Lost and Found

Posted by geoffmead on August 26, 2015
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The other night I lost my reading glasses. I felt for them in my top pocket and they weren’t there. I looked around the camper van – it really isn’t that big – and they were nowhere to be seen. It was nearly midnight and almost pitch black outside. I’d taken Ted for a walk earlier. Maybe I’d dropped them somewhere on the campsite?

I was desperate to find them. The inconvenience I could manage, but Chris and I had chosen them together at Morgenthal Frederics whilst on holiday in New York in 2010 and their sentimental value far outweighed their not inconsiderable purchase price. I quite often misplace things these days (don’t we all) but this was serious. I began to berate myself for my stupidity: fancy putting them loose in my shirt pocket!

As best as I could, I retraced Ted’s walk using the torch on my iPhone to search likely places, but to no avail. I went back to the camper van and checked inside again. Not a sign. I found my big torch and swept the ground nearby. Suddenly I saw a glint in the shadows. There they were, lying in the grass a couple of metres from the van, on a well-trodden route. I picked them up and looked at them in the torchlight. They were undamaged. Phew!

It made me wonder how we can become so careless about things (and people) that are precious to us, when the novelty wears off. Sometimes we have to lose them before we realise how much they really mean to us. Chris and I were lucky: we came close to losing each other a couple of times during our relationship but in the end we found in each other the person we wanted to spend the rest of our lives with.

Even though she’s gone, I haven’t lost her.

9.5

Posted by geoffmead on August 24, 2015
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24 August 2015

Exactly two years ago, while we were on holiday in Portugal, Chris had a seizure in the middle of the night. She’d never had one before. It came out of the blue, without any prior warning signs. We were both asleep when it began. I was woken up by the bed shaking. At first, I thought it was an earthquake. But she was having a full-blown clonic tonic fit: she was unconscious; her body was rigid; she was having violent spasms; she’d bitten her tongue and was breathing with difficulty. I called her name over and over again as I held her against me, trying to make sure she didn’t choke.

Help arrived, first in the form of a wonderful Icelandic nurse called Hjördis who was staying nearby, and then of the paramedics who bundled us both into an ambulance and drove us over the mountains to the nearest hospital. The hillsides were aflame with high-summer forest fires. It was like a scene from Danté or, if you prefer popular culture, from a Hollywood disaster movie.

We learned within a few days, from the results of the various scans Chris had in hospital, that the root cause was almost certainly a tumour located deep in her brain. This diagnosis was confirmed when 8 days later she was flown home by Air Ambulance and admitted to Gloucester Royal. Neurosurgeons agreed that it was inoperable and Chris decided with my support to “wait and see” rather than risk more damage by poking around for a biopsy.

Medication controlled her seizures and we had a year symptom-free before new tumours began to cause problems. Before another six months had passed, Chris died. I had thought she was going to die when she’d had the seizure in Portugal. I learned subsequently that she might have done, had her will to live not been so strong.

Every day we had together after the seizure was a gift. Thank you, sweetheart, for coming back from whatever unknowable place you went to when the seizure took hold of you, and for giving us the time to learn to love each other properly.

We went about our lives
as though immune from the shifting
of the continents, unaffected
by the mountains growing inch by inch,
and the abyss that deepened daily
under our feet.

We didn’t see it coming –
the earthquake that shook our world.
The flickering of the seismograph
went unseen; the tectonic plates
inside your head buckled
and strained invisibly.

Until the fault-line slipped,
like San Andreas, collapsing
California into the midnight sea.

I thought you’d never come back.
But you weren’t ready to leave.

You pulled yourself up from the depths
into my outstretched arms,
like the survivor of a great tsunami
and promised you’d stay
for the rest of your life.

You kept your word
my blue-eyed girl,
you snatched a glorious year
from that dark ocean
so we could learn to love
and be loved
in return.

[9.5 is the highest rating on the Richter scale of any recorded earthquake]

Sunday Sunday

Posted by geoffmead on August 23, 2015
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Sunday morning and I wake at 8.30. I make my way to the washroom, come back, dress, take Ted for a quick functional walk, fold the bed away, sit down, put the kettle on for tea, and wait for it to boil. Another solitary day stretches out in front of me and I think: what’s the bloody point. It was Chris’s birthday the day before yesterday; I found it unexpectedly uplifting but now I’ve come down with a mighty thump.

It’s only a five-week camping trip and I used to believe that I’d do rather well as a castaway. I quite like my own company and, as an introvert, most of the time what goes on inside my head is much more interesting to me than what goes on outside. Being on my own shouldn’t really be a problem, should it? Chris of course was the complete opposite: an extrovert who found her identity in relationship with others.

It’s a cliché that opposites attract, which is probably why we fitted together so well. Opposites also drive each other crazy. I’d sit quietly enjoying a rare moment of silence and she’d say “What’s the matter?” She’d come home from meeting yet another new group of fascinating people and tell me at length what one person I’d never met said to another person I’d never met, and my eyes would glaze over.

I’d give anything for the chance to piss each other off again.

Bonne Anniversaire

Posted by geoffmead on August 21, 2015
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Some vintage Clos du Papillon to toast you on your birthday. Only the best for you my girl. How you loved birthdays: yours, mine, anyone’s close to you. Christmas was my thing but birthdays were yours. Not just a day but sometimes a whole week dedicated to celebrating the wonder of being alive.

Last year on your birthday, we went to Demuth’s in Bath for dinner to revisit the scene of our first date. In 2013, we were in Portugal and made dinner for our neighbours. In 2012, we invited some friends to join us round the campfire at Thistledown. In 2011, we were at Gifford’s Circus for the show and dinner afterwards. In 2010, we stayed in Long Island with Karen and Dick after our trip to Minnesota with the black bears. And so on, back until I first knew you. Every year was as special as we could make it.

This year, I’ve brought your photograph with me to Finisterre –World’s End – on a headland I discovered last week. We’re looking out over the Baie de Dournenez at a tranquil sea. At 7.00pm (UK time) a small host of people all over the world, joined together virtually to raise a glass in your memory and to celebrate your 49th birthday. I sipped the Clos du Papillon and ate some blinis with faux caviar.

As I write these words, the side door of the camper van is open toward the sea; Teddy is cooling off in the shade after scoffing his birthday dinner (extra tuna on his dog food); it is silent apart from the sound of waves lapping the rocks; the sun has some way to go before it sets over the far horizon, but the shadows are already long and the birds are coming home to roost. You’d like it here.

Happy birthday my love, wherever you are.

Bonne Anniversaire.

Trefeuntec

Posted by geoffmead on August 18, 2015
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I was sure that the hotel that Chris and I stayed at four years ago was La Bretagne in Douarnenez. I googled hotel+jacuzzi+Finisterre and the pictures of La Bretagne looked spot-on. I drove to Douarnenez yesterday afternoon, parked the camper van and checked in. It wasn’t what I’d been expecting.

Wrong jacuzzi. Wrong hotel. Wrong town, in fact.

It threw me at first. I took Ted out for a bad tempered walk round the port looking for a restaurant for dinner later, found nothing that appealed to me, and got back to the hotel just in time for the jacuzzi I’d booked at 7.00pm. By this time, I’d decided that everything about Douarnenez, Brittany, France, holidays in general, and this one in particular, was crap.

45 minutes in the jacuzzi gave me time to realise that my determination to repeat a past experience had come very close to robbing the present of any pleasure. I had a choice: to enjoy the evening as best I could or to wallow in my disappointment that things hadn’t gone to plan.

The hotel receptionist booked me a table on the terrace of a good sea-front restaurant. I watched the sun go down over the harbour and ate well. Ted and I made our way back up the dark cobbled streets to the hotel and slept until late. After breakfast, I set myself the task of having a good day somewhere that Chris and I hadn’t been; to enjoy the warmth of the sun and the feel of the breeze on my face; to be present to the moment as far as I could.

I didn’t manage a whole day or even half a day without getting caught up in nostalgia and longing, but I did have one glorious hour today without a care in the world, sitting on the headland at Trefeuntec, with Teddy contented at my feet, and a Breton mermaid story to read.

I’m hoping for more times like that.

Complet

Posted by geoffmead on August 17, 2015
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This gorgeous establishment is La Crêperie Quartier D’été in La Forêt Fouesenant where I went for lunch on Saturday. Chris and I went there in 2011 and I traced it from the photograph of a chalk-board menu amongst our holiday snaps. I didn’t actually get lunch because it was full.

“Pardon, nous sommes complet,” said the Patron.

No matter, I reserved a table for dinner at 7.30pm instead and drove off to find somewhere to walk with Teddy, and for me to have a cup of tea and read. We ended up by the ruins of the Abbaye Saint Maurice, next to a large wooded lake and let the afternoon drift by.

Cometh the hour, cometh the man. Seated on the terrace at 7.25pm, I ordered a small carafe of house white and six oysters. To say that they were merveilleux would be doing them an injustice… they were exquisite .

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Now for the main course: a buckwheat galette with scallops in a white sauce involving Lambig (a Breton liqueur distilled from local hard cider).

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For desert: a sweet crêpe with caramel sauce and apple (sadly, no picture as I was too greedy and forgot) followed by a large espresso.

I know Chris would have relished every mouthful. I chose exactly the same items for each course that we had enjoyed together. The meal was a sort of gustatory homage to our shared love of good food and the delights of travelling in France.

Afterward, I spoke to the Patron and told him about the visit Chris and I had made before and how much it meant to me to be back there, now that she has died. I tried to explain in broken French how the evening had been parfait but that without her nothing is complet.

He seemed to understand.

The Duchamp Dilemma

Posted by geoffmead on August 15, 2015
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Duchamp

You walk into the pissoir needing to pee and notice that there are three urinals on the wall. For ease of identification (given that they are otherwise identical) let’s call the furthest from you ‘A’, the middle one ‘B’, and the closest to you ‘C’.

So far so good.

However, another man (I’m assuming that you are also a man, otherwise what are you doing in the pissoir) is standing at urinal ‘A’. While you are still in the doorway, he finishes his business and moves away to wash his hands at the basin opposite.

Now comes the tricky bit.

Which urinal do you use? If you walk past ‘C’ and ‘B’ to get to ‘A’, the other man will think that you probably have a urine-related fetish or that you are stalking him. ‘C’ is closest and you could carry it off, but only with a well-practised air of insouciance, or the other man will think you are making a point of deliberately using the urinal furthest from the one he used in which case you almost certainly have a urine-related fetish or you are stalking him.

No, the answer to this tricky point of urinal etiquette is clearly ‘B’. Having avoided the obvious blunder of choosing either ‘A’ or ‘C’ you have found the Goldilocks solution (assuming Goldilocks to have been a boy not a girl). You have hit the sweet spot, so to speak. Then it occurs to you – mid-stream – that if the other man has also considered the same dilemma, he will necessarily conclude that ‘B’ is an elaborate double-bluff and that you definitely have a urine-related fetish or that you are stalking him.

Now your cover is blown and you will have to shoot him.

And those my friends are the opening lines of my forthcoming, best-selling, block-busting, genre-defining, thriller: The Duchamp Dilemma.

Can I put you down for a copy?

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Posted by geoffmead on August 14, 2015
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It’s been a mixed day today.

The good part was some nifty on-line detective work that tracked down a hotel Chris and I stayed in at Douarnenez, four years ago, and then booking Teddy and me in for one night next Monday. It has a private jacuzzi that Chris and I enjoyed during our visit. I’m pretty sure everyone makes love in it but you try not to think about the previous couple as you lock the door and climb into the bubbling hot tub.

The bad part was the pissing rain and being trapped inside a small camper van with a wet, frustrated dog. I did a bit of client work and translated a short Breton mermaid story (which wasn’t so bad, I guess) but I still felt stir crazy by about 4.00pm. I hung on until nearly 6.00pm before cracking open the whisky and managed not to get legless. That word looks odd, should it be Legolas? Nope, he was an elf. Legless it is then. Maybe I didn’t quite manage to stay sober.

The ugly part was the rage I felt at Chris for inflicting this bloody empty existence on me. They say that anger is a stage of grief but I’d not experienced it before. Take my word for it, it’s not pretty. You try to think respectfully of your beloved but you hate them for leaving you. In my semi-drunken state I turned to poetry. I won’t (dis)grace this page with what I wrote, suffice to say it’s called Fuck You.

I’m hoping for better tomorrow.

Collybonker

Posted by geoffmead on August 13, 2015
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This magnificent erection is Rosie’s drive-away awning (on a lovely campsite in the grounds of Chateau Lanniron in Quimper). It’s a fantastically useful bit of kit which allows me and Ted to disgorge the contents of the camper van and leave them, all zipped-up and safe and sound, while we drive off on adventures during the day.

However, it’s a bit crap technically because it needs over 30 tent pegs to stop it blowing away. This contrasts dramatically with the old Terra Nova Quasar two-person tent that Chris and I used for our many camping trips. That was a classic, designed to support life in a blizzard on Everest and requiring a mere 12 tent pegs to do so.

I suspect Chris would think the awning was a bit de trop but I make no apologies: it does the job. Putting it up takes a while and those 30+ tent pegs require liberal use of a good mallet. Chris and I always took a 2lb club hammer with us, which could drive a nail into concrete. For reasons that escaped me then and still elude me now, she called said instrument a collybonker.

It was undoubtedly useful but (as ultra lightweight campers limited by the infinitesimal carrying capacity of the Morgan) we were concerned about both its bulk and its weight. Our great – sadly unfulfilled dream – was to make our fortune by the invention of an inflatable collybonker.

Now I’ve given the idea away. I suppose someone else will cash in.

Damn!

Desert Island Discs

Posted by geoffmead on August 12, 2015
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The week before she died, Chris and I had planned to share our Desert Island Discs with each other. We never got around to it so now I’ll never know which tracks she’d have taken with her as a castaway. Anyway, I decided to choose mine this week and make a playlist.

How does one choose the soundtrack to a life?

Well, after a few false starts, I discovered that it’s obviously not just about selecting your favourite eight “discs.” They would change, probably quite quickly as musical tastes develop and new music appears on the scene. These discs have to be more than that, I decided: they must represent significant phases or experiences in one’s life; important relationships and memories.

So, after much enjoyable deliberation, here, in chronological order, is the list I would present to Kirsty Young and the BBC Radio 4 Desert Island Discs researchers if they ever came knocking on my door.

  1. Green Onions (Booker T and the MGs)
    The first record I ever bought. It’s as good now, 50 years later, as it was then and I still absolutely love it.
  1. I Get a Kick Out of You (Gary Shearston)
    This came out when my first wife Sara was pregnant with our – very much alive and kicking – daughter, Nicky. We were young, naive, and very happy.
  1. Sledgehammer (Peter Gabriel)
    I remember dancing to this terrific pounding rythym round and round the sitting room with my kids when they were young and bumping bottoms.
  1. Clay Jug (Jackie Leven)
    I met Jackie Leven a couple of times in the 90s when I got involved in menswork. This track includes Robert Bly’s voice. It’s powerful, deep stuff.
  1. Life, Love and Happiness (Brian Kennedy)
    This track was my solace and consolation during the agony of separation and divorce. How do your love yourself when you are hurting others?
  1. Baby Come Home (John Martyn)
    Chris adored John Martyn; we went to see him together once. This wasn’t her favourite track but I would sing it to her anyway: Get your skinny ass home.
  1. Perpetuum Mobile (Penguin Cafe Orchestra)
    Chris and I played this track as we came out of the registry office when we got married. It’s full of hope and possibilities, and reminds me of her unquenchable energy for life.
  1. Here It Is (Leonard Cohen)
    We played this at Chris’s funeral service, as we wrote our goodbyes on her coffin. May everyone live, may everyone die. Hello my love; my love goodbye.

And which disc would you pluck from the waves if you could only save one? Kirsty always asks her guests in conclusion. My answer came quickly: I would plunge into the foam to retrieve… Green Onions. I discovered it when I was about 18 years old and the uncoolest kid in town. I had a beige jumbo cord jacket, Farah slacks, white Poplin shirt, brown knitted tie, and a pair of elasticated tan leather shoes that in hindsight had something orthopedic about them. Sex hadn’t yet been invented.

But discovering Green Onions back then and deciding for myself that it was great music made me feel good, and it still does. With a bit of luck, there’ll be someone around to make sure it’s one of the tunes played at my funeral, or maybe at the wake.

Have you made your Desert Island Discs playlist?

Remember, only eight discs.

Tough choices to make.