'they're all very unpleasant people'
For the second time in my life I have witnessed a grown man playing air-guitar in public.
The first occasion occurred in 1995 during a Brian May concert in the Bristol Colston Hall, when my then thirty-six-year-old uncle spent most of the set standing up (it was a fully-seated venue), right hand picking distinctly arhythmical rhythms upon an imaginary object whose height fluctuated at random from waist to knee. In fairness to my uncle, the audience members not engaged in similar practices were the ones in the minority - including myself, a horribly fascinated twelve-year-old, dragged to her first live-music experience only because my aunt chickened out at the last minute. The majority of the audience also had hair like Brian May, including the women. (The next gig I ventured to, several years later, took place in the same arena in which the annual Bath and West cattle show had been held only days before...)
Given his location, however, at least the activities of my uncle were perfectly in context. On sunday evening, in my beloved dim and friendly local, whose habitual atmosphere is (designedly) far from masculine, the usual calm was shattered by a party of clearly confused Welsh rugby supporters, who had apparently wandered through the door in the mistaken apprehension that this was an ideal place to hog every chair, attempt to begin conversations with every unchaperoned female, and proposition the regular band with repeated demands that they play Delilah. Hemmed into our usual corner, K and I - tryfanstone absent at Escapade - debated the wisdom of attempting to leave when a brief space cleared itself, but eventually rejected this as the cowardly approach. K fought instead to the bar and we remained for the end of the set, during the last song of which the aforementioned aerodynamic feat occurred, courtesy of a roughly-spherical man in a tightly-stretched shirt. Leaving at the usual time, we laughed all the way home.
*
My lengthy silence here was the result of several weeks of interrupted routine. Since the beginning of January I have been to a hen-weekend in Manchester - mercifully free of strippers, novelty veils or anything inflatable - written and delivered a Gaelic paper in Glasgow, helped organise a Kidnapped-themed treasure hunt and storytelling session for which not a single child turned up, and travelled between Scotland and southern England, on several trains, twice in less than 72 hours. On wednesday morning I leave for a schoolfriend's wedding, in St Lucia. Everyone with whom I have discussed this venture has, without fail, put my own much less effusive enthusiasm to shame, at the same time as requesting that I bring them back rum, or, less explicably, fresh coconuts. Reasons for certain apprehensions include, variously:
a) I am a notoriously wintry creature. My best friend, during a slightly-incredulous phone conversation when the trip was first planned, thoughtfully remarked, 'but you're such a cold person!' He is quite correct: I love rain, snow, icy frosts and biting winds - anything elemental, beyond torpid and sluggish heat or blazing sun. My skin last deviated from its habitual chalky shade sometime in the early nineties, when I mistakenly burned to lobster colour on the beach at Weymouth, which occasion was probably also the last time I have voluntarily sat on a beach during daylight; also
b) I am not a fond flier, especially to unfamiliar destinations. We leave at 6.30 on wednesday morning and do not arrive until local time at 5pm, approximately 10pm in Scotland, with only a brief break in London. In frequent nightmares I am caught in the same confined space or trapped somewhere against my will with no prospect of escape - contemplating the knowledge of having voluntarily agreed to a virtual approximation of this claustrophobia is, to say the least, a strange process.
We are staying on a small plantation farm. I am sharing a room with the best man, which decision was of course based on financial deficits - doubly, triply so because you never heard anyone snore more loudly or with greater frequency throughout the night than him. Every time the situation arises, given numerous holidays and house parties over the last ten years, I tell myself it's an overreaction, it isn't really so bad. Around four am, waking for the third or fourth or fifth time, I vow to suffocate him, or go to sleep in the bath (despite the fact that he can also be heard through walls). Attempts to wake him up, even including extreme measures (i.e. violence), fail miserably, although brief bursts of loud noise occasionally provide sufficient respite to doze off again for a few more minutes. Every morning, without fail, he will awaken bright-eyed and refreshed and, also without fail, will exclaim, 'I slept so well - how about you?' A whole week of this will, I predict, result in a wan, grey-faced phantom Maud, who walks with a visible shuffle and falls asleep head-down on any available flat surface.
Despite having spent several hours hemmed in by random tourists and desperate parents (on the first day of half-term), I failed to return from today's shopping trip with either: sunglasses; suitcase locks; ear-plugs. Attempts to locate my only pair of sandals since returning have also proved fruitless - I may be forced to retrace my steps to Clarks, where earlier this afternoon a harrassed assistant informed me that the 'Exotic Love' style did not come in my size. He had initially confused the latter with another, similar line entitled, I kid you not, 'Exotic Lingo'.... this is Clarks! Clarks! Familiar territory of middle-aged ladies whose support stockings would shame Nora Batty, and who require sensible sandals of the sort not to irritate varicose veins. These were ordinary brown leather flats with a cork sole and ankle straps! I admit, it was the one moment of humour in an otherwise horrible, consumerist afternoon, only second to the moment I realised the only linen trousers which zipped up claimed to be a size sixteen (I am size twelve).
Common sense and all personal philosophies dictate that I am tired and panicky and, bluntly, overreacting. This is an incredible adventure, not to mention a time to celebrate two of my best friends committing to each other for the rest of their lives. Despite all the above, however, tiny scarlet inner demons continue to trample all over habitual calmness, hoping and praying moreover that the next of my friends who plan a wedding, and invite me to attend it, will be quite content with neeps and tatties in Dingwall. In November.