – which they took off with by a few yards and quickly peeled open and devoured.

Being me, I met the alpha – the biggest fellow there and the one with that ‘fuck-you’ footfall, taking my bananas without even looking at me and, suddenly, seeing off nearby monkeys that were decidedly smaller than this big guy.

It was becoming apparent that this monkey was an unpleasant one, but I was still enthralled by the experience and proximity to these incredible little beasts and so kept proffering bananas that were continually accepted; for a while.

I crouched, keeping the bananas coming, ignoring the sudden dashes a weaker rivals, ignoring the rudeness of taking the fruit without so much as a look in my direction, and turned to my fiancé who was ready with a camera.

“Sam…”

Saying my name was meant to alert me, but was said in a tone that seemed frightened for herself, understandably, and I switched my gaze to look to where the monkey had been cheerfully munching bananas…no longer.

Eye-contact.

Too much eye contact, too near bite-level, (too much beard?) too close to a monkey for a monkey’s comfort and my health, and a mouth that was widening like an endless black hole, filled with consuming nothingness and blood and banana, eyes staring deep into and through mine, about to teach me a lesson by eating me.

Why was there blood? I still don’t know; maybe it was an opened cut on the lip, but it sure as sweet heck added to the drama of the scene.

The full force of an alpha monkey flying towards me, covering entire body lengths in a single bound, has been the cause of tremendous embarrassment to me in all these months since.

Remember that my fiancé was standing there to take a picture. She did.

And we are left with a blurred photo of a light brown hell springing towards me with canines extended eagerly, whilst I, with my shoulders hunched and knees together, am vaguely turning my body away from the mental mass of monkey unpleasantness (incidentally – completely successful).

With some scratches to my clothing and – thankfully – none to my skin, I scurried away like a monkey should, my bananas snatched like my school dinner money and my shame riding how in red upon my face, whilst any remaining pride I had remained dead in the dirt where the monkey still stood; eating my bananas and looking smug in the canines.

I wouldn’t say I’m a petty chap, but I sure as sweet heck did launch a banana directly into the central back of that monkey from a distance of 12 feet, eager to show him that now, having smuggled my courage past my brain and out into my sleeve-living heart, I was ready to tangle in the Laos forest.

And the banana bounced off, of zero effect to the millennia of genetic insistence by nature that this monkey was made of sturdier stuff that can withstand a blow from an Englishman’s fast-bowled banana (he didn’t even turn his head), and it was promptly scooped up by monkey-minor and I never saw it, the minor-monkey, nor the bullying alpha again.

That night, thoroughly bullied by a monkey and wishing for a round two, I was ultimately thankful that I hadn’t fallen into that gaping mouth with hideous eyes, and not only been eaten but been rabies-eaten (the kind in which your dinner starts to foam).
I can still see that all-encompassing darkness of mouth, tinged with red and yellow.

Yeesh.

The Squirrel Attack

Year: 2017.

Location: Central Park, New York.

Cause: Nuts.

With the most recent monkey attack a fair few months and many thousands of miles behind us; what could be finer than a sunny day’s stroll through Central Park?

And, in all eventuality, it was still a lovely day for an afternoon walk through New York’s enormous greenery, although there was the issue with the squirrel.

I’m an adorable kind of guy, I rock (placidly) babies to help them sleep, love giving a dog a good old belly rub, and buy my Mrs flowers every now and again (especially after a few romantic lonely drinks).

I see a squirrel, and I get involved; as you might expect of me at this point.
A very hithery-thithery species are squirrels, and they seeeeeem like they’re approachable.

Almost as adorable as me, we watched them bury their nuts and nestle up and into one another, shake their big bushy tails and scurry in a fashion that isn’t derogatory. Maybe even ‘scampering’…

So, I feel just fine about kneeling down by the pathway’s caged fence, and poke a pinch of the contents of my fruit and nut bag through it, initiating those calls that, only in the moment, one feels are somehow effective in gaining and animals trust beyond any circumstance such as sheer luck or the fact you’re waggling food at it.

I proffered nuts to the big bushy grey squirrel (aren’t I adorable?) and committed to those petit squeaks and kisses and waggles and so-ons-and-so-forths, watching the squirrel catch my nut’s eye and edge closer, and a little closer…and then too close.

This was a large chunk of fruit and nut, the sort that can catch a squirrel’s attention and, apparently, rage, and whilst I must have subconsciously thought of it as some form of buffer between myself and the squirrel, it was – in the moment – all too easily brushed aside (actually, more like ‘fucked’; ‘fucked aside’) by the squirrel.

And then I was witness to the most horrific mauling I’ve ever witnessed; at the end of my finger.

The squirrel, with clawed feet clenched upon the wire of the cage, kept my finger prisoner whilst it gave a retaliatory waggle of its own; this being of it’s head rapidly side to side as it burrowed its teeth deep into my fingerprints.

And then I made that sound I make when something particularly upsetting and even more so uncivilised is happening.

A brief, short and sharp, “GGGGRRRRRRRRRRRRRR”.

This might seem like a growl in text, but its not when truly verbalised and you actually here me sound it. Just imagine the sound of a growl, only with the octaves varying all over the shop from high to low and back and forth again.

From what I’ve learned, whatever I’m trying to do by making that sounds; it doesn’t work.

I was realised by the grip of squirrel tooth to survey the horrid sight; with blood all over its bushy tale and my finger pulsing blood like it was entirely entitled to on such an occasion, fruit and nut here and there, with all the surrounding people and squirrels having hushed themselves in response to my own strange noise and the visuals that accompanied it.

Having sounded-off and given the end of my finger a good staring, I decided that revenge was the best option.

Only, I’m not very good at revenge owing to being such an adorable fellow; and I only really tend to end up giving those who have wronged me a break as I always try to see through to their dainty side.

This, plus the fact I was lacking resources of combat, chose to douse the little grey bastard in all that I had; the entire bag of fruit and nuts.

As I began pouring the contents over the psychotic squirrel, I realised that this was essentially giving it everything it had likely ever wanted from its life up till now…and this wasn’t necessarily a happy thing for it.

Looking up and seeing a blood soaked fist pouring forth an eternity of dried fruit and varied nuts was quite a revelation to the critter, raising its little arms high and opening its mouth wide like all its dreams had come true in some nightmarish form, with the hail of the bag’s contents causing it to flee, constantly hounded by the pelting of the delicious healthy snacks, it finally scurried beyond my reach.

Here, I made my way with my fiancé to the nearest McDonald’s, using the free Wi-Fi to quickly research how prominent rabies is in the New York squirrel community.

Thankfully, rabies is not flourishing through the city’s population (of squirrels at least); a fact that caused us great relief so that we wouldn’t have to explain to our insurers how I’d taken a tumble onto a yawning squirrel whilst enjoying a jolly good bit of pointing.

Every website we checked stated: “No. Central Park squirrels do not carry rabies, though we do get over 50 cases each year of patients desperate to know. Please stay away from the squirrels.”

I now shall.

And through monkey attacks, gorilla charges, more monkey attacks and a psychotic squirrel; I’ve one rounding question that might bring some insight into why this keeps happening to me.

Is it the beard?

This old friend on lower half of my face has been a real source of comfort over the years; something to stroke, something to feel total lack of concern as to manliness, and something which is also handy for getting the attention of furry folk from around the globe.

Could it be the beard; this statement of masculinity, dark black and thick to the degree that it could be legally considered to be rude?

If so…I’m keeping it.

I’m no fashion king, but I do know that nothing goes finer with a beard than a fair few jostles with an animals of some variety.

And there is no doubt in my mind that close calls with animals are very much so ‘in’.
And hopefully, soon, squirrel fur hats will suit it too. Maybe with some fruit and nut to accompany it throughout my hat and beard.

No, that’s silly.

There have been other animal encounters, other close scrapes, other incidents in which I’m sure you’d find some enjoyment in reading over, but they’ll stay for next time.

Stay indoors perhaps; but DO NOT SHAVE.

Sam

Back In Blighty (A Toast To Water)

Posted: July 8, 2017 | Author: | Filed under: Adventure Forever | Tags: , , , , , | Leave a comment

I still need to write a great deal of my travels, from the time I completely devastated the good-grief out of a completely innocent squid aboard a boat in Hao Long Bay, to the time the Lady Boys of Chiang Mai dressed me up and very much so down again.

The issue is that these experiences have become like cardboard boxes in the house of hoarder, mounting ever higher and further to the point of which I don’t know where to begin.

Some might say beginning at the beginning is the natural place to take the first step, but the natural thing to do is simply not how I write.

Being home is still yet to stimulate that strange sensation of ‘home’.

It is as though the my travelling never took place and I am simply as I was, 7 months prior, with relationships and routines falling right back into place like a two-piece jig-saw.

There are sure as heck some pleasant benefits to being home.

Clear, clean, unoccupied water out of a tap, merely a matter of feet away, in multiple locations throughout my house, with the possibility of fruity squash cordial as an option; is a delight of a right (well – perhaps there is no ‘right’ to tasty fruit cordial, but imagine the effects of a proletariat without taste-bud stimulus; the world needs tasty).

This, added to the fact that the merciless heat of Oz’s red-centre and the suffocating humidity of Vietnam’s jungles are but a memory that causes me to sweat in only a few regions, means that I wander around feeling hydrated; and this is dandy.

I dehydrate and overheat easily; a problem I’ve suffered since turning all-apey as a teenager, with hair sprouting all over me whilst a thick frizzy mop of the stuff rides my head and keeps all that heat in (unfortunate in that I’m largely sane and see no benefit to keeping alien mind-probes out).

I recall terribly (in that really I wish I wouldn’t recall but YOU brought it up) an occasion of heat stroke as I leaned against the wall of the Vatican, wondering if years of devoted atheism were condemning me and, should that be the case, was I now a believer and so free to walk?

Heavy sun, penetrating heat and really far too much hair for a gentleman to be able to hide beneath anything less that poncho and parasol, I suddenly staggered towards a lamp post, clutching it and feebly fondling the idol of Baby Jesus I’d liberated from a shop’s wicker basket (like a battery of mass produced Messiahs all wishing someone less meek would come along to break a commandment or two) and held on.

The world swirled as it feels when one is drunk and in love, though on this occasion I was touched only by the sun on my overly exposed brain, confusing me via heat, rather than love’s devastating effect on via chemicals of the swooshing and panging nature.

I hailed a cab and escaped the Vatican, the near 40 degree heat have defeated me so that I was humiliated by it, with the sun having it’s hat on and then taking it off owing to it being such a scorcher of a day (I’ve always though the sun a tad slow. The moon seems far more with it, more subtle, more nuanced. I’d definitely rather take the moon to dinner than the sun. In Paris. The sun deserves fast food and wheat, whilst the moon is quite appetized by the mere glory of wine and music. The moon drinks red, or an ‘eau-de-vie et limonade’, can’t dance but does, a wears killer shoes as a matter of morality. I feel I’ve found in myself a most wolfish adoration of the moon this evening – how appropriate – or perhaps I’m simply to grudged-up about the sun and that sweltering day in Rome).

Scarcely returned to the room, I spun a dial to bring the room to a more pleasing freezing temperature and stationed myself in the shower for what was then the foreseeable and what became the rest of the day. Still swirly, still delayed in vision and thought and speech, I just wanted to be laying down in the Antarctic, with my head in the soothing cool jaws of some abominable snowman.

I don’t like the heat.

I do, however, adore water.

Water is medicine, cures when you’re ill and saves when you didn’t realise you were ill.
I feel water could honestly raise a fellow’s IQ and improve his standing in life; such is its power.

Therefore it’ll surprise none that on many days, through jungle and desert and canyon, beach and mountain, city and hut; that I longed for a tap’s worth of easy, bargain priced water.

Slosh me with it.

Drown me slightly.

All I wanted so nearly every-single-moment was nought but a familiar glass of the delicious tasteless water that is home to me.

And I haven’t even begun to talk about squash – or ‘cordial’ to those who wish to continue a use of a fine word that isn’t in much use unless supping the elderflower variety.

Whilst I might love water as a matter pf product and principle, I’m afraid I’m a terribly 21st century boy and I tired of the taste of water decades ago. I need a bit of jazz in my glass to encourage it down; otherwise it can become just a tad too dull to really become an option.

That is, unless of course you throw me into a large Mekong-sized river of the stuff (such as the Mekong River). There – with floorboard-stiff dogs floating past you, bloated enough to really flatter your own figure, and with waterfalls strong enough to take your spectacles from your face (as happened to my good pair) so that they might wander down stream and inadvertently choke some innocent swimming dog, there – with squid hunting your fishing line and then becoming latched about the hook, through the brain, before being accidentally spun by in attempted to release so that it should revolve like a frigging roulette wheel as it ejaculates ink over everyone there but me….in these cases water can be a little more fun than a tasty fruit cordial; although it is the latter you’ll when reading a sentence this long out loud.

What else am I glad to be home to?

I think that might be it.

Immediate water.

Although I do miss the bum guns.

Next time?

My issues with monkeys and apes (I think it might be the beard).

Sam