AlBarclay

Last time I drove into this country from France I was with Lou. The car was mostly empty. A few cases of wine from José Ferrer in Binissalem but largely an open boot. When we got to the border back to the UK, the customs official was mildly concerned about how I didn’t have an out stamp. I have no idea why I didn’t have an out stamp, I didn’t want one. Someone at the French border evidently agreed with me that time as he didn’t give me one.

Back then in November it was a bright day in France. Late Indian summer sun. Lou and I let the light hit our faces, knowing that this long winter was coming. We spent 35 minutes in a tunnel and we emerged to freezing fog and a rainstorm. Ahhhh Britain.

It’s getting harder and harder to countenance living here. The stupid and the cruel people here are shouting so very very loudly since Brexit. Those fuelled by fear and a sense of their own intrinsic importance. The internet gives platforms for extremism fuelled by abject stupidity. We all have friends that fall for pattern-matching.

Just as we approached the border, I opened my window to give my passport to the guy, and the wind blew the flimsy piece of crap you are supposed to attach to your windscreen out of the passenger window. Tristan tried to run for it and eventually found it, but it wasn’t a good look in front of the border guard. I even got out of my car and stood watching him with my hands on my head. Two tall men of a certain age jumping out of a car and running somewhere just before customs. Fuck.

“What was all that about?” he asked, after having watched Tristan run across three lanes of polite traffic. I can’t quite keep a straight face to him either. I have been laughing with part genuine reaction and part border-panic. We look like clowns. “Oh yeah sorry the uh the paper thing just blew out.” “What are you carrying in there, you look full?” ‘Just crap. Stuff from my brother’s house.” NO WINE OFFICER “Nice. Must be a lot of value there?” NO DIDN’T OVERSPEND ON “INVESTMENT” BOTTLES OFFICER “Nah probably not. He died six years ago. This is just things to remember him by.” WINE HELPS REMEMBER!!!!??? NO IT DOESN’T! OH GOD. WE ARE DOOMED.

He looked at me like I’d brought a downer for saying my brother was dead. He still kept working. “Where are you going?” “Home.” “Where’s home?” “London mate. Sorry but someone’s gotta live there.” “I can’t handle that place.” “Yeah, I get that. My girlfriend is in Brighton, and frankly now I’m starting to look at other options helped by her perspective.” “Off you go then. Good luck.”

God knows. If we had too much wine in the car we hadn’t fully counted it. I think we were within limits, surprisingly. We both stopped at vineyards and bought, but we weren’t over the top. We were loaded with some other random things and a stop and search would have been rubbish and extremely time consuming.

Back home tomorrow. Tonight we are in Rouen. This ancient city has some tales to tell. Outside our window is the Abbatiel Saint-Ouen, connecting me lovely to Jersey. According to Google it is a historical church with a big organ. You could believe it was the cathedral, but the cathedral is much much older and much much bigger. We found it. It was raining. And of course it is closed tomorrow.

Walking round this city it’s astonishing how much has survived. The cobbled streets still have little streams by the side of crooked medieval houses where in the morning people might have shouted “Gardez l’eau” before chucking the contents of a chamber pot out of the shuttered window. Often now the windows are straight with a spirit level but the buildings are wonky around them.

It’s all a little sideways. Bright and well appointed bars tempt in weary travellers for a glass of beer with Picon, or a Fernet Branca. Bells ring severally on the hour, scattering the town with sound. The air is colder now again. We know we are in the north of France. But this place has life and character.

Our last meal away was in a little Asian Fusion place run by a couple from Hong Kong. Cat themed and simple, it was brilliant and unusual, and there were vegetables available, which have been in short supply this week. I’m now already in bed, much earlier than is my habit, happy to put my head down early and just drift off. It’s a nice little room, with a double bed made to feel like a four poster but without real curtains. Weird pillows as is the way in northern France. But warm and comfy and all I need to do is sleep.

The car is chock full. I parked it securely underground tonight so as not to tempt any ne’er-do-wells. I can sleep sound now and enjoy how light I feel after my weeks of movement and food and family and wine and light and walks and good cheer.

One word of warning for anyone coming this way. I took a toll road for about an hour. Shaved an hour and fifteen off the day or thereabouts. They charged me €45 euro. I’m still fuming about it. It was from Tours to close to here. The first one that wasn’t automated and I still think she ripped me off.

Well hello. I’m writing to you during a game of rugby. England is getting absolutely routed by France. I’m in this pub in Néré.

It is playing on a little screen above the bar. The terrifying thing is that most of the people here are English.

“This is the poorest region of France,” says my sister in law. And despite the gastronomy, I see it. Many of the houses round here are ruins, just as it was for my brother Jamie when they moved in. Had Parkinson’s not taken him, who knows what he might have achieved. He did so much. The house is clean and shipshape, but there are parts of it that are not complete. Incredible work though… and actually I know from my harebrained rush down when I heard he was dying that you can get here within a day from London.

On the table next to us, a very young mother is sitting with her son. They are evidently extremely close. He wears an Adidas matching tracksuit and trousers. She has fake furs and leggings. There’s only about sixteen years between them. They are doing scratchcards. Every time there’s a small win, she goes and gets more. There’s a connection between them, but it is sad to watch just because of the need. I really want them to win big.

Everybody else in this pub is British. I’m trying to get this written stealthily but I’ve been rumbled for being on my phone.

—

And now it’s the morning. I totally failed to get back to this. “I write this daily blog and the last few days have been rushed or drunk so I wanted to give it some time this evening.” “Oh really? Why do you do that? etc etc etc” The blog conversation. As tedious as my scribblings. And means you’re getting this late folks.

England got absolutely shafted in the rugger. Good to be in France.

As I woke this morning, I uttered the words “I will never drink again.” They were a lie, of course, and a lie that was known in the moment it was spoken. Tristan heard it in the next room and laughed.

Last night I saw Danuta for the first time in 6 years. She was the reason to live for my poor lost brother Jamie. He died just as I was getting on the ferry back. A great loss. She still lives here in the South of France, and this house is full of things. When dad left Switzerland he brought everything here. Added to that, the things that Jamie wanted from Eyreton after dad died are here and well taken care of. Jeremy, another half brother, brought things into his damp uninhabitable troglodytic cave near here, where they gradually dissolved through damp. Being here lets me walk on my father’s carpets again. And it’s wonderful to feel that everything has been taken care of.

Tristan had a self tape today for theatre. I think it came in a few days ago but he had his identity compromised via mobile so we had to rush it today. I have railed against self tape auditions in the past, but actually it’s incredible that we can be here and send good work from a phone. I would never usually be so casual about not knowing where I’ll be tomorrow. I want to be thought of as available. But I know I can make things look nice for myself or a friend on a tape – anywhere. This self tape world is new world where actors can be free to impulse travel.

We barely moved all day and we aren’t feeling any great onus to move tomorrow. I’m allowing myself to have the kind of holiday office people have, where they literally stop giving a fuck. I’m not checking my emails or responding to messages. I’m being an absolute communication nightmare, and I give no fucks.

Sorry if you’ve tried to get me. Monday.

Bed.

Outside the window, the rain is hammering down. I’m gonna have a lie in. I’m surprised. We are just making things together. We’ve been pushing experience. The next few days are important…

D and I have a good handle on it. Apparently.

Bedtime. I’m thrilled to be with family now. The last thing I was here was with Min and my brother died the night I left. I’m back now. I’m with his brilliant girlfriend.

Outside, the wind and rain is shouting. I’m definitely gonna be happy if tomorrow is nothing. Bergie is snatching what he can. I’m off working.

I’m very aware that my usual work would be reaching peak right now. Inevitably I’ve been asked to sort some things that are happening in Saudi Arabia. I’ve just had to tell the people that I’m not part of the team this time. Anyone following this will know how my work with those guys is periodic. Sometimes they don’t need anyone to help avoid massive potholes. It’s tricky to feel like we are being overlooked when we are actually helpful, but…

I’m glad of the mess of authentication. Bravo. I’m off to bed. There’s a feeling where this is all going. xx

God I have to schedule this?

ze….?

Oh good lord. I’m awake. Did I just snore myself awake? I’m in a double bed in a white loft. Periguex. Ah yes, I remember, I had a glass of Armagnac and passed out. Goodness, listen to the rain on the windows. I should put some clothes on.

Why do I literally smell of duck? Oh. Oh yes, the Duck Trilogy at Chez Fred. Shower. It’s cold. Hellfire. Shower anyway. Get the duck off. Brrrr. Back to bed.

No. I can’t just stay here. Chocolatier downstairs.

“Bonjour, je cherche un petit cadeau pour ma copine…? Oh – et vends tu du café?” Some classy dark chocolate and a latte. Why is the cup bent? Art. Hmf.

Coffee. More awake now. There’s Tristan. More coffee. Awww she gave us a free truffle.

This is a beautiful town to walk through, now the rain has stopped. Cathedral! Great high ceilings. Chandeliers. Market outside. I should probably buy some cheese.

“Vends Tu Rocamadur? Oui? Bien. Quatre SVP.” And some cow cheese. Everything here so quickly. Omnomnom. It’s raining again.

“Shall we culture?”

There’s a museum. Neolithic to modern. Eccentric and often beautiful. We shelter and absorb. There’s a Canaletto. So detailed. Busts. Vases. Old things. Bits of an old cathedral in the courtyard, saved from the bin.

Time to drive. Off through the sheets of rain. Up to Néré. Perfect timing. 7pm on the 9th.

Fuck.

It’s the 8th.

Booking.com. Search by proximity. 1.3 miles. Check in until 8pm.

“Hi we are outside your property.” “Oh that’s weird you aren’t supposed to be able to book after six.” “And yet HERE WE ARE!!” “Would you like lasagne?” “YES!”

—

We are staying in a lovely stone home. Ok so it’s IKEA furnished, but it’s cheap. Tomorrow we are up early for a wine tasting. Before long we will need to come back to reality. But this is a delightful adventure in the meantime. “Thank you for trusting me to impulse book this place,” I tell Tristan. “I just knew that time wasn’t on our side and we would have been fucked without it.” The marvels of the internet, to go from stranded to covered so quickly. Airbnb etc are destroying people’s chances to own property in the long term. They are insidious and negative forces in the worldwide property market, driven of course by people and how they can choose to go to greed.

Tristan and I are making a show. I’m very stoked about it. I’m not gonna talk about it here yet, but it’s coming. Start being excited now as it’s gonna be a corker.

Off to bed now. So warm, happy and comfy. And I got a day ahead of myself, so I can totally relax now.

Oh joy. We’ve been puddleducking through the Bas Pyrenees and up into Limousin. First thing in the morning we went to the grotto of the holy virgin at Lourdes. I wanted to get baptised in holy water. I waited in a queue. When I got to the front the guy was English. He made it very clear to me that God wanted me to wear a mask, and that was more important than anything else for God . I pulled my scarf up. No dice. He radiated that general disapprobation that can only really come from Catholics who consider themselves high up. I adore Catholics. Mum was one. I walked a long long way to help speed her through purgatory. Their guess in the great big “What’s Out There?” lottery involves a slightly neurotic deity who very much needs to be correctly worshipped, and who really really wants us to love his mum. According to the humans who have bubbled up around it, obedience is paramount and life is not supposed to be easy. Some humans are very happy about how generally obedient they have lifetime-been, to the extent that they start to dislike people who haven’t been as obedient as they have. “Put a mask on,” he said with all the consonants spiking. I went to the bucket of masks he pointed at. There was a bucket of euros next to them. I was planning on donating afterwards and suddenly I’m thinking about money and COVID and left brain stuff. I suddenly felt judged and watched when I needed to be open to the word of God, to the messages of the cosmos. Catholics have access to such incredible places of power, augmented by generation after generation of faith. Why is it so often the gatekeepers who muddy the simplicity of things? I worried that my own ritual and communion would be better than anything I could get from any of the jumped up humans I had met. Still though I figured I would go with it just for the shot at total Immersion in Lourdes water. “This is the right place for the immersion?” I asked mister disapproval. “We don’t do total immersion anymore. We pray with you for a while and then pour water on your hands.”

I missed my chance on the day I started Camino. Today I rejected my chance because I didn’t like the human gatekeeper. I often let my instinct drive. Tristan and I improvised rituals. Better than that obedient guy praying at me. I was rather hoping for two taciturn French monks to sternly shove me into a fountain. Instead there was that very familiar schoolteacher type and his disapproval. Catholics.

Onwards.

The advantage of travelling with Tristan is that he knows things about wines and food that have come from many years of study and understanding. The disadvantage of travelling with Tristan is that he knows things about wines and food that have come from many years of study and understanding.

“Oh look at that,” he says. “That’s an immaculately put together bottle.” *pop* We stopped at Dartigalongue. They make Bas Armagnac in very small batches. We arrived in a tiny village as the rain was hammering down. We met a very lovely man and we tasted Armagnac. This evening I brought up a bottle of wine that had been given to Lou and I by our hotel in Majorca. We both took one sip and rejected it as vile. So the 25 year old bottle went pop, and I’m going to sleep like a log and snore like a lumberjack.

Lourdes.

I haven’t been here for quite some time, but the journey here today from Barcelona gave me plenty of flashbacks.

Wakeup and out past mildly disgruntled desk staff to claim Bergman before the authorities get him. I then sat in him a short while until Tristan came. “I don’t think you’ll be welcome back at that hotel,” he observes, as he describes his checkout experience. Yep, I’m pretty sure of that. Linkback FUN. Mostly I’m extremely balanced and kind, but the scale got tipped just by city people after country peace. I can more or less keep my logic and my cool while I’m angry, and I did. It was all just so unnecessary and expensive and I had the misfortune to be speaking to the wrong human.

We stopped at a coffee shop and had an omelette and of course that was when I got my parking ticket. No idea how to pay it, and no instructions on the ticket, like I should know. I tried through a machine. Didn’t work. Big cities!!! Lou is right to just want to get out of them ASAP. This is why last time we went straight to Girona. It’s not a metropolis. Barcelona can go suck a pig.

Bergie Tristan and I struck out up through the Pyrenees, avoiding toll roads, following our nose. We took the route that looked pretty. Lakes and mountains.

At lunchtime we tried a place that is an albergue for pilgrims on Camino. We are in that familiar territory now. The owner’s son was having a kidney transplant, and an extraordinary sunpickled woman (“She could have been Andean!”) directed us to Entremont restaurant in Liguerre, just five minutes away. There we had one of the best priced and thought out set menus I’ve ever had in Spain, bearing in mind all the weeks of Camino. An incredible lunch. One to remember. In a beautiful place.

And I guess that this is the purpose of the return trip. We are taking it slow, and we are seeking beauty and nurture as we go. It’s no coincidence we are in Lourdes now, where so much started for me, and for my mother before me. Now I’ve carried that holy water to Santiago and committed it to the ocean and to God, now that Compostela is written and dedicated to her memory, now I can come back to this holy holy place and I can maybe find out about what the energies can shift in my life and the life of those I love in the NOW. Last Camino was about the past. I might get a passport tomorrow, stamp it, get dunked by the funky monks and then finish another Compostela in decades on the same passport. Intention is all. Once you’re on the journey you’re on the journey. I could fly there at 100 and finish.

Bedtime now for me. We found pizza. Now we are two men lying farting next to one another. We have to check out early. Perfect opportunity to go get smacked about by God on a Tuesday.

Oh I have not been well. Thankfully someone else piloted the boat. Bergman was just in the hold.

I woke at 7 after a feverish sleep. I threw myself into Bergie and slammed down the road to the port. Lou, meanwhile, was on the phone to my hotel checking I hadn’t died in the night. About halfway to the port I realised my phone was still on airplane mode from last night. I rang her. She was in the process of getting the staff at the Finca to check I wasn’t dead.

I got to the boat in time and bought a cabin. I felt just absolutely drained. Like I’d been in a fight. Seventy five euros for the cabin, but I honestly didn’t care. I got something for my money. A door I could close. An opportunity to sleep and go from place to place simultaneously! I slept the whole journey. Literally just down. Up briefly as I needed water, but I mostly slept all day. Woke up with a shock to hear that we were already in port in Barcelona.

I’m staying in the Hotel Paxton in Barcelona. Tristan is here. I persuaded him that a roadtrip was in order. He bit. I sent him the check-in details and warned the hotel that he would be there but shouldn’t pay.

I booked this expensive place for one night because it said it had parking. Turns out you have to pay €25 euro extra. They shouldn’t advertise that as parking. That’s garage. That’s for the Maserati crowd. Bergman doesn’t need to be safe. He just needs to be able to stop without a fine. I had a squabble with the woman at reception who seemed unusually gleeful about having access to a thing I couldn’t afford. Wonderful English, but turned to sarcasm. Terribly polite. Absolutely foul. I only booked this hotel because it said it had parking. I didn’t want to have to mess around, this place was expensive and it said it had parking. I booked it. No breakfast, as that’s €25 extra per person too. This is nightmare corporate hotel world. I made a terrible terrible mistake. She made me pay. Normally you’d expect to pay when you leave? Apparently not here. I had to pay immediately.

I eventually left that woman who was being horrible to me at her nasty reception, and went up to the room.

“It looks like I’m your rent boy,” says Tristan. He’s already checked in. We are going to hit the road together. “The woman at reception was flirting with me,” he adds.

OK. So that’s why she was such an absolute bastard to me. She likes him and thinks I’m his sugar daddy. I hope she gets a really persistent pimple on the end of her nose.

It’s too expensive here. It’s not for real people. Avoid it. €25 euro each if we want breakfast. We won’t, of course. Still. Pigs.

I’ve slept mostly for the last 36 hours but I’ve got to get back on the road now. This is the most expensive night of the whole trip so far, and I’ve ended up putting Bergman on some local side street where I’ll have to move him at 8. The extent to which the reception staff at Paxton didn’t give a fuck about my car parking concerns is almost epic. I’m sad as I was excited about this night. “I’ve booked a posh hotel cos they have car parking,” I told Tristan a few days ago. I was looking forward to a luxury stay. I can’t relax though as Bergman is off on some street nearby where I only half understand the parking restrictions, and this is exactly what I was trying to avoid when I chose a hotel with parking, and they should be ashamed of themselves for their attitude.

Still. Bedtime. We went to see Sagrada Familia. Good God. Wonderful. Impossible. I had no idea. Organic architecture?! How did that get past the unimaginative people who run the world? I adore it.

I’m sorry to be so negative. I was thrown out. I’m so tired and spun out and it’s the combination of not being able to park and being treated like I’m an asshole for expecting it. Bad hotel. Bad bad bad naughty bad hotel. But these things are fleeting. I just wish I hadn’t given them so much of my money. They do not deserve anyones custom.

“What about all the lovely things we’ve done this evening?” Tristan asks me as I read this back to him. “We’ve done so many other things tonight! The best artichokes you claimed you’ve ever had. The best architecture humanity can create, free of restriction. And you talk about the parking?”

But this, Hotel Paxton, is what you are capable of doing to people who, like me, artlessly book thinking that “parking” means “parking”.

Lou is in the air on the way back home. What a lovely few days though stopping with her on this beautiful island.

As we sat for our last meal here I felt some familiar rumblings. There was once in Spain a long long night caused either by bad water or by spaghetti vongole. It taught me nothing. I still drink the water, I still eat spaghetti vongole. The curious thing about this evening is that things started happening before the clams got to the table.

Our gut is a brain. I think it was sending signals to my head brain saying “Gonna be emptying out shortly like the last time we ate clams, batten down the hatches.” My brain interpreted it as “Eat clams”. I ate them and then took Lou to the airport by which time I was feeling decidedly the worse for wear. Still I got driving and stopped at a filling station when suddenly there were two simultaneous very strong and extremely immediate needs.

Once I had successfully alternated shouting my croaky song and attempting lift off, the endorphins kicked in. I bought a bottle of water and made it the half hour drive to my hotel room. Now I am showered and shivery but it feels that whatever my gut didn’t want has been successfully ejected.

This beautiful hotel will just have me sleeping in it. I’m too tired and wrung out to visit the bar, too tender to enjoy the bottle in the fridge. Sleep wins.

I’ve often been told to be wary of the tap water here. I rarely give such warnings credence. But that certainty that everything will be alright has got me into trouble before, and will again.

The bed is comfy. I’m gonna switch off the Aircon as it is noisy as hell but summer is coming, and I’m lower than we were. Not gonna freeze even if I’m shivery.

This isn’t what I envisaged for my last night here, but we all know what happens when we have “expectations”. This is what’s happening, and there’s a best to make of it, even if that best is just sleeping.