Sunday, December 31, 2017

THE GIFT OF FRIENDSHIP

Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.” 
― 
Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet


Was there ever a truer line than John Lennon’s “Life is what happens to you while you are busy making other plans” in Beautiful Boy? Its origin can be traced back to a 1957 Readers Digest article by the American writer and cartoonist Allen Saunders (thank you, Wikipedia), but the sentiment holds good, no matter who the author.
   
After four and a half years of stress trying to sell my Cardiff house, I made so many plans in the summer of 2016. With debts cleared, finally being mortgage free, I started to work on so many projects that had been on the back burner. A screenplay, TV series, a novel. I finished writing a book about being broke (heck, if it was going to happen, I might as well try to make money out of it).
   
Then, 2017 came. Life that happened while I was busy making other plans. It was a year in which I lost several people, one my oldest friend from school, Shelley. My mother had an accident and, while I was caring for her and rushing around, I had one, too; I am currently nursing cracked ribs and am unable to travel. All those Air Miles I planned to use sit languishing in my Virgin Atlantic account, where I log in, daily, dreaming of where they might take me, had life not interfered with those damned plans.
   
But I am lucky in that I am a writer. We need material; it’s our lifeblood. My childhood fantasies of sitting in an attic, producing masterpieces (between bouts of contemplating suicide, naturally) are long gone. You have to live. With that comes pain, anguish, suffering, fear – the things that every human endures, in different forms. But there is also joy, surprise, fulfilment, energy, happiness, contentment – so many truly great experiences to be had on a day-to-day, even hourly, basis.
   
This will go down as the year in which I discovered the extent of friendship. During my most difficult times, Facebook has been a godsend. I have been overwhelmed, moved beyond belief and genuinely surprised by people’s kindness: old and new friends, complete strangers, all expressing genuine concern and, regularly, offering practical help and support.
   
I have made new friends as a result: people I would probably never have met, were it not for the circumstances that brought us together. Relationships with old friends have strengthened as we have found ourselves sharing similar experiences. Those conversations we once had about how well the property market had served us have given way to ones about the difficulties of elderly parents; the days of wondering where we would buy our second home in warmer climes have been reduced to watching A Place on the Sun on Channel 4 Catch Up.
   
Seeing my mother struggle with growing older has made me fearful of the inevitable, but then I remember how depressed Mum was at reaching 40. I’ve always tried not to dwell on things I cannot change, and I have had – and continue to have – a better life than most people. I’ve been to so many places and lived in countries many simply dream of visiting for a couple of weeks holiday a year.

They are choices that have not come without a price, and dealing with problems without the support of a partner is, I have come to realise, tougher than it looks. When you are single and work from home, the onus is on you to do so much more than you actually can – physically and emotionally. That’s when accidents happen – as I’ve just discovered, to my cost.
   
The decision to rent a house back in Bath, where I once lived for 11 years, was taken in order to be closer to Mum, were anything to go wrong. It’s therefore ironic that she spent Christmas by herself in her house and I in mine, owing to our respective injuries. I still have my New York apartment (and will keep it – I still call New York home), but I can honestly say I’ve loved being back in the UK, too. I left Bath under a cloud in 2008 when I was burgled twice in one week and my neighbour was raped at knifepoint at 6pm, coming back from work.
   
I’ve now reconnected with old friends and made many new ones. Yesterday, by chance, I bumped into Nerys, my friend and neighbour from Coity, where I grew up. We hadn’t seen each other for 40 years and laughed non-stop. She reminded me of the plays I used to write and make them perform in our back garden (Mum tells me that making my brother be a dying swan was a particular favourite).

We talked of Auntie Mimi and Auntie Gwen, who we used to visit in order to get sweets, laughing hysterically at what we now realise was Auntie Gwen’s Alzheimer’s (“Those are nice socks, Nigel,” she persistently told my brother). We talked of collecting tadpoles; the horrid woman who, literally held the keys to the castle and would never let us have them (we learned how to scale the walls); the scary woman in the post office; Coity school, where the headmaster told us that we weren’t clever if we weren’t wearing glasses by the time we were seven.
   
I’ve rediscovered the Garrick’s Head, the theatre pub in which Keith Waterhouse and I shared so many happy times. I have a great local in the Pulteney Arms, which shows rugby and has a great quiz on Monday nights. Now, as a sidebar, can anyone explain why everyone, and I mean everyone, who says, “I’ve got Geography covered” in a team turns out to know absolutely zilch and couldn’t tell its Asia from its Elba. Just saying.
   
So, on this last day of the year, thank you to what I will call The Year of Friendship. Every word, every good deed, every offer of help, accommodation, holidays etc. etc. has been truly breathtaking; the milk of human kindness has been a veritable dairy farm, and I thank you from every fibre of my heart.
   
This year wasn’t what I had in my plans; but life happened. 

And living is always better than the alternative.
   
A very happy 2018 to you all.
  
  
  

   

Monday, July 24, 2017

TIME AT THE BAR

It’s over 33 years since I stood the other side of a bar, serving customers rather than filling up the pub’s coffers.

My first attempt at bartending was when I was 18, at the Welcome to Town in Bridgend. I lasted two nights. I hated the smoke and, as a passionate, lifelong anti-smoking hysteric, could not bear emptying the ashtrays.

My second stint was when I first moved to London and, against fierce competition, landed a job behind the bar at the Palace Theatre in the West End. “I’ve had hundreds of people after this,” the manager told me, “but I’m giving it to you, because I like you.”

I bought a dress from Etam (£17.99) for my new glamorous life. After the curtain went up on Les Miserables, the manager came to the bar to see how I was doing. I was drenched head to toe in mixers, the white collar on my dress a rainbow of orange and lemon. I’d been opening them the wrong way, creating a vacuum in the bottle that resulted in a fountain in my direction with every one I opened.

I lasted just two nights. The manager was very disappointed. He thought I had huge potential. I didn’t. Les Miserables had nothing on the misery etched on my poor little face as I stripped another lemonade from my previously perfectly coiffed Eighties perm.

That was the end of my landlady ambitions. As well as the smoke, I hated the rudeness, the clicking of fingers, the lack of the words “thank you” and “please”; most of all, I hated the exhaustion – physical and emotional.

Being on one’s feet for hours at an end is bad enough; coupled with the psychology of dealing with everyone on an individual basis, according to their drinking and personal needs, made this easily the most difficult job I’ve ever done. I think that to this day and admire anyone who does it – and, yes, as a customer I always say please and thank you.

On Saturday night, almost 33 years to the day since I departed the Palace Theatre, I found myself again serving behind a bar. My friend Saz, her sister Emma and their mother Heather have bought the Victoria pub in Oldfield Park in Bath. It’s been renamed the Victoria Bath and in addition to regulars is attracting a new clientele, some of whom haven’t been to the pub in years; some have never been there at all.

The weekend featured a local band, The Woods, who specialise in 50s and 60s music, and from the outset they had the place rocking. It was packed. When I arrived, people were standing four deep at the bar. Saz and Heather were serving and, when Heather waved, I enthusiastically waved back like the nonchalant Petunia in the Coastguard TV commercial, when her husband Joe shouts “LOVELY DAY, ISN’T IT?” to a drowning man.

Realising the imminent danger (thirsty people), I started to collect glasses but soon joined my friends behind the bar. I was dressed head to toe in Issey Miyake Pleats Please and wearing five inch heels; the till was still too high for me to see it without standing on my toes, and I could barely read the names of the drinks as I had only my cheap supermarket reading glasses on me.

The ale pints were hard to pull and initially I had too much froth (a lovely local told me what I was doing wrong). I also could not remember what they were called and have now re-named them all (Butcombe is now Buttocks; Doombar, Dumbo).

The Fosters lager was a dream to pour (I could have kissed everyone who ordered it), and I didn’t spill a drop of single and half measures on the shorts. Maybe all my years of saying “Could you fill it to the top, please?” paid off.

The other thing that paid off was my maths ‘O’ Level. I grew up in a time when mental arithmetic was de rigeur. I was doing complicated fractions at the age of seven (thank you, Durham Road Junior School, Newport) and can do calculations in my head. Even today, I use a calculator only to work out how much weight I have gained or lost by converting kilograms into pounds with the multiplication x2.20462 (I am nothing if not precise).

Punters were incredibly patient as I learned on the job – as were Saz and Heather, who had to keep showing me what was what on the till. There was so much to learn.

How big is a dash? Is it greater or smaller than a splash? Who wants head on the beer and who doesn’t? Where is the scoop for the ice kept? Actually, that last one was easy: it’s under that Everest of ice I just poured into the bucket without taking the scoop out first.

I begged to ring the bell and call “Time at the bar, ladies and gentlemen, please,” a phrase that one man told me he hadn’t heard for 30 years (yes, that would be about right; old habits die hard).
The next day, I could barely walk. I still can’t. Feet, back, calves – I feel as if I’ve run a marathon.

But here’s the thing: I really, really enjoyed it. I spend my life in front of a TV or computer screen and don’t get to talk to that many people during my working day. It was great to meet so many different folk and to see them having fun on what proved to be a very successful night. I’ve never been called “love” so many times in one day, and I enjoyed that, too (but don’t try it when I’m on the other side of the bar or you’ll get a smack in the gob).

There is something immensely satisfying in serving others, either literally or metaphorically. I loved engaging with new people and my work colleagues; I even liked wiping down the tables when everyone had gone and adored the post-match analysis with Saz and Heather.

I remain adamant that bar work is very, very tough: it looks easy, but it really isn’t. I have the injuries to prove it. When I come out of traction, I might try it again.

But for today at least, I’m calling my time at the bar.


Friday, July 21, 2017

PIE IN THE SKY WITH SKY

I heard Slade’s Merry Christmas, Everybody yesterday. Twice. 

Two TVs were on in my house in different rooms and each tuned to a different channel (don’t ask; I’m weird like that). I wasn’t watching either as I was working in my office (even weirder, I know), so have no idea whether the song I loathe more than any other in history was being spewed out by the TV that has Sky or the one tuned only to the Mendip signal (again, don’t ask. I have an ongoing electrical nightmare, owing to the wiring in the house – more of that later. I bet you can’t wait).

It certainly wasn’t coming from Alexa, whose idea of Christmas music is a Mexican carnival. I asked her: “Alexa, play Christmas music”, shortly followed by “Alexa, STOP!”

For those of you who have no idea what I am talking about, Amazon has brought out a device called the Echo. It’s a tube about eight inches long and it plays music, suggests wine, tells jokes – in fact, it does pretty much everything you ask it do, apart from wash the dishes.

It goes into action from the moment you say “Alexa”, although that causes problems when I’m watching TV in the same room and any character is called Alex, at which point Alexa springs into action with the response: “Hm. I’m sorry, I don’t understand the question.” It’s rather spooky.

Still, it’s the best relationship I’ve ever had.

So, back to Christmas. It’s hard to believe we are well over halfway through the year and harder to believe that I have done hardly anything other than move house (again). Having sold Cardiff last year and taken an LA rental, in May I moved out of LA and put my stuff into storage there. I then moved my Cardiff stuff out of storage and into a rented house in Bath, where I once lived for 11 years. I am still predominantly based in New York, but cannot bear the humidity of the summer months.

And so I’m doing a bit of nesting in Bath. I spend one third of my life ordering things on Amazon; another third sending faulty things back to Amazon; and the final third dealing with Sky TV.

Here’s the thing: Sky want to give me their super doper new system called Q, but they won’t go on the roof to do the relevant work that would enable me to have it with ease in every room (Elf ’n’ Safety blah blah). I said that I would get a third party installer, the brilliant Moss of Bath, who I have used for over 20 years. Oh, no, said Sky, only they can install Q.

Me: “So you are offering me something you won’t install yet won’t allow anyone else to install. You’re not really offering anything at all then, are you?”

Hence my having to stick with Sky Plus, but owing to the bizarre wiring in my new house, is taking forever to install. I don’t know how Moss have the patience to do it, but they are getting through it with the calmness of Trappist monks, while I run around them hysterically, shouting: “ALEXA! PLAY SOMETHING SOOTHING!”

Apart from the wiring, the nest is coming together nicely. Everything I sold at knockdown price or gave away when I left Cardiff, is having to be replaced. Microwave, kettle, toaster, bookshelves, rice cooker, Ninja smoothie maker . . . 

Okay, I tell a little lie. I didn’t actually have a rice cooker before, but the Amazon section in which it says “People who bought this item also looked at . . . “ has me buying all sorts of nonsense. 

I hardly ever eat rice. I don’t like gardening, either, because I am a person who can kill even plastic plants. But my new herb troughs look very nice filled with the 50 litres of soil and already dead herbs from Tesco.

My garden furniture arrives next week, along with the bay trees. The secateurs arrived yesterday, the leather gardening gloves are coming today, and the fork and trowel tomorrow. I already feel a return label coming on.

I’m giving the barbecue a miss, though, as the one I left in my shed in Cardiff saw the light of day just once in 10 years. Even I have my spending limits.

The Ninja is one of a trio, as I also have one in New York and another in storage in LA, along with the two Kitchen Aid mixers that also belong in those two places.

I’m therefore feeling a bit spread out again, all thanks to Brexit, which made it impossible to remain full time in the US. The rate of exchange is appalling, and whereas when I went to the US in 2008, exclaiming “That’s so cheap” everywhere I went, today I cry into the little wine I can afford during Happy Hour. Instead, I find myself back in Tesco, sobbing with relief that I can get three containers of Quorn for £5.

I’m down to my last six boxes of books to unpack now and I’m feeling very much at home back in Bath. It’s quieter than New York, obviously, and the seagulls are a bit possessive of their territory (the one nurturing her young chick on the roof is adamant that I am not having the top room as my office).

I’ll be back in New York soon and am also heading to LA in time for the Emmys in September. I really miss the US, and New York in particular, but there is no doubt that the Trump presidency has put a dampener on the spirits of the majority who did not vote for him. In the air still, there is a sense of disbelief.

This, for the moment, then, is my new life. I have enough Virgin Atlantic Air Miles to allow me to zip off at anytime; I have lovely neighbours and am thrilled to discover how European Bath has become since I left it in 2005. Service in bars and restaurants leaves a lot to be desired (you could consume a three course meal in a New York hostelry in the time it takes them to bring you the menu in Bath), but I’m doing a lot of home cooking and already feeding my friends. I’ve already had one house-guest, many visitors, and am loving seeing more of family and old friends.

After several difficult years and the chaos of so many moves, I’m taking time to sit back and smell the roses. 

Well, I would if I hadn’t already killed them.