Travels without Claud

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Travels without Claud

20160910

Home to home



I really enjoyed writing my circumspect travel blog on the joys of cycling in the Netherlands; so I thought that as and when the mood takes me I’d write the occasional piece.

It’s Saturday morning, it’s already almost mid-September, and it’s pouring with rain. There’s just me and the dog at home for the weekend. I think this might be the very first time ever that I’ve spent four days alone in the family home. I’m not entirely sure what odd set of coincidences eventually brought that about, but it did, and here I am.

I’m not feeling especially lonely, I’ve learned to quite like being on my own. I think it stems from being uprooted every two years as a kid, and moving to some new and foreign place. Probably not ideal, coupled with the warring parents; but you find your own way of getting used to it. Anyway there’s lot’s to do. I haven’t done any guitar practice for about a month, so my fingers have gone soft. The garage needs tidying, I need to go for a run, the dog needs a walk (although he won’t go out if it’s raining!) And then there’s always the ironing and the end of the ‘Dingo Baby’ film with Meryl Streep, that I started watching last night. As I remember that story from the time I thought the family were on their own camping in the Outback, it appears not. Seems they were on a campsite, with other people around. An unusual story.

Also, I started writing another song a while ago and want to try and finish it. A line came to me that I think is a decent ‘hook’.

“I know what I said, was better left unsaid, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t true”

As well as all the fun stuff there’s a match on at half-five that I might watch; although I do find it a bit of a struggle watching a whole game. I might just tune in for the second half. At least it’s not an England international! When did international football get so boring?

Last night I had a disturbing dream about being lost and alone. It was quite tricky. I was standing in a desert; not the type with with sand dunes, and knee deep sand, but a pancake flat desert with hard, baked mud, all cracked up like tiny crazy paving. I could see nothing else in any direction, just the endless flat, brown, hard surface stretching out to every horizon. The sun was right over head and it was hot. I felt a real and rising sense of panic as I span around looking for something, anything, to get my bearings from, but there was nothing. Whichever way I turned was the same. Just the flat, hard, cracked, laughing mud. Not a tree, not a rock, not a cloud in the sky; and no wind. Just the empty flatness. I remember thinking that it didn’t matter at all which direction I went in, because there was nothing to guide me, nothing to tell me where I was going. If you’re all alone and there’s no guide and no direction, what do you do; keep moving or cry?

It was just a bad dream. When I woke up this morning the dog was still wagging his tail, waiting to be fed. I could hear rain water dripping out of the bottom of a drainpipe, and I had the company of a Robin dipping in and out of the birdbath. Reminds me of a joke I once wrote.

“I was in town the other day and I saw a tiny bird pick up a brick and throw it through the jewellers window - it was a Robin!”

I had a whole pot of tea and an apple turnover with fresh cream for breakfast, now that’s living alright!

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