Damn I slept through my alarm. Not that I had to work, thankfully. I wouldn’t have opened the third bottle last night after the self tape if I had had to work. No work. Thankfully. Much nicer than work in the long run even though I’m gonna need money soon. Beach Box Sauna in Brighton.
Bergman was laden with boxes of books though. I didn’t want to drive them all the way to Lou’s. Lou didn’t want me to drive them all the way to hers either. Essentially, if I had arrived with the car still packed I would have been in the doghouse and I woke up with a jolt at half eight and no time to get to the lockup and unload in time for the sauna.
It’s not the best solution really. Big Yellow Self Storage Kingston. A hell of a big business those guys, printing money out of people’s desire to forget but still have the things. In the end they’ve got a property empire. Right now though it’s those mazes of padlocked doors, and who knows what wonders and what horrors lurk within. The staff seem strangely happy for people working for such a big company. “They look after their family,” I am told, and I can’t see programming.
They make you write a novel when you sign up though, honestly. It was endless. I have no clue what I agreed to but I filled in all the damn forms while sleepy Tristan emptied out the car onto trolleys, bless his heart, with both of us newly awake and hanging out of our arse. We loaded up the unit with no time left. Satnav said I’d land in Brighton ten minutes before the sauna slot and I had to get Tristan home from Kingston first. Reader, I floored it. And he let me shoot him out at a junction a short walk from his place.
Then it was just two litres of mineral water flying down my throat as Bergman flew down the roads of Surrey and Sussex to a hot patch of beach.
Beach Box is something of a treat, but you all know by now that I’m allergic to the cold so it’s one that makes sense for my needs and tastes. We were going to go a month ago but the wind was so intense they closed. Today was perfect. Winter sun over the beach and not much wind.
Horse boxes tricked up with felt. Wellness. It’s all very Brighton. At one point someone came into the sauna to deposit a ball of lemongrass infused ice, and wave a great big fan at us all. Six of us were in there for just 45 minutes. Lou and I sat opposite a pair of ladies in their sixties one of which kept running down to plunge in the blooming sea and run back. Wonderful madness. I made do with a cold shower for the shortest time possible before going straight back in the box and throwing more water on for steam. HEAT ME. At the end I stood in the sun for a bit in my shorts with the heat steaming off me like I was on fire. Then I put as many layers as I could on top of myself and we sat by the sea and drank a hot flask of cacao.
It’s nothing if not varied, as ever. I can sense that there are more adventures afoot, and I just don’t know what they are yet. So the next few days I’m having a midweek weekend and with an empty diary I’m taking pressure off myself to do do do so I can be be be. doobeedoobee.
Post sauna, we have just been snuggled up with the cat watching Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Gorgeous movie. Lots of well known skillful people having fun with their town, and buried under that mischief there’s a sad heart beating.
AlBarclay 