Oh fuck it, not again!

As the New Year approaches I once again find myself back at square one.

I am beginning to wonder if there actually is” a square two for me! And if there are more squares, when you get to 27, isn’t that just another “square”? (Work it out!)

It has been just over a year since I came here. The job that prompted it a memory that seems a long way back now. The old artist is still alive and probably still being terrorised by his hideous wife. I still kick myself for not being able to cope with the woman! The job was perfect for me; 1000 Euros a month, all living costs met but even I draw the line at being treated like a servant. I mean, 7 days a week! The job was supposed to be 5 days a week and was supposedly to be more a caretaker come handyman, I ended up not only doing that but also cook, cancer care nurse, including injections, eye wound dressing and care, and as that was spread over the entire day, there was little time left for anything else. The parting words of the old Artist still give me a smile though, “but dammit, you are a gentleman”! He was NOT happy the old dragon had fired me but she has some power over him so fate sealed.

I consider myself a fortunate person despite some “difficulties”. I was introduced to Steve who offered me the Casita in return for one day a week of my time working on the finca. Ahh the Casita, just about the perfect situation for me. I shall be very sad to leave but it was never a permanent option. It does make me think though that had I knuckled down and stuck at something after leaving school, I could have had something like this years ago. But I didn’t and I haven’t and I don’t dwell on “might have been's”!

This time last year I was back in the UK, spending Christmas with my Mum in Suffolk. I knew it was going to be the last time I could go to a place one could call “Home” Dad had died one day before my birthday the year before and despite the both of us not being “Christmassy” people, I still enjoyed the family feeling.

I won’t deny “life on my tod” scares the crap out of me, I have always been totally useless at dovetailing into the system, I have bloody tried loads of times but it just ain’t happening. The little solenoid that clicks in at a certain point in one’s life is patently missing in my brain. Sometimes I am glad and other times I just wish I had been lobotomised in youth. Having said that, I still feel like a child about to have a new experience  a nice one like a ride at a fairground or a nasty one like walking up to the gates of a detention centre! Either way, you get that oft quoted “butterfly” feeling in your stomach. I cope well with it when it has a reasonably expected outcome, like when Barbara and I sailed Misty Dream away from Palma Mallorca on our first ever out of sight of land passage. I knew Ibiza was only a day’s sail away so the excitement of “leaving” was soon taken over by the excitement of “arriving”. It is the now almost constant apprehension of not knowing what’s next that I am growing weary of.

Someone asked me last week what I would really like to do, and before I could answer she said “Actor”, she was spot on as it happens but as I explained, it is a little tricky when one is petrified of being looked at! Then I gave it more thought (big mistake!) and I realised there actually wasn’t anything in particular that I could say “that is what I want to be/do” This isn’t the first time I have been asked and probably not the last. Helen said to me this evening, “ just do something” I tried to explain (or give an excuse as she said J ) that it had to be something I really enjoyed, that the money was not the issue but it HAD to be something that made me happy. And then I got to thinking “have I ever been Happy”? And that got me thinking I should have been lobotomised years ago and then the “thinking” could stop and that made me think “if I don’t stop thinking and bloody do something, I think I will go bonkers, or possibly more bonkers. Anyway…………………………………………….

So, the New Year will be another move, I feel sure of it (well at least Feeling” is a step up from thinking!) I have been toying with the idea of doing something ludicrous like climbing Kilimanjaro but even that seems well, just doesn’t seem exciting enough or “odd” enough. And being an Aquarian I would want it to be different, say, drop me off on the top by helicopter and climb “down” everything else in my life seems to be backwards, so that would just be in keeping really.

I remember my Father saying “Just get a bloody job” so I did, (many times) and they didn’t last because they were not fulfilling. I am selfish, I need what I do to be satisfying to “Me” I am sure this will ring true for many people and I know some of them think “why should it be any different for me”? I consider that a stupid question so I won’t bother answering it.

I am arrogant and pompous and rude, actually, I am not, I was told a couple of years ago by a doctor he thought I had Aspergers, he was supposed to be assessing my damaged right hand so it might have been fair for me to say he had “a fuckin problem concentrating”! but I didn’t, I added it to being mono-renal and Bi-Polar, intelligent with a large dose of stupid, lackadaisical, cavalier, lazy, mercurial, popular in a kind of “but don’t invite him to dinner parties” way, INFP, a bit brusque, interesting and a host of other things I have been variously described as and I thought, “Hey, what we got here is one O they Humans”! Why is it necessary to label me? Do people think I don’t know? That’s the real problem here, I DO know, I just don’t know how to resolve it without the aforementioned lobotomy.

So again, the New Year will arrive and I will be hoping providence takes kindly to my situation and shines a light on the way forward. I shall of course take part in the decision making process based on whatever mental capacity I am at that time experiencing. I am lucky enough to be able to envisage quite a few scenario, for example: shuffling back to the UK getting a bedsit and stacking shelves at a supermarket or storing everything and hitching a lift on a west-bound yacht. There is absolutely no point trying to get back into the “system” as it has made it quite clear it has nowhere for me. “You should see my CV”!! Fuck me, even “I” wouldn’t take me on. Bloody daft really because handled right, I am bleedin ace! And at least I admit I need handling.

One thing this “Year in Andalence” has taught me is that I must steer well clear of the ladies. They seem to fall in love with “the potential” and then when they decide I am not delivering this “potential” it all goes awry. So, New Year, no ladies. I shall make it a new year’s resolution so I won’t feel guilty about breaking it J

Another thing this year has brought to my attention like a rabbit in the headlights is that I can’t get away with this life much longer. And unless I deal with the above pretty damn sharply, I am indeed going to be the man hovering around the dumpster sooner than I had expected.

War of Words

I get asked sometimes “what exactly is it you are looking for” “what do you want to do”? It is a repeating question and is usually asked by a female, a girlfriend if you like. I find it a most frustrating question as it asks for a definitive answer. As if life was that simple! I could say, “I want a boat a small but adequate stipend and a lovely partner to share it with. I could equally say “ I would like something to do that allows a release of creativity without the responsibility of working in some life sapping drudge of a job” I could say a whole load of things and I know they would all be considered “unrealistic without performing some duty to society”! Well the problem is: I don’t accept “society” as it is currently designed. It is a crock. It is false, it is a sham, it is a pale and diluted drizzle of human potential in ANY of its current forms. Yes there are some people doing things that are an attempt at living harmoniously with nature and the relentless drive to try and discover “what a human is” people who have not been conned into thinking “life” is all about what one does within a society and releasing some heavily flawed sense of “human potential” but even those people seem to me to be selling themselves short. I think the root of this “problem” is that the very foundation of what we are is totally obfuscated by a myriad of “truths”!

I am even adding to that by writing this, “words”! Fucking “words” one of the most “manipulatable” inventions ever created.

Every one of you reading this will be taking it in based on a “previous” set of words that you have absorbed into “your reality” and all of those previous words will have been “designed” by someone to persuade/convince you that they represent “truth”. The older I get the more evidence comes out that words that described previous events were total bullshit.  Even the “actions” of people are based on words that describe/d something that then prompted them to “act” and although a lot of those “actions” are evident, the background to those actions isn’t necessarily what they seem. A simple example being the recent “invasions” of other countries. Yes that old Chestnut. It would take a pretty ignorant nay moronic person, to be still thinking the west acted out of compassion or on the pretext of liberty for invading the places it has unless of course you have already decided that mainstream media is “truth” and all other media “lies”? Or vice versa? Fact is: “we don’t know” we can only surmise based on whatever bullshit we are subjected too, and that goes for both sides. Personally I read mainstream media; BBC, CNN, Fox, The Guardian, Mail etc and then Global Research, Real News Network, Washington Blog, King World news etc and then try and decipher a crumb of truth! Anyone who hasn’t “blocked” my news feed on FB (most have!) will see an eclectic mix of opinion,  possibly even a schizophrenic  mix and I admit it does not have any coherent thread of opinion running through it; but how in the hell could it? Well, without first “allying” with a particular view? Is it nice and comfortable choosing a side and then supporting it vehemently? I ask because I can’t seem to do that. That isn’t to say I don’t agree with some views, I just cannot look at it as “isolated” from everything else.

What I really don’t need is someone telling me “what it is all about”! Forgive the apparent arrogance but you don’t know what it is all about. Yes you have a beautiful philosophy (usually created by “someone else”) be it Buddha or JC or yogi swami guru upyourarseibaktivadentamushbloke, but it is still just that, a philosophy, a beautiful idea of what it could be like and usually appeals to those who want us all to be loving and peaceful (not a bad idea really) but I am quite prepared to accept that maybe it could all be just a dream of ending our meanness towards each other and that it is just as possible we are wild enough to use one another to make our own life more comfortable. (Banker politician armed robber etc) no one has come back from the dead and said “right, this is what it is all about folks now crack on and get your arse enlightened”! for me being “enlightened” is more about being able to accept I am “biological” and cosmic (same thing imo) there is no separation between me a lion, a rat, a slug, a flower, a car a planet an idea, or whatever you like to think of. depending on the circumstances I could kill you or love you (those circumstances of course would be the result of my interpretation of whatever “words” had been used to describe how I should think ;-)            if you are shocked that I say “I could kill you” don’t be, by aligning yourself with a political ideology you are killing people every day of your life, it just doesn’t feel like it because you are not actually doing the deed yourself. It is no different from someone hiring a hit-man to do away with a competitor it is still just “words” that create the justification.

Someone said to me the other day “your problem Tony is you think too much”, inside, I chuckled, yep, that’s right, I “think” all the time. Admittedly it has lead to inertia! (physically) but I don’t think I am too wide of the mark thinking most people “don’t think enough” and that is why we are fucked. Someone else said “if we start to think positively (positive being a matter of opinion!) Then it will multiply and eventually it will permeate the very fabric of society and things will start to improve, having “good” thoughts will have an effect on some hitherto unseen force and slowly the collective consciousness will become enlightened”! Phew! What a lot of words! Words that most people couldn’t possible entertain because they are thinking about whether to have a Big Mac or a Pizza for tea. (For those who have already closed their minds, please insert opinionated “label” describing me here)

Personally I think my arrival on this planet was either incredibly premature or extremely late. I feel like an observer. It doesn’t look any different in essence than any period in history you care to mention. It is certainly “dressed up” differently. But the fundamentals are the same and whatever you believe it doesn’t look like changing significantly in the near future.

An example. The “Arab spring” a group of people motivated (possibly by western agitators) to kick out their despotic regime and demand an end to their oppression. “It ain’t gonna happen”! So far they have removed Mubarak and then been controlled by the military. Now there is a concerted effort to replace Mubarak with another political regime, and until the people accept whatever new corruption it is replaced with, the military will keep them in place. Call me a cynic (call me whatever you like, I don’t care) but the new will be the same as the old. It will answer to whatever the west wants but it will “explain” it differently. The fact is that the world is controlled by “warlords” always has been and they have no intention of losing power.

Once upon a time a big tough mean ugly bloke gathered a few other not quite as big ugly mean men around him and said, let’s go get stuff from those people preoccupied with providing food for themselves. We will kill them or threaten to if they don’t give us what we want and so they did and the people who were preoccupied with providing for themselves did say, please don’t hurt us, take what you want. And it is the same today as it ever was; it is just dressed up in different words. Ironically, these private armies that once preyed on the population now say they are there to “protect” us from other armies or from other peaceful people busy trying to provide for themselves. Whereas once it was a simple matter of big horse big sword and a “real” threat of violence that could be “seen” and felt, it is now hidden amongst a load of “words”, of a threat from a different people. I am willing to believe that if you were to take the largest percentage of ANY people from ANY country, they would have absolutely NO desire to invade one another. And when they do invade it is because a bunch of words were used to persuade them it was necessary.

The palpable feeling of having my freedom threatened never comes from Iran or Afghanistan or wherever, it comes from my own people. When Blair was lying about Iraq I had no idea Sadaam was intending to invade or kill me. Yes there were some nutters (very few I might add) blowing things up in the UK and elsewhere but really, were hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians “really” to blame? If my argument of “tacit approval” holds water then yes they were, just as we all are for allowing our respective governments/armies free reign to ride roughshod over foreign soil but then we don’t really have any say in the matter do we.

I think we should have the mother of all wars and it should be, “a war on words.” Words must be eradicated once and for all and people can only “do” based on individual experience. For those who might say, but words have created so many wonderful things in the world I would ask “have they”? For who? In what way? There are many billions more people living in awful conditions than people living in good conditions. (If the media is to be believed ;-0 )

In Vino Veritas.

Sometimes I can’t believe how easy I am to con. It is true I “think” a bit too much but in doing so I find I am able to seriously look into myself as well as others. Voltaire said “no problem can withstand the assault of sustained thinking” so, for all the possible “negatives” of being a “thinker” there are actually some advantages. Couple that with a natural “intuition” and a subconscious “insight” and I “feel” I should be aware of most possibilities. It still comes as a surprise to realise that in matters of the heart I am often wrong. Well, not a surprise really is it? It must be one of the commonest failings in human history! And the plethora of “reasons”? Given by the respective parties as to “why” it didn’t work are Shakespearian in number.

It seems to me the real answer in many cases might well be “I am bored of this, I want to try someone else” but “honesty rarely exhibits itself in these situations. How unpleasant it would feel to be told after being told “I love you” that that love has quickly become something so far removed from what Love is likely to be! If there was ever an overused deceitfully used word “Love” must be it!

Someone put a comment on their wall that said “when we cease to judge, only then can we be free” it sounds great, a clever and thoughtful statement but as it doesn’t define what “free” is, it leaves it open to individual interpretation (as do ALL the maxims proverbs etc) what, may I ask is the point of that? It occurred to me the other day that if we took all the wonderful wise sayings and put them all together as a manner by which to live your life, you “wouldn’t have a life”! And if we simply choose the ones that “appeal” to whatever trip we are currently on, we’re just using them to bolster a personal opinion or a desirous way of life. Which may be fine for you but not for someone else! As none of us have any right to make a decision about what is right for everyone it seems to me a pointless and rather selfish way to be. And of course monumentally judgemental. Not to mention arrogant.

“I” don’t know what is “right” for mankind! And frankly, I couldn’t give a damn. I will leave that supreme arrogance to a deity. What I do know is what is right for me and what I want from those I choose to be with, either friend or lover. As it would be an impossibility to surround oneself with friends who think exactly like I do, I know it is ok to have differences, but I wouldn’t accept differences that are abhorrent to me.

The really tricky one is your “lover”! I am sure I am not the first to recognise that rationale quickly takes the first plane out of it when two people fall in love. It is a bit like two salespeople trying to sell each other the same product from the same company but representing it totally differently.  When I was still a teenager albeit on the last year of it, I somehow ended up selling jewellery, it was complete and utter crap. Electro-plated alloy that had the appearance of gold and the weight of dust (obviously a very small quantity of dust!) it was made to look like the same items in Samuels and Ratners catalogues and we sold it…………………….from our cars! We would go to a town and hunt for punters. There were certain groups that I was told were perfect for selling this rubbish to. Butchers, Publicans, people walking out of betting shops (the smiling ones!) anyone driving a “green” car! The guy I worked under was a master and would even go up to traffic cops and sell them the stuff! The reason for this little recollection is that Nick told me that people were greedy and that although we would not overtly mis-sell the stuff, we would “allow” them to draw their own conclusions; problem was (for me anyway) they “didn’t” draw their own conclusions! They were “manipulated” into coming to the conclusions “we” knew they would come to. I hated it and it only lasted a few weeks.

The expression “Move on” strikes me as the most barbarous attitude to have when something one “felt” was deep and beautiful comes to an end. “Move on”? If said with compassion it may be less offensive but when said like “talk to the hand………….” It has an ugliness about it that doesn’t come from the same realm as love. If love is genuine it goes deep, very deep. It isn’t something one “moves on” from with any degree of ease. I have only done it a couple of times and boy was it difficult to “move on” from! “I” am very happy about that because to me it ratified the sentiment in the first place. If you are able to move on in a matter of a few weeks and even contemplate having sex with another within that time I don’t feel there was anything but a shallow meaningless attachment there in the first place, and “That” IS easy to move on from! Problem is; “you are not likely to be honest enough to say that”!

So “Judging”? Judging is vital part of figuring out what the fuck is going on. A judgement is a conclusion (right or wrong) it seems to me that if we do not make any judgements we are going to stand still. A man enters your house one night brandishing a gun or knife and behaves in a manner you (?????) to be what? Let’s say you have decided to be “non-judgemental” what do you “think” is going to happen? Adopting a “non-judgemental” stance is gonna get you robbed and raped and killed, (possibly) you need to make a “judgment” and bloody quickly to stand any chance of surviving.

It is absolutely fine to be non judgemental in an environment where “everyone else” is in the same frame of mind and that is an absolute truth for every other “enlightened” state. But, we don’t really have a clue what other people’s motives/ agendas are. They say one thing and then do another. They preach a certain “way” and then contradict it in action.

I know people who preach love and light and say they live their lives that way, yet if someone who they deem to “talk” too much comes into their world they conspire to get rid of them “in a loving way of course”! They do not “love” everyone as they profess; they love themselves and anyone else who “fits in” to their way, that, is entirely different to pure love. These people refer to general society as “Babylon” and have a derogatory attitude towards it. This is strange because without it, they would shrivel and die! Their philosophy is contra Babylon; their views towards those who live in it are less than flattering and inherently mistrustful of it. In “their” world they talk love light and Paz but NOT for everyone! Just those who live off the backs of that “Babylon”. One of these “enlightened ones” carried out a deal on a job that had “Babylonian” method all over it but sees it as a “mistake” but has the gall to denigrate those who make the same “Mistake” within Babylon!? that is pure hypocrisy (a Judgement) some, who know this person get all lyrical about “forgiveness” of his behaviour yet find it nigh on impossible to apply the same to………..Babylonians! Very strange “Love Light & Paz”. There are some genuine progressive people in that world who have understood the relationship between different ways and have simply decided which way “they” want to live. They have no selfish agenda, no attitude towards other ways, and no hypocrisy in their living. They have “open and inquisitive” minds that understand there isn’t “one way” and they welcome Babylonians (that makes me laugh every time I hear it) without “judging” them. Some of them are nothing more or less than “Babylonians in dreadlocks”.

Now some have said I am “arrogant” (some have been “non-judgemental hippies”!) and I believe that to be a ……………..”Judgemental” word! I find this duality everywhere and quite often among those who have lauded the “non-duality”? I am quite ok with being called arrogant, it is just another label applied by another “labeller”! I am completely at peace with myself even though it sometimes seems not. Inside I have no “confusion” about people and their capabilities. “Balance is often used to describe “what I need to achieve”! “balance”? What is that? I am seeing scales here, I am seeing love on one side and possibly hate on the other? I am feeling that the “love” side has a few positions from up to middle to down and anything in-between. Some have said that it should be level, neutral, NOT any of the extremes; that doesn’t quite seem “realistic” to me! “Love” (by my definition) is a multi faceted emotion; it comes in all densities of feeling depending on the person/thing it is directed at felt for. If it IS supposed to be the same for everything/one then we are fucked! In cold hard language Man gets “hard” for a particular person and “that” ensures continuation. If the “lurve” is one long grey line that continuation ain’t happenin because with the best will in the world “I” cannot get it on with someone I do not find attractive. Unless of course I got that wrong too and am supposed to find “everyone” attractive!! Nope, I am totally at ease with the love I have for parents, the love for my children, the love for my partner and the love for my friends (and there are many more for siblings deities etc) they ALL have the same “root” but they “Need” to be distinguishable from each other or we are in deep shit.  Those who believe it is a universal emotion to be shared equally among all men are going to experience something, no doubt, but are they really going to look on their partner, child, parent, friend in the “same” way!!

We have to accept a few things I think, a few things about “what” we are and our place in the universe. The “only” hard facts are that we are carbon based creatures in a carbon based world, the rest however it is described, is speculation. It relies on the individual to accept something they “believe” to be true. I have no doubt there are phenomena that defy explanation, I have been able to link with this “unknown” before, and am in a very different place to my apparent surroundings. I tried analysing it once but decided it was “beyond” my necessary comprehension and should just accept its existence. What I didn’t do was give it some “man-made” explanation! Why on earth would I “need” to?

You may have noticed an apparent contradiction between what I have just said and what I “quoted” earlier by Voltaire?  Well, no problem can withstand the assault of sustained thinking can’t possibly apply to something we have no evidence of. And anyway, who says things spiritual are a “problem”? (Not the man-made religions, they DO need some sustained assaulting!) 

TBC

Just a feeling.

Today I went to town and sat at a terrace table with a coffee and an open mind. I thought it would be fun to sit there and “watch”, watch people, and watch life going on with a “Vacant” and open mind and see what “pops into it”. It probably hasn’t escaped the notice of some that I have been erm, “preoccupied” recently. Those who know why, well, they know why, and those who don’t, well, no need to. Suffice to say, “I have not been entirely myself” so, what of this morning? I sat with my coffee and faced the bar. I saw people all going about their business, the builders “building” the delivery men “delivering” Holidaymakers “holidaymaking” The old Spanish men coming for a “copa” and saying the same things they always do. It was a “groundhog day” just like every other day.

A couple of Americans who live here wandered up to the bar and took their place at an old Sherry barrel they talked for a few minutes and then an old Spanish lady came down the road and they smiled and said “Hola” and then they kissed her on both cheeks. You may think “so what”! Well, it isn’t “that” common for the “extranjeros” to have that degree of contact with the locals, it isn’t that rare either here in Gaucin but nevertheless, it was a nice thing to see. For me it was; “the moment”, I just stopped in time and saw the moment they saw each other, and the big smile, the open arms and the greeting. I was suddenly filled with a calm feeling, and I thought, and wrote, this:

 “Take away everything but, “The moment”, all that was before, and all that is yet to come. The “greeting”, the smile the kiss hello, says all we need to know. Hold the moment and it will be with you all the time”

There is nothing profound in that I know, but there was more to it. More than “I” understand yet and I am not going to “analyse it” either. I was just thinking how good it would be if that “sentiment” was “everywhere”! It didn’t matter who you were, a rich American retiree or a little old Lady struggling with your shopping bags, there was definitely a pleasure at that encounter that transcended any status gender age.

And while this was happening there was an English couple in their early sixties dressed in the attire of the successful, he in White shorts and pink Ralph Lauren polo shirt, she in a short white lacy dress that might have been better suited to a 20 year old and they were talking quite loudly in surrey accents about this business deal and how it cost 6000 pounds just for something or other, and that struck me as, well “plastic”! There was this lovely honest ego-less encounter across the road and right next to me a “self” filled display of vacuous nonsense. Now I shouldn’t “Judge” I know, but it seemed to represent the current battle going on in the world between those who are trying to amass wealth and status and those who just want to enjoy life and people. I should say here that “I didn’t THINK about any of this” it was just a “feeling”. I opened myself to atmosphere and that is what I “felt”.

I just wish we could “ALL” put whatever “conditioning” we have behind us and recognise the “common bond” we have.

Falling down.

I fell off the stairs this morning, well; when I say “fell” I mean “jumped”! I was on the first top step (in socks) and just slid, I rapidly decided that to continue on an uncontrolled descent step by step in a gravity led movement, was NOT a good idea, so I transferred my position to where there was “nothing”! “Over the side” it is only an 8 foot drop so landing wasn’t too uncomfortable but managed to wrench my right shoulder and neck. What I “thought” I was doing was the very same thought that occurs to an 18 year old in similar situation, how come those stupid thoughts don’t go away when you are 51?  As if that wasn’t a bad enough start to the day, I then had another 2 “falling moments” but without injury. Now I don’t drink and don’t take drugs so I wondered why I should have this problem, then I realised it had happened before, in NZ I leapt, leaped or leapded, from one truck tail lift to another only the other, was 1 inch higher than the one I was leaving; I came down on my knee and hands very hard and the tail-lifts are heavy steel chequerplate; it effin hurt!

The reason I am sharing this is because I fancied some homemade French fries and then I thought, “Hmm, HOT OIL!” am I really safe enough to get involved in hot oil when I am having “senior moments”?? I then started thinking about all the other extremely dangerous things I do on a daily basis! “Showering”! I “have” had a couple of “slippy” moments recently, driving! Well, day before yesterday I nearly pulled out on a speeding car, (right hand drive in Spain is lunacy!) then there was the Market; it was very hot, may get sunstroke! I am beginning to wonder if I shouldn’t just ease myself onto the floor and just lay there, it is reasonably safe, there are brown recluse spiders and other nasty creepy crawlies I suppose but generally it is safe.

I am not particularly “sedentary” so I am a tad concerned that these things are happening. I am very slim so it isn’t because I am trying to haul huge volumes of unwieldy fat around and of course, in my mind, that 5 bar gate looks a doddle to jump over! So I am wondering if anyone else is experiencing these equilibrium errors!?

Anyway, “back to the real world” J at the end of September my time at the Casita comes to an end; I have no reason to stay in Gaucin other than those I choose and I was contemplating my next move. Should I “move on”? Should I continue this “vagabond lifestyle” and see what other experiences I can have? I am still wondering if I have been a bit daft in how I have lived so far, despite it having been a marvellous cornucopia of personal challenges. I do not seem to be able to rid myself of a brain that refuses to accept responsibility yet I have an underlying concern that I am a bit out on my own!

I have met 2 people in the last 9 months who have very quickly suggested that I am a Chameleon! A “Chameleon”? Still don’t know whether to take it as a compliment or insult! I suppose it could be both? I certainly can “adapt” to my environment but believe me, it can be quite wearisome. And when you seem to be the only one doing any “adapting” it can feel like being in a Petri dish! Which is sodding annoying because I like to think it is “I” doing the observing!

Things that have crossed my mind recently have ranged from. Hitching a lift on the next Atlantic Rally Crossing (November December ish) attempting a new business down on the coast (yeugh!) getting trained to be a photographer, selling everything except the bare minimum and just “walking off” ,joining a monkery (Hah! Nfw) going Gay, (I know, not a job but something that may answer some other questions!) or “Getting a proper job” (well, I had to put “something” ridiculous into the mix!)

Update on the French fries, “I went for it and didn’t get burnt” things are looking up already!!

I don’t have much time to make any decisions and there is a lot of work to do on the Casita before the end of July so it looks very much like the format that has existed until now will continue; Wait and see. Have heard ALL the worn out metaphors about “time and tide” etc and although very clever, don’t actually work on me. ;-)

Right, what dangerous activity shall I attempt now……………..ah yes, “cuppa”