I awoke to yowling sunbeams and an absolute shag of a headache the next morning. I’d taken myself away for an early night after the brawl, but my companions had remained downstairs for some hours after, and as I lay awake on my straw mattress, held back from slumber by the lurching beat of heart, I listened to the laughter and songs and vague crashing sounds that drifted up from downstairs.
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The climb damn near finished me off. I could think of not one solitary reason why anybody would need a tower so big. At the top of the blasted ever-stairs there was a small landing with a heavy door, with a sign on it that read: Vena’s Room. Go away.
Continue reading“Oh man, I feel really… whoa… okay. Not good.”
The walk back to the car was fifty metres and felt like a mile: time slowing, peripherals blurring, temperature rising. I got back wobbly and collapsed into a deck chair.
Continue readingHello you.
It’s been a while no?
That’s because my website shit its own pants and deleted everything I ever wrote. Guh.
Luckily, because I’m so devilishly clever, I made a backup. Unluckily, because I’m only devilishly and not angelically clever, which is the cleverest of all, I made the backup last summer and never did another. This is why I was able, thanks to the help of a very kind and technically knowledgeable friend, to restore most but not all of my articles.
Everything up to Serbia is still there, which is nice, but Hungary, Morocco, Spain, Mexico, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Colombia are not. Alas. I will therefore be very slowly re-uploading these articles over the next few weeks, with a lot of grunting and sighing. But I’m gonna do Colombia first because, like, I’m here now, so yeah. It makes sense.
Okay, that’s that.
Not sure how to end this post.
Bye?
On the final day of our lovely Ericeira mini-break, Tanya, Felix and I had one last coffee together in a cafe, then the pair of them got a cab back to Lisbon while I hopped on a bus to Sintra.
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“So… this is it then.”
“Fuck.”
“Yeah.”
“I love you so much dude.”
“I love you too. Ride safe.”
Annie kissed my cheek as our hug broke apart, and with a sad smile she climbed into the taxi. In a moment she would be carried on into the night, to Manchester Airport, then on to California and home. I didn’t watch the car as it reversed and straightened up; I didn’t trust myself. I turned my back, upset, and lit my last idiot cigarette. I heard the wheels roll and the engine hum, and at the last second I changed my mind, turning just in time to see the taxi round the corner and disappear. And then the street was empty – no cars, just traffic lights changing from green to amber to red in the silence – and now I won’t see my best friend again for a year, or maybe more.
And as the taxi vanished I felt something leave me, rising from my shoulders and neck and head like smoke into the sky. It was 3:30 in the morning and there was nobody around to sigh to, so I went inside, and I looked at the two empty wineglasses on the dresser, and I went to bed.
That was twelve hours ago.
Continue readingEverything moves in great, long cycles. You live and live and live and then – pop – in the midst of all that living, you find yourself right back where you started. I am in Manchester Airport. I am always in Manchester Airport.
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I’m back in Bristol, waiting out my two-week quarantine after arriving back from France. Jeanne is still in France for now; she’ll arrive here in a few days’ time. Then, in just over two weeks, we will leave our lovely little room in Bristol for the last time. Continue reading
I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking ‘Eh? Eh!? Dan only writes once a month these days, and even then it’s usually half-arsed’. Yes, friend, you are right. But I feel a smidgeon bit inspired today, and lo: words. Continue reading
Today is my 34th day indoors. Well… ish. Continue reading