clinging to the wreckage

  The first morning in my old home, Madrid, I woke up early and, forgetting that I had breakfast included with the hotel, went for a walk to find breakfast. I found a scruffy little café somewhere close to Mercado San Idelfonso and went in for orange juice, coffee, and pan de chocolate (not something I would usually eat for breakfast but, when in Europe…). It reminded me of the times just before I left Madrid and my girlfriend at the time would often wake up in my apartment and disappear for a while only to reappear with coffee and brown paper bags filled with delicious pastries from some unknown local bakery or café. I walked on in search of a few required items such as soap, ear buds, and some nail clippers, which I eventually found in a little pharmacy in which the lady helping me had to climb up some ladders to pick the clippers off a top shelf. After spending some time back at my hotel, I took a long walk and eventually sauntered into a bar called El Diario (The Diary). It was a w

  Room 8 at Hotel Brunnenhof was home for four days in the Kinzig Valley, a scenic river valley that runs through Hanau, Germany. I was there from the 9 th   of August through to the 13 th   for a wedding and several meetings with old friends from Germany and England. It was a fantastic time. Then, on the 13 th , I took a train from Steinem to Frankfurt and then a second train to Paris where I now sit in bed, at 06:16 (having been awake since 4am), in room 216 at the Hotel & Spa Royal Madeleine. The room is tiny but beautiful and I sit here sipping a coffee contemplating life and loves long lost… loves which now lay silent, in death, and will not resurrect even though there are those that I long for. This is my first visit to Paris and my initial impression is that it is similar in architecture and flow to Madrid, where I lived for three years. I am sure there are many French and Spanish individuals who would take my head off for such a comparison, but it is merely mine, my first i

  The journal corrects many memories. For example, I have been convinced for many years that I watched Good Riddance live in London just after 9/11 happened. However, I could not find any record of a show in London. I pulled out my old journal from 2001 and, sure enough, I saw them in Portsmouth and not London. I also found the record of a conversations I had forgotten… significant ones filled with meaningful revelations… forgotten and buried deep in the past. I was quite shocked to read a passage in which I was talking about going out one evening in Tulsa, Oklahoma, with ‘Elizabeth.’ I could not recall, and still can’t, Elizabeth, although the more I think about it, the more I have brief flashes of recollection about this mysterious lady. A discovery such as this results in digging even deeper into the diary and I am reading backwards into the past to understand more of what happened and how it came to be. I’d written a passage about goals that I had set and how they had made me feel

  The swimming pool has always been a safe haven for me. When my family moved to South Africa, we were fortunate enough to be able to put a swimming pool into our enclosed garden. As South Africa is in the Southern Hemisphere, Christmas time happens to be in the summer. This was a concept that was completely alien to us having moved from the United Kingdom where it was frequently cold and raining, with Christmas being a snowy time in the north of England, where I am from. With Christmas being a summertime holiday in South Africa, we would stock the house with drinks and food, and we would hide from the world outside. No bustling traffic and frantic shopping, just family and friends around the pool, hidden from the world by a few small walls forming a private space. Nothing could beat those times. There would be New Year’s Eves when we would drive around looking for ‘the best’ party only for one of my friends to eventually suggest ‘let’s just go to your house and drink at the pool.’ Tho

  Last week I invested in a microphone, some software, and some online rights, etc, so that I can finally try to do something I have wanted to do for about twenty years and, for multiple reasons, mostly procrastination, have never done. This is to create a podcast and, eventually, maybe even have a live stream or a radio show. But, for now, I have thrown together two very experimental episodes in which I was mostly learning how to use the mic and software that are somewhat embarrassing, but, if you are interested, you can listen on the RSS Feed   or you can listen to them on   Apple Podcasts   or even   Spotify .  These initial experiments simply explore my own discovery of music and share a few songs from those discoveries, but I hope to expand and cover more areas of interest such as books, art, and travel, as time goes on and I become more familiar with everything.

  I took a break from work and went for a brief walk around the lake. I did so, wearing my swimming shorts so that I could get into the pool immediately upon my return. The temperature was around 38 degrees Celsius, making the swimming pool essential. As I returned from the walk and entered the building to make my way to the pool, an Asian lady in a white bikini emerged from the ladies’ bathroom and opened the gate to the pool. She held it open for me and I warmly thanked her. I got into the pool and began to swim lengths as the lady lay on one of the deck chairs at the side of the pool. I noticed then that we were the only two at the pool. I also noticed that she was incredibly sexy. As I swam back to where I had started, she looked at me and waved her hand in front of her face and blew out air to express how hot she was. ‘You should get into the water’ I boldly said. She smiled and replied ‘yeah, I was thinking about that.’ At that moment, one of the building managers walked by and I

  As a teenager, I saw a video of GBH playing live in Stoke, England, and it absolutely inspired me. I loved the sound, the energy, the chaos. I dreamed of someday seeing them live. In recent years I have seen them four times. Two of these occasions were in the last two weeks, once in Las Vegas, and last night in Dallas. To be able to see GBH in 2023 is something I am truly grateful for, and I am still amazed by their energy and power. They are legends and yet so down to earth. I took a break on the patio last night just before they played, and the vocalist was standing next to me casually chatting to the people around him. Then he got up on stage and set the place ablaze. Looking back, it never fails to amaze me how life unravels, and I am so grateful, always, for all of the opportunities I have had and all of the things I have done. ​