Author: albarclay

I’m in a cheap hotel in Ruislip. This is more of a knocking shop than anything else really, but it was a toss up between a night here or a night at home and then trying to get here from Chelsea in rush hour. I decided to give myself a few extra hours sleep. It isn’t work in Ruislip. Just a favour for a friend, but still, I know my sleep patterns and London traffic and I’m not confident I would get up and get here in time if I didn’t go about it like this.

I wish I was still in Brighton. Lou and her toasty flat and the cutest cat and sheets made of nice material. But… I’m here, in another hotel room, and outside it is blowing and freezing. It’s coming up to ten and I’ll likely be asleep very soon. I’m not in late night mode and haven’t been since New Year. Normally I’ll be asleep by now. My routine was spun out when I got a text telling me one of my radio dramas was airing on BBC 3 at 7:30pm. I’m playing a fixer type – a type of voice I understand. I find myself tuning in.

I’m getting better at objectivity regarding my output. This week I’ve been trying to read back over these blogs again. It is unusual. Watching myself often carries unpleasant weight. Listening to myself? Even stranger. None of us sound like we hear. Still, I don’t mind what I did for that piece. But it ate into my evening checking, as I wanted to get a feeling for the whole execution. By coincidence I had a friend in it, and I reckon I can frame the director as such too, even though we met through work. We make our friends through the strange things we do.

I’ll wonder about this though, in years to come. Did I really stay in the cheapest hotel in Ruislip listening to myself play a fixer and some small parts in Bacon in Moscow, as the cold wind whistled on the glass?

I’m here with my book, my work and my Steam Deck. I think I’ll get into my lines for Tuesday a bit before bed. I have the illusion of momentum right now. Long may it last.

I’m starting to work out where all the saunas are in Brighton.

Lou found this one. Her old friend Bella has made it happen. It’s a little custom made sauna box, about the same size as the little cabin I was in over New Year. Lou had it booked ages ago for us. It’s in Stanmer Park.

We go there pretty often, to Stanmer. There’s good walking, ancient cedars, and some decent shroom activity there. Even today, in the off-season, we found some excellent ones. Velvet Shanks, which peak in January, usually on dead beech. A flourish of them. Enoki. There was enough there and in good enough condition for an excellent soup. But it is my first positive and I’m only allowed to eat them when I’ve had three clear positives backed up by second opinions. So I left them. We had plans for dinner anyway.

We wandered up to the field next to the old willow shelter. That’s where Bella has pitched her sauna. Clothes off in a little hut, paddle over between planting beds, and in you go. There were nine of us in that box. All of us as pale as we ever get, lined up in a hot box.

Two hours long. I didn’t think I would last, but Bella was coming in with essential oils to put in the steam, and wands of different plants to bash each other with. We were sucking on oranges and having cold water thrown on us with oak fronds, and gently birching each other and ourselves as well like penitent medieval monks. I was the only man in there, and about half a shade darker. None of us have seen the sun for too long.

When we overheated we went and sat in the long grass of a freezing soaking meadow in our pants in January and looked at the horses. Then back in for another blitz and it wasn’t long before we found out the time had gone by.

I’m so chilled out now. Time with Lou has that effect. I’ll be in bed hours before usual, and I’ll sleep long and deep with the sea for company. Sure Tessy will jump on me and put her arse in my face at about 3am. But that’s to be expected. And how can you fault this face?

A stroll down the flooded seafront. Water so high on some of the pathways that my sock was wet through one of my walking boots. Thankfully no rain today, so the hope of things beginning to sink into the water table and flow back to the sea.

At Ovingdene we found a stranded dogfish, hours dead but not yet found by gulls. It must have been thrown up by a swell and left there. The beach was strewn with such odd seaborne things. The bones of dead creatures, pieces of seacarved wood, strange stones and pieces of colour and interest.

Along with us, small groups of people were more actively picking things up. They had come with bags. “Don’t fill your pockets with things to take home,” advised Lou and I assured her I wouldn’t before putting down the interesting driftwood. Things like that need to be wet anyway. After a day at home they are often just a bit of wood, just a stone. My altar is covered in things I’ve picked up on important days having caught my eye, and I could only tell you now where about half of them actually came from!

We got as far as the rocks where Siwan and I set fire to a chicken full of fireworks on a dark dark night in November. There was no trace, of course. The sea covers it daily, and it has been a stormy stormy time. Plus we thoroughly burnt the thing. It was just papier-maché.

When there’s light there’s light and it is good. Even this month, always the bleakest of months and with no festival to break the dark, we had light and the illusion of warmth for a brief few hours.

I’m starting to carve shape into my early winter. Projecting positivity forward. Anticipating some shifts. Lou and I did some auspicious mystic stuff this evening and I’m feeling pretty positive now about the coming year. We walked a long way, and it was freezing. But I’m looking lustfully at the Shikoku Henro right now and that’s 30km a day for six weeks with a rucksack.

I can see why people who live near the sea have gardens full of random stuff. I wouldn’t have had the dogfish (please feel free to correct me aquatic scientists, I’m just going by the fins and size. Could it have been a small shark?)

The cold is really getting into my bones and apparently it is gonna get colder but drier. Couldn’t really be any wetter. It’s getting crazy now. I saw some old guy building a boat out of gopher wood.

I’m by the sea again, in Brighton this time. Perhaps this endless wash has been made more noticeable by me being littoral for the last month and more. St Helier feels like it’s inland but it’s right by the edge. Redwoods would grow tall in the part of Devon where I stayed, feeding as they do on coastal spray. Brighton and I’m looking at the swell as I write, and the mist was down so hard this afternoon I couldn’t even see the lights of the wind farm.

Everything is sodden. When I gave Lou her presents just now the packaging was fucked on them all. Damp fudge boxes. A bit of porcelain that had been munged for long enough that Tessy was lingering over the sniffs.

Outside the soil can’t take the wet at the rate it is coming down. I bet bulbs are getting washed out and rotted. Too much rain, too quick. There’ll still be a hosepipe ban in June, but for now we live in a lake.

We went to Ditchling briefly to check in on Lou’s workshop. She’s been away, so just making sure a branch hadn’t hit the window or something. The roads round that way were barely passable. Walls of water being thrown up by cars, fjords in the roads. Impossible for cyclists, lethal for motorbikes and barely possible for Bergman and he’s a big boy.

Here inside and in bed as I write it is comfortable and comforting hearing the roar of the wind and the crashing of the waves. It’ll lull us to sleep.

Ping pong about London. I woke in Stokey in the spare bed at Jack and Sara’s place. He had a zoom, so I did lots of admin that has been hanging over me since before Christmas, and worked out my expenses for Carol. Then we unloaded all the crap from the show that I had hauled back in Bergie. Not the booze though. I get to keep that which is odd considering I’m gonna have to sell it or give it to friends or … PUT ON A SHOW!!!

Then I got myself home. Moved myself back in. Other people have been in my room. Now all my clothes are in Brian’s room. It is all very odd but I’m only here for a night.

I rang a few builders and tried to get some dates in the diary for a good look at the flat and to start the works in earnest sooner rather than later. For too many reasons I’ve procrastinated too long.

Now I’m running a bath. My bum still hurts from stacking it in the rain on those stairs at new year. I am trying to take care of myself now, and looking forward to Brian showing up. He’s having dinner out tonight.

I put the heating on. Life is good. Looking forward to heading down to the coast tomorrow, even if I might have to rebound almost immediately if my commercial tape gains traction, but what are the odds?

Quite a hard day in many ways, coming back into the world with a crash. There has been something incredibly peaceful about existing in that tiny box. The rain was almost completely constant so even going to the kitchen involved getting soaked, and the solar lighting in the kitchen had nothing to charge from so I could only cook with the little claws of gloom (the kitchen faces roughly North). For 3 days I mostly sat and thought, listened to the rain and the world. The wind brought different creatures. Somewhere not far from me were cattle but I only heard them twice. Once at night and late there were strange noises from the south. At dusk, because it is January, the humanish screams of vixens. It is fox-shagging season.

In the morning I woke and stoked the fire. A basic tidy and I was mostly already packed. A quick shower and back to the box to warm. Heavy rain still. Too dark to see in the kitchen just after dawn so I took a light and hard boiled my remaining eggs. Perfect.

Then walking and eating I squelched to the car. Getting up the path was an adventure. Too steep to move with weight in second gear, too waterlogged for the wheels to hold without skidding. Momentum. I got up without getting bogged and it might have looked like I was going too fast. Fiona would have shouted at me, but at least I didn’t get stuck.

Roads had turned into rivers there in rural Devon.

In the other direction there were bits of broken 4WD in the road. The grass on the verge was so soggy I had to get out and clear the road. I eventually got out. What a storm. What a rainy time we’ve had. And yet so many are still going to bury their heads in the sand about the fact that we are causing this to escalate, year on year as the ice caps melt. We’re lucky here in the UK, but a Cyclone came into Grouville just before Christmas and took off the roof of a house in my old road.

I drove back to the smoke and straight into human politics and crowded streets. Then I was exposed again to the messy aftermath of a hoarder. By evening I was fucked. Had to record a self tape so slung it together with Jack. I can’t speak for quality, we didn’t give it the time. We got it in, which counts for something.

Bed. I am so tired but it is a bed in a home with walls. Ahhhhh.

With constant rain outside, I’ve turned my little home into a sauna. The light is fading even though it’s only half three so I cooked my supper while I could still see something. One of those 3 minute tortellini jobs, lob in some pre-grated cheese and chopped up black olives and pesto. First meal of the year but circumstances demanded that it be a simple one. Then I had a shower, which is the equivalent of a plunge pool. Stark naked through the rain, bare feet over slippery decking, quick ablute and then back to the hot hot cabin. It took me a day or so but I’ve established the level of prep required to make things pleasant here.

The little LED light is charged again now. I won’t be stumbling around in the darkness tonight. Last night during an evening voyage to the longdrop down the hill, my feet came out from under me on some wooden stairs. My life flashed before my eyes. Instinct and luck prevented serious damage – the same falling instinct from judo aged eight that I thank myself for every time I get out lucky from a fall.I got a couple of belts. I’ve done something funny to my upper left arm but nothing but a twist in my shoulder and some bum bruising.

Back to London tomorrow. 4 hour drive first thing in the morning.

—

A bit later now and I honestly think I’ll be in bed by 7 at this rate. I’m looking out of my little window into the gloaming.

Birdsong and rain on the ceiling, the roar of the air intake for the burner. This evening I’m going to select and leave out some good logs for me to throw in when I wake up in the night. I let it go out last night and it quickly gets very cold in here.

This is the relaxed day I didn’t really know I needed. Toasting myself gently in a caravan. Not entirely work free. My host caught me swearing to myself learning my lines for a gangster flick, and I’ve got a self tape due by tomorrow. I’ll do the bulk of the work for those in the car tomorrow though. I’m gonna tune back in to the sounds.

Storm. I’m in my tiny hut. Wood and profound darkness. The roar of the air intake for my stove, the shout of the rain just feet from my head. Happy New Year.

I wasn’t sure what I was here to learn, but it has quickly become clear. I just followed my instincts as forever. They took me to this tiny hut with difficult windows and thoughtfulness required. This morning as I made my bed and cleaned and tidied and arranged things I found myself thinking how rarely I take that daily time to make my environs a little bit nicer. This missed habit, just a tiny bit of time a day, is something I learnt on Camino regarding work. I didn’t think of it regarding self-care until just now. My hut is lovely and clean now. I almost fucked up by leaving the windows open when a storm came. But the windows kind of have to be open or it becomes an oven with the burner on, or steams up.

—

I went to the car to get a head torch and ended up driving to a restaurant I had just read about on my Kindle. I’m researching a show and the place is only twenty minutes from me. “Can you fit me in for the taster menu?” “No, sir, only the à la carte.” Hmm

I ended up managing to talk them into letting me sit in an empty restaurant half an hour before anyone else showed up.

I had some very odd things. It’ll take a while to process it.

This year coming will bring shifts, but I’m very happy to have accidentally indulged my proclivities in the name of research.

I’ll go back to my little hut now and hunker down. Tomorrow I’m going nowhere. Next year I’m going somewhere.

Have a good one my lovelies, whatever nonsense you get up to.

I stopped on the way to Goldfinch in the town of Cullompton. There’s a church there the was created by my great grandfather. I thought it worth seeing. Locked, it was, in the dusk. A dedicatory plaque on the outside. Clean walls and evidently still maintained and cared for. Ahhh my godly forebears. Direct line to a Saint, dontcha know. He even looks like me. Not one of the baddies either. Bartholomew de las casas.

I just stopped and looked at it in the dusk for a while. Let whatever energy needed to shift around in me to shift. New Year is coming. I’m going off grid.

Goldfinch is a tiny caravan on a hill in someone’s garden. I arrived in pouring rain. I drove down the steep rutted clay track. Bergman is HEAVY with the beer kegs. I didn’t think about how it would be getting back up.

I walked into the site in pitch blackness. Smoldering logs in the woodburner. I threw some more in.

It is not soft, but it is sweet. It’s in two parts. The caravan sits tiny with a bed and the burner, some basic shelves. It is all on decking. There’s a table outside and a firepit. Then a little shelter hitched up to gas. There’s a gas stove, and a shower. It is lit by solar so on a day like this it’s dark. There are two mugs : A badger and an owl. Both animals I have identified with over time. I’ll explore further tomorrow. I couldn’t find a thing tonight. It was pouring.

I don’t really know why I’m here, in the rain and the dark, no reception. I’ve downloaded 4 books on my Kindle for work in anticipation. Things to make. I think that’s part of it. The process of generating things from nothing. I might do this blog for free, but there are things that I might have to put into the world in a more deliberate fashion. This just drops off me as I’m running. Time to consider my input closer. I want to have something made by summer. Make use of these kegs.

My body clock has been weird lately. I wake with a shock at around 4am and don’t want to go back down. On days like this I’m sleepy by 8. It seems I’m somehow synchronised with the light, since Carol ended.

Still, you can’t stop me going after the finer things. I’ve booked a meal at The Arundell Arms as it is warm and has plugs. Everything is charging. Books are downloaded. Tomorrow I’ll be cooking in the woods but today I haven’t got food to cook. I’m not driving up that hill any more than I have to either. On the way out I chewed a fucking hole in it, and took a load of damage to the clutch. Bergie is too heavy right now to be trying to get up slopes like that.

First things first, getting on the boat. I’ve got two compressed canisters of beer from the show. They’re in the back of Bergie, along with all the random props. Jack and I will find use for the beer, so long as we can dispense it. An early summer show… Over 100 pints. It felt shameful to bin it. It can be used. Still, there’s a question of customs, and of course I got pulled over. I had dead Scrooge next to me covered in a blanket so I uncovered him as an eccentric theatrical thing to try and help with the charm. Seems he likes theatre. He clocked the kegs but didn’t remark on them. “So you’ve been making theatre on the island?” I got on board.

They finally let the boat go. “Condor are a law unto themselves,” I’ve been told. Weather stopped it for days. But… the first hop to Guernsey was a wallopimg, and I can see why they cancelled earlier sailings. Someone had propped the door open to The Club Lounge. There’s a coffee machine in there and you can see out the front. I colonised a seat looking ahead. I was too green for coffee. By the time we got to Guernsey I was sick.

All of Guernsey was waiting to get on. The boat packed out and there would be no more sneaking into club. The door got closed. I asked to pay – was happy to. The vendor told me to wait, and then had an argument with two nasty old people who had paid for club lounge and it wasn’t what they wanted. They got a cabin but not before their club passes were handed to them. I took a surreptitious photo of the pass. The door is coded. Now I had the code.

The moanies left, and by way of transferring bad energy, the French vendor snapped “There is no room in club. In anywhere.” I had the code anyway so fuck it. I thanked them and walked away. I had intended to pay, but 27 pounds is a lot of money for a seasick prevention seat so they did me a favour. I let myself in when I knew I wasn’t being watched and ended up back in my old seat. Perhaps it was cheeky of me to “forget” my denim jacket on it.

The sea was calmer in the channel thank God. I’m in Portsmouth now in a cheap room above a pub. I’m still moving from sea. Gonna turn in and then tomorrow me and dead Scrooge are going on a road trip!