Conor stopped the car on top of the highest hill in the North and from there I could see the whole of Ireland stretched out in front of me. The sun was blinding and the sky was burning but when I shielded my eyes with my hand I could see all the way from that hilltop in Rathfriland to the city of Dublin to my home in Wicklow to the most southerly point of Cork where we had been only weeks beforehand.
On Friday I commit a cardinal sin and dump my friends and the surf trip we'd planned in favour of staying in town with my new man. They don't seem to care. They've barely seen me lately anyway; and anyway, I say, anyway, it's not like the ocean's going anywhere. Is it? Well, is it?
Conor lives in Dublin by the canal and is made up of forearm and talent and integrity and various other qualities that I like in a man. Turns out breakfast is a quality too — who knew? — and we eat it with the blinds open so sunlight spills in over the bed and the floorboards and the books he has lying around the room. Alright, I know; but just because I don't read books anymore doesn't mean I don't enjoy having them scattered around the place — I'm not a philistine, y'know. And anyway, I've been thinking about taking up reading again lately. Maybe even some poetry. Yeah, romance does funny things to people; there you go.
Christine and Aine and Louise throw their backpacks into the boot and strap their surfboards to the roof and jump in the car and off they go. Have fun, I wave at them as they take off down the road. And when this relationship falls apart, I expect all three of you to be right here picking up the pieces, y'know!
I have an ingrown hair on my boob, which is both painful and embarrassing, and this time I'm definitely not going to tell anybody about it. Except my new friend Teagan, of course, who is like the sister I never had and understands absolutely everything I say.
"On your boob?" she shrieks. "Come on! You mean on your neck, right?"
"No," I sigh. "I mean on my boob."
Like I said, painful and embarrassing. I wonder if I should see a doctor? The sister I never had isn't sure. A doctor? That's a bit extreme, isn't it? Hmm. I think she may be right. Oh, what to do, what to do?
"You're going to be fine," says Teagan, eventually, slinging a supportive arm over my shoulder and looking wistfully out of the window. "Look, can't you just try to enjoy it? Ingrown hairs were some of my best nights in ever. Haven't had one of those bad boys in a while."
I have to buy a pair of shoes and I don't want to. I don't understood the point of them — I like boots. Yes, I know, it's not the nineties. But what happens when you find yourself in a fight all of a sudden and need to defend yourself and/or run away?
Not that I'm planning on getting into a fight this weekend. It's that poetry awards thing in Cork and then it's Conor's film premiere in Galway. It's not a weekend for fighting and/or running away; it's a weekend for art and culture; and "shoes" I suppose.
But the shop windows are full of heels and straps and open toes and I can feel panic set in and wish I could just buy a pair of big old lace-up boots and be done with it all.
Well, maybe I forgot to switch my telepather to silent, or maybe Conor just knows me well enough by now, because he points out a pair of black military boots and says hey, what about those, and I feign disdain and say hey, it's not the nineties y'know.
But really I am pleased and happy, and I buy the boots and feel better about life and all its possibilities. Then we get in the car and drive across Ireland; head for the horizon til we get to West Cork.
Who knew July would turn out this way? When we talk I want to kiss and when we kiss I have a million things I want to say.
Because I really don't procrastinate enough already, I started a Tumblr.
As far as I can tell, 'tumbling' is a bit like 'blogging', except instead of spending your days in a dark room desperately trying to think up clever and/or funny things to write, you just quote other clever and/or funny people and post interesting pictures, thus making yourself appear funny, clever and interesting all in one go by default.
It took over two and a half weeks for him to ask me out, and even then I had to instigate things. "You can buy me lunch," I texted him, hoping he might get the hint and buy me lunch or something.
He got it. And now here we are sitting in a park in the sun with his arm draped over the back of the bench behind me like it doesn't matter.
"Where did you get that?" he asks, pointing at the scar on my chin. I like the way he looks at me, steadily, like he doesn't care who gets turned to stone. I don't have an answer, though. Nobody ever asks about that scar; nobody's ever been close enough to see it, I don't think.
I look up to the left side of my brain where I shelve the stories. I must have something about a girl with a scar on her chin. But nothing is alphabetised — it's chaos up there! — and all I can think about is kissing him.
"Are you making something up?" he asks.
"Shark attack," I say, eventually, decidedly. And then I look away again.
These three pics are from my father's book of large-format portrait photography: his grand-daughter Selkie; his friend Graham; and me.
My father is old-school when it comes to photography — cue heated cross-generational debates at the dinner table. He shoots with a Rosewood 54 and a mahogany wholeplate, which basically means he only gets one shot per shoot – so you better stand really, really still when you're posing for him or be prepared to feel the wrath of Bruce rain down upon you. This method of working is completely alien to me (my preference being to snap two or three hundred shots at a time on automatic and then airbrush the shit out of them in Photoshop afterwards) but it's always exciting to have to wait and see the finished product when he's done with the dish-developing. Yes, dish-developing! With liquid and stuff.
You can flick through the first 15 pages of his book and order a copy here. There are some other people in it you might recognise too.
Sometimes I'm overcome with shyness, which surprises some people and they say you? Shy? And then they laugh and I say yeah, me, shy. And then I shrug. It happens to the best of us.
Maybe this is why I liked drinking so much. When you're feeling like being a little outgoing it's good to have something to hide behind. Blogging; that also works. Writing stuff all over the internet for everyone and his dog to find. Yeah, drinking and blogging — though never at the same time.
It was my mother who taught me to drink and it was my mother who taught me to write, and it was my mother who gave me the best advice I've ever been given in my life:
"If you're in a social situation and you feel a little shy, just turn to the person next to you and ask them two questions about themselves. It doesn't matter which two questions; as long as they're questions about themselves they'll think you're the most interesting person they've met all night."
Let's suppose for a moment that I wasn't making it up about that director guy in the cafe, and let's suppose instead that it's all true, and then let's call him Conor: because that's his real name.
I saw him before he saw me, but when I caught his eye I looked away again quickly just in case I turned to stone. He's kind of hot, I thought, wandering off to the salad bar where there were decisions about broccoli to be made.
"Where do I know you from?" he said, in the queue behind me and I turned around and saw him in close-up for the first time. Yes, definitely hot, and I had definitely never, ever seen him in my life before. But I didn't let on, I just stood there for a moment looking thoughtful like: Yeah, where is it that we know each other from? Now let's see, where could it be?
He looks married, is what I was really thinking. At least, he has a beard, which is always a dead giveaway.
"I don't know," I shrugged, losing interest. "You're working at the film studios, maybe?"
"Yes," he said, surprising me. "That must be it." And we shook hands and introduced ourselves and that's when he said: "Of course, that's where I know you from, I've seen your blog."
This must be what death feels like, because all of a sudden that entire blog of mine was flashing before my eyes and needless to say some parts of it were flashing bigger and brighter than others.
"You get this a lot, right?" he said, misreading my anguish, and I had to laugh.
"No," I said. "Not a lot." I told him about the only other time, when the drunk, pretty girl came up to me in Eddie Rockets one night and I had wanted to hug her and never let her go. She sent an email later, I told him, saying meeting me was the highlight of her night, and I was like no, believe me girl, meeting you was the highlight of mine.
He laughed, and we chatted for a while, and just as I was figuring out that despite the beard maybe he wasn't married after all, all of a sudden lunchtime was over and I had to go.
A big thank you to John who coded the bulk of this for me ages ago. I love the fades on the thumbnails, have been running my fingers through them all morning.
I went to meet my ex for dinner last week, and as I cycled down to the seafront it occurred to me that it must be nearly a whole year now since we'd seen each other. How could I have let that happen? I guess because I spent last summer punishing him for breaking up with me by refusing to see him before I stomped off to the States. Looking back, I'm not sure exactly how 'punished' he'd felt by that, in fairness, considering he had a super-cute new girlfriend to hang out with and I wasn't exactly the best company at the time anyway.
But there's been a lot of water under the bridge since then. And while most of it was laced with piss and vinegar in bars and motels across America, it was water all the same. It was good to see him again; he looked well and happy and I felt instantly fond of him again and was glad we'd finally made time to catch up. He's about to go off travelling himself, with his girlfriend, and as he was telling me about her he stopped and said, wait, is this weird for you? Are you okay with this? And I laughed and reached out and squeezed his arm and said yes, yes I am really okay with this.
And anyway, I said, I have some news of my own. And so I told him about the hot, older film director I'd met in the cafe up the road from work the week before. Really! And he grinned and shook his head and I grinned back and wondered if he was wondering when the hell it is that I'm going to stop making shit up.
The thing about riding a bike is that nobody can touch you — not the cops, not the kids, not your worst enemies, not anybody. You're too fast. The side-streets are too narrow. Sometimes life is just too easy.
The current world land-speed record stands at 920 miles per hour and is held by a monkey called Eloise, now sadly deceased. They built a machine out of steel and wheels, took it out to the desert in Arizona, put it on the biggest stretch of nothingness you've ever seen, and called for volunteers to ride the thing. Can you believe nobody took them up on it? Not even Crazy Eddie from Las Vegas who once fell off the Empire State Building just for the craic. So they had to put a monkey in it instead; pressed GO out in the Arizona desert and recorded her die at 920mph. Rest in pieces, Eloise.
But like I said, that's just the fastest ever recorded land-speed. They never recorded me flying down Bray hill on my bike; wind at my back, money in my pocket, leaving work on a Friday night.
[pic by CH]
I was planning to use my winnings from the poetry prize to pay off half my credit card, because I like the romance in 'rhyming my way out of debt', but then I turned my back on romance and bought half a guitar instead.
"You play guitar like Daddy," said my nephew Otto, rolling his eyes at my C-G-D combinations and trying to teach me bar chords instead.
"That's country music for you though, Otto," I shrugged, secretly pleased that he was comparing me to my brother, the greatest man who ever walked the earth. "All you need is three chords and the truth, right?"
Right. Three chords and the truth and a solid mahogany Martin D15. It cost a thousand euro and it's way, way out of my league but really who cares when it plays like falling in love and it smells like Nowhere, Tennessee.
From a road-trip to Kerry on Saturday with Fiona & David and their American friend Dan.
My favourite Welsh-speaking Texan Chris Cope starts his two-month American road-trip this week, which has me both eaten up with jealousy and hanging on to his every word — if I don't get a postcard from every State there's gonna be trubb.
I took this shot heading towards Dallas last year. Yes, I should be taking new pics, but unless you want a photo of my desk I got nothing.
When I was twelve I came home from school one day to find my mother painting my bedroom black.
'What's going on?' I asked.
'I'm painting your bedroom black,' she said, with that edge in her voice that told me she and my father had had a row.
I went back downstairs to see what had happened. Yes, they had had a row. The air in the house was thicker and my father moved things around differently. On an ordinary day this would drive me to the top of the stairs with the dog, the two of us clinging on to each other, not wanting to hear what was going on but keeping our ears pricked up anyway in case we missed something. But this was no ordinary day — I was getting a black bedroom, something I'd always wanted. The dog slunk off to sit by himself behind the sofa.
By day my mother was a cleaner at a local school but by night she was a great artist. She had a studio — an old shed — at the back of the garden, full of paint and oil and chicken-wire and clay. If you went anywhere near that shed you'd get paint on you. (Sometimes if you even just thought hard enough about that shed you'd get paint on you, so watch out). She drew portraits of people from the village and landscapes of the mountains and the sheep and sometimes she sculpted clay heads of the men she'd met along the way. And then, when we needed the money, she'd just forge a Renoir or a Degas or a fake Van Gogh.
One day my father said Mary, wouldn't it be nice if every time we looked up from the sofa in the living room we could see the sky sitting right up there above our heads? Nobody could think of anything nicer than that, so my mother got up a ladder and painted a cloudscape right up there on the living room ceiling. And now, to this day, every time you look up from the sofa it's like the sky is sitting right up there above your head.
When she was done painting my bedroom black we stood in it, the four of us — me, my mother, my father, the dog — and looked around. Black walls, black doors, black ceiling, black desk, black window frames, black chest of drawers.
'It's very dark, isn't it?' said my mother, dubiously.
'It might brighten up a bit once you put your posters back up,' said my father, who had stopped moving things around differently by now.
'But this is how I like it,' I said, even though it was darker than I had ever really expected an entirely black bedroom to be.
The dog went back behind the sofa.
My brother Fergy in Galway. Born with the look of the fox about him, but only in his beard.
Bono was sitting outside the office when I cycled into work this morning, which threw me into a state of turmoil. On the one hand, I enjoy the inflated sense of self-importance that comes from getting to say hello to a famous person — Hello Bono, beautiful day isn't it? — but, on the other hand, the last thing I wanted was for Bono to see me wearing my cycling helmet.
I don't want anybody to see me wearing my cycling helmet — not Bono, not anybody. One of life's greatest formulas states that motorbike helmets and sunglasses are always cool, but cycling helmets and spectacles are never cool; not ever. I once crashed my bike into an oncoming car on a busy high street, flew through the air, and landed on my chest cracking three ribs. And yet all I could think was: "Great. Here I am with a small crowd gathering around me, lying broken and bleeding on Reykjavik's main shopping street, and now everybody who's anybody is going to see that I wear a cycle helmet." Ever since then I've been careful to remove it and hide it in my backpack before entering an area where I might have to encounter cool people. But this morning I was in a rush to get to work on time, and there I was all of a sudden, sweating, glasses steamed up, wearing a cycle helmet in front of Bono.
All was okay later, however, when I saw The Edge in the canteen. Hello The Edge, beautiful day isn't it? Well, I didn't say that. I also managed to resist the temptation to quiz him about his name. How does that work, anyway? Having a name that begins with the definitive article? Does everybody call him The Edge? Surely his wife doesn't call him The Edge? Or does she? Either way, I've decided I'm now only answering to the name of 'The Annie'.
The only people who are allowed to use the word 'ginger' are ginger people. If you're not ginger yourself then please stick to one of only two acceptable alternatives: the first being 'redheads'; the second being a term coined by my brother Fergus: 'those who have the look of the fox about them'.
Lots of people with the look of the fox about them spend their adolescence wishing they'd been born blond or brunette or Japanese instead. It's not until we reach adulthood that we get over it and let the foxy love flow. And then bang, look, all of a sudden everyone else is wishing that they were ginger, too.
Sorry, but it is not possible to 'dye your hair ginger' because ginger is not a colour. You can dye your hair a nice copper tone or some kind of auburn hue, but you'll never have the hot coals burning at the pit of your stomach from being born with the look of the fox about you.
This is Hvítserkur in northern Iceland, taken way back in the day when dinosaurs walked the earth and I spent four painful hours a month letting Toni & Guy bleach every last trace of ginger out of my poor hair.
A poem I wrote has won first prize in the 2009 Fish Publishing writing contest!
I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, what, you write poetry? Because that's what everyone says. And then they take a step backwards in case I bust a rhyme in their face and laden them with the weight of my childhood.
Well, I don't usually write poetry — at least I hadn't done since my (largely uneventful) childhood — but I did this year when I moved back home after my trip to America. Yes, it must have been living with my parents again that drove me to verse. That, and my short-lived busking career in Belgium, when I got fed up of waiting for someone to throw a euro at my head and I entered a writing contest in an attempt to do something constructive with my unemployment. And now I've won! First prize for my poem and runner-up for a one-page story — I am simultaneously honoured and flabbergasted.
The second thing people say when I tell them is, well, what's this poem about? And that's when I take a moment to think of my friend, an actual poet, who once said to me that there are really only two preoccupations in life; one is love, of course, and the other is death. And I thought long and hard for a while — love or death, love or death, biscuits or cake, love or death? — until I finally concluded that this poem must be about both, seems it's about thinking I was in love, and then thinking maybe I wasn't.
I had to go for a chest x-ray yesterday, which was annoying because it's not that long ago that I was making shit up on my blog about having had a chest x-ray. I fear I have brought this upon myself. "This chest pain, is it my ego acting up again?" I asked the imaginary doctor in my head. "No," said the real doctor in the real hospital. "It's most likely a stomach ulcer that's infected the valves of your oesophagus."
Gross. I went home and got back into bed, glad that I have a bed again and that I'm not still sofa-surfing my way around Dublin. I have moved to a small seaside town in County Wicklow that is within cycling distance of work and miles away from anything fun — unless you count fun as a bag of chips down on the pier. Which would be fun, I suppose, if I could ever get any of my snooty Dublin friends out this far to visit me.
It is a nice apartment though, in one of those crap "all mod cons" kinda ways. Louise and Derek say that all "all mod cons" ever really means is a dishwasher and a black leather sofa. Well, when I was a small seven-year-old girl it was my ambition to own a black leather sofa. Derek says landlords love them because they think they're 'classy', and Louise says it's just because they're wipe-clean. I have to agree with Louise, because unless all landlords are small seven-year-old girls I don't see how they could possibly think black leather sofas are classy.
Anyway, now I live in a small seaside town with a black leather sofa and a stomach ulcer. And that is all my news.
I am not in love with anyone at the moment, which is both comforting and boring in equal measures. Well, kind-of equal measures. Usually there are at least two men that I'm fixated on, rolling them around in my head like dough, making them better and better and funnier and cleverer, until it all inevitably ends in them 'letting me down gently' anyway. Even so, being in love is at least more interesting than not being in love, isn't it?
I thought I might find love in Belgium; under a crooked church spire or on an ancient medieval street, or wherever the hell else it is that love hangs out, but I didn't. I did meet a guy in the bar I worked in one night, though. He was drunk and smelt of boiled rice and looked saner with his hat on than off — which should have been a warning sign, really, as all hats are inevitable mistakes — but I gave him my number anyway. All I wanted was someone to eat an ice-cream with on the banks of an ancient medieval canal. I'm not sure that's what he had in mind. At one point he kind of lunged at me, I think.
He sent a text the next day. Would I meet him for a drink? Unfortunately for him I'd just been watching an Obama interview on YouTube when the text came in.
"I'm sorry," I was about to reply. "But my standards just went up."
But I didn't. I just dropped the phone back down on the bed and didn't send anything. Because that is what 'being let down gently' means.
Every time I leave Cork for Dublin all the people at the train station look at me with great pity in their eyes, as if to say "Bye now, sorry you have to be going back there, back to Dublin, the worst place in the world".
Well, I used to hate Dublin too, although I can't really remember why now. It's an unremarkable city with no distinguishing landmarks and a lot of shit pubs*, yeah, but that's not a reason to hate it. I think it's because when I arrived I was "in a relationship", I suppose, and I never bothered trying to have any fun, and then later because I was "coming out of a relationship", I suppose, and I hated everything except country music and cheese-on-toast.
But I actually quite like Dublin these days. Maybe I even love Dublin these days. I was so elated to be back that when I stepped off the train I threw down my backpack and broke into a spontaneous dance. Because, despite enjoying looking down on people who like musicals, secretly I have always wished that one day life will be less like life and more like a scene from West Side Story. One day I am going to step down off that train and fifty people are going to leap and sing around me, magically knowing all the words, while I spin through Heuston station flashing my knickers at the ticket-man because that's how happy I am to be back in Dublin after all these months.
*I mean the pubs are shit compared to pubs in other parts of Ireland, not that the pubs are shit compared to pubs in, say, Wales. That would be ridick.
I know this picture looks like it was set up, that I found a load of crappy old props in a junk shop and positioned them like that on purpose, but I didn't. I was in the old hotel on the hill in Dolwyddelan with Cathy when we noticed that the door had been left open to the attic. We climbed up and found the room exactly like this, so Cath sat down on the pot of paint and we snapped it and then got the fuck out of there again before the crazy hotel owner caught us and ate us for his dinner.
Sometimes life takes you to places that are beyond your wildest dreams, and sometimes life takes you to Cardiff. This is my first time ever in our nation's great capital, and I am taking a taxi from the station to Emma's house with all my stuff, on my way back to Ireland.
"This is my first time ever in our nation's great capital," I tell the driver, peering out of the window at the hardware stores, the pound shops, the Millennium Stadium, and the Spar. Which looks a lot like the Spar in the village, only bigger.
"Really," he says, sounding genuinely surprised. "Where are you from then?"
"Dolwyddelan," I say. "In the north."
"You'll be out on the tiles tonight, then," he supposes.
No, not likely. I'm taking the boat from Fishguard in the morning; tonight I just plan to spend the evening with Emma on her sofa, catching up, having her husband teach me to play The Green Green Grass of Home, and drinking a lot of tea. I'm getting weary of moving from place to place and I am bored of drinking, and drinking, and getting up too late, and drinking. Next week I'll be back in Dublin with a job and a desk and a bed and an alarm-clock and I can't wait.
"No, I think I'll just be staying in tonight," I tell him. "Chillin', like."
"Oh yes," he nods. "One step at a time. Must be a big shock after Dolwyddelan."
"I'm here about the busking license," I say into the intercom on the door of York City Council.
"You'll need to fill in the form," a woman's voice crackles back. "Then just drop it in t' letter box and we'll be in touch."
"I've already done that," I explain. "And I'm waiting for my audition. But I'm leaving town this week so I'm wondering if you could just give me a temporary permit?"
There is a pause. And then what sounds suspiciously like a snort.
"You'll still need to audition, love, even for a temporary permit," explains the voice. "You could be terrible for all we know."
"I'm not terrible," I sigh, saying 'terrible' just like that in italics as if well, actually, I might be something like terrible, I suppose.
I want to play her a 16th century baroque piece right here into the intercom to prove myself, but actually I don't know any 16th century baroque pieces. And so instead I wander around town and consider just playing without a license anyway. Rock n roll! I mean, this is busking – how high can the standard possibly be?
On Coney Street a man plays reels on the fiddle while simultaneously operating a dancing puppet on strings. On Sampson Square a woman plays Hendrix guitar solos while her dog sings along in perfect key. On Stonegate a guy plays 16th century baroque music on the harp whilst standing on his head.
Yeah, I'm not terrible, just a little dull maybe.
I just failed my driving theory test. Also known as 'the easiest test in the world', it is impossible to fail unless you have something wrong with you. Eh? How did this happen? I have two degrees - two! - and an IQ of well over 190. Actually that's not true, I don't know what my IQ is, because only stupid people take IQ tests. But I know it is high enough for me to be able to pass the easiest test in the world.
Yeah, it's my own fault. I've spent the past three days sitting on Warren's sofa learning to play 'Walk the Line' instead of revising. I know, I know, but everyone kept reminding me that this theory stuff is 'mostly common sense'.
"Let me guess," says John. "There were no Johnny Cash questions in the test?"
No, no there weren't.
On our first night in London, Wies, Cathy and I got thrown out of a comedy club for not laughing enough. The comedian, Ray Jerome, was so bad that the entire audience just sat there in embarrassed silence until he lost his train of thought and shouted at us all to "fuck off then, the lot of you, get out, none of you are smart enough to understand my sense of humour, that's all it is." Which was the funniest part of the evening, in fairness.
On our second night in London, Wies, Cathy and I got thrown out of our hotel for being too rock'n'roll for London. And by "too rock'n'roll for London" I mean we had tried to get all three of us into a single-occupancy room and failed. Getting thrown out of a King's Cross hotel at one in the morning was both embarrassing and inconvenient. Which is one of the worst combinations, in fairness.
I also visited the one and only Annie Slaminsky in Hackney, who I've been bloggy-friends with for some years now but this was the first time we'd met in real life: cue blonktastic gossip-fest (yes, we were talking about you!). We met at a busy train station where I wasn't sure exactly who I was looking for, but I just kept an eye out for the best bum in London until I found her. Later on, on the night bus back to her place, a bloke said to her: "Cor, you 'ave got to 'ave the best bum in London, darlin," and it's true: she has.
And last but not least, I got to spend some time with one of my oldest friends Christian Oshi, who I grew up with in rural north Wales. He ran away to London many years ago to make his fortune and fulfill his "lifelong ambition of getting braces" — even though he already has perfectly straight teeth. I'm happy to report that he has finally found a dentist willing to help him with this entirely baffling fashion statement, as when we met up he was recovering from having had four teeth removed in preparation. And so this post is dedicated to him and all his suffering, after he expressed understandable contempt that I had "skipped straight from Belgium to York as if London didn't even exist." Eep!
Making my fortune on the gold-paved streets of York might prove to be a little trickier than it was in Belgium.
"You do realise," says Cathy, cautiously. "That to get a busking permit from the council here you have to actually audition for them?"
"Yes, yes I'm aware of that," I say, even though I wasn't. In Ghent I just had to pay up 25 quid and fill in a form; nobody asked me to prove myself.
"It's okay," I reassure her. "I have an audition set that's going to blow them away. It's going to be just like the X-Factor."
A shadow of doubt clouds Cathy's usually optimistic face. I'm not sure if she is dubious about my handful of slightly wobbly guitar-pieces 'blowing' anyone 'away' or if it's just that she can't imagine the offices of York Town Council being anything at all 'like the X-Factor'.
Spring is in the air in Flanders; in our hearts and in our underwear and in the bar I'm working in, too.
"Voilà!" I like to say, when I bring the customers their drinks. Then I whip the cloth off the tray just like a magician would do: Voilà! Here are your drinks! You gave me money and I turned it into beer — it's like alchemy, non? What a wonderful life!
A couple of days ago a nice-looking Flemish man with a very large grey beard came into the bar and sat up at the high table in the corner by himself.
"How much for one of those hats?" he asked, pointing to the stupid over-sized Paddy's day top-hats hanging up behind the bar.
"You buy four pints of Guinness," I told him. "And then it's yours."
He nodded his head. He'd have four pints, he said, over the evening, and then he'd take a hat. A long time ago, he told me, he was married to a woman in Derry and they had had a daughter together. She was grown up now, studying law for a year in Paris, and she would be coming to Belgium to visit him. He was going to take her out for dinner at that nice restaurant on the Graslei and then they'd go and drink some pints together to celebrate St Patrick's Day.
"She's a lovely girl," he said. "She'd laugh if I turned up tomorrow in one of those hats!"
I made sure he got his hat at the end of the evening. He didn't even touch the last pint he'd bought.
Last night he came back into the bar, late, around two in the morning when everyone was dancing and pushing and spilling their stupid green beer and falling all over the place.
"How was dinner?" I asked him.
"Ah, I didn't go," he said. "My daughter couldn't make it after all."
Then he sat back up at the high table in the corner by himself with the stupid green hat that he'd forced himself to drink three pints of stupid Guinness for, until everyone went home to bed and we started sweeping the floors.
I have finally cracked this busking thing and am making my fortune. The trick is to play at night when the streets are quiet. This way I can drop that strummy REM song and play my finger-picky stuff (to use technical terms), so that the sound echoes off the beautiful medieval walls and makes everybody feel romantic and generous. Yee-hah. On Sunday evening I made €30 in two hours and last night I made €9 in just twenty minutes while I was waiting for Wies to get ready for the pub.
"It's because they feel sorry for you sitting on the streets on your own at night," he supposed.
"No it's not!" I said. "It's because of the music."
But that night a concerned-looking couple stopped to make 'eating' gestures with their hands and asked if I was hungry.
"I'm not homeless," I explained, patiently. "I'm making my fortune. And later on I'm going to use these coins to go and drink pink cocktails in the Captive Sailor."
And that's exactly what I did.
Busking on the medieval streets of Ghent isn't quite as financially rewarding as I had imagined, and so I've taken a job in a bar to 'top it up' — where they have tricked me into being a waitress against my will. Oh god. Am world's best barmaid but world's worst waitress. It's going to be a nightmare.
"It's going to be a nightmare," says my new boss. "Because the Champions' League football is on."
I sigh. I don't tell him that once upon a time I was an art director for Champions' League football. I don't think he'd give a shit, somehow. He needs someone who can carry vast trays of beer; not someone who can waffle on for half an hour about one font.
"Don't worry," says my friend Cathy, who works for the Samaritans and always says the right thing on the phone. "Think of this job as the perfect role for observing people in. Don't see it as being a waitress; see it as being an anthropologist!"
This is a brilliant idea. I thank Cathy for her encouragement and feel better about things.
On my first day as an anthropologist I drop a fish pie on the restaurant floor. On my second day as an anthropologist I give all my customers the wrong change by mistake. "Sorry," I keep mumbling. "I'm from Ireland so I'm not used to the euro..." (Um, what?). On my third day as an anthropologist I offend a woman by telling her she looks like a potato. "As drunk as a potato! I meant you look as drunk as a potato!" I say in a panic, trying to correct the Flemish phrase I'd just cocked up and not making things any better for either of us.
And yet, somehow, I make more tips in three shifts than I do in an entire week of busking. Sacre bleu! Could it be that these people actually prefer having drinks spilled on them to listening to me play Man on the Moon over and over again on Veldstraat?
I am shaking my head slowly in disbelief.
The trouble with being in a foreign country is that sooner or later you just can't put it off any longer and you have to go to the supermarket. I know, I know, 'going to the supermarket in a foreign country': a fun experience if you're on holiday with your friends when you can wander up the aisles together giggling at chocolate bars called 'Boobies' or whatever. But when you're on your own and are trying very, very hard to not look like a foreigner, well, then it is just a nightmare. I have to concentrate so hard on appearing 'local' and 'nonplussed'* that I inevitably end up coming away with a trolley full of things I don't need or even like by mistake. Like sardines.
I have some kind of phobia, I think, after a particularly upsetting foreigner-in-a-supermarket experience I had in Reykjavik. I was minding my own business comparing two kinds of sardines when a nice-looking woman tapped me on the shoulder. I was rather pleased about this because hardly anyone ever tapped me on the shoulder in Iceland. I got a little over-excited, I suppose, and thought that perhaps she was about to ask me to be her new best friend – or at least invite me round for dinner.
'Hallo,' I said, warmly – which is the Icelandic for 'hello'.
'Where can I find the toilet paper?' she said.
'Uh, I don't know, because uh, I don't work here...' I stammered back.
'Oh my god,' she cried, aghast. 'Are you... are you a foreigner?'
And then she dropped her basket, gathered up her skirts, and ran screaming from the canned-food aisle while I stood there blinking after her, a tin of sardines in each hand and a lump forming in the back of my throat.
It is for this reason that my first sentences in Flemish include things like: 'two bags please', 'do you take Visa', 'where can I find the tinned fish', and 'very sorry but I don't work here'. No, I will never be taken for a foreigner in a supermarket again.
*I don't mean 'nonplussed'. I don't know what i mean, actually, but you know what I mean, right?
Monday
On my first day in Belgium, Wies asks a guy playing an oboe on his street corner for busking advice. Oboe Guy has no teeth and doesn't speak any Flemish, French, or English but somehow manages to tell us how I can get a permit, where the best places to play are, and that he wishes me the very best of luck. Yes, I have found a friend in Crazy Oboe Guy.
Tuesday
On my second day in Belgium I go to the festivities office for a permit. 'What kind of music do you play?' asks the nice man filling out the forms. 'Er, I just play one REM song over and over again on the guitar,' I explain. 'Well, I'll put down folk music for now,' he says, kindly, and then wishes me the very best of luck. Yes, I have found a friend in the Festivities Office Guy.
Wednesday
On my third day in Belgium I decide I don't want to be a busker after all. I'll spend my month in Ghent annoying Wies in his lovely office instead. He prods me out of the door with a stick. 'Go!' he says. I stand in a small market square and start nervously playing the same REM song over and over again. After five minutes a woman drops a euro in my guitar case and I nearly swallow my tongue in shock. I stop playing immediately so I can text Wies the good news: Oh my god I am going to be rich! I make €7 before having to stop because my hand is cramping up. Turns out it is not possible to play one REM song over and over again for more than one hour. Come on — it's not possible to listen to one REM song over and over for more than an hour, is it.
Thursday
On my fourth day in Belgium I get busted by the cops. 'Do you have a license?' they ask. 'Yes,' I say, smugly producing my permit. 'This is from last year,' says the cop. I look at the date. He is right: the Festivities Office Guy has put down 2008 by mistake. Hmmph. I pack up my guitar and go off my friend the Festivities Office Guy a bit.
Friday
On my fifth day in Belgium I go back to the square only to find that Crazy Oboe Guy is in my spot. Hmmph. I play on a picturesque cobbled street all afternoon, make 70 sodding cent, and go off my friend the Crazy Oboe Guy a bit.
Saturday
On my sixth day in Belgium, Wies tells me what I need is a gimmick – like a parrot or a dog or some shit like that. Or couldn't I at least do a little dance or something? I shake my head sadly as tears drop into my small, frothy Belgian beer. 'Come on Annie,' he says, giving me an affectionate arm-touch. 'At least strap some kind of plastic lion to your shoulder.' 'Okay then,' I sniff. Wies attaches a plastic lion to my shoulder with sticky-tape and I make about 14 euro almost as soon as I've stepped out of the door.
Clockwise from top left: view from Wies's house; Ghent centre; Wies's father's chickens; hmm, another view; the view from my house.
On my last weekend in Wales, Cathy comes back to visit. We've been friends since we were 11 when she saved me from an adolescence of loneliness and misery by inviting me back to her house in the next valley after school. I could help her pick caterpillars out of the garden, she'd said, to keep in the box under her bed that she was turning into a butterfly zoo.
Eighteen years later, Cathy drives too fast and doesn't always watch where she's going. Usually this makes me nervous but today I don't care. I'm feeling light-headed after lunch and I'm happy to ride shotgun through Ffestiniog as the sunlight hits the slate-heaps and turns them purple.
Listen to this, she says, turning up the music. I always think this song is about us.
The woman on the stereo sings about being sixteen; two girls drunk on a bathroom floor together.
Yes, it's about us, I agree, feeling emotional all of a sudden.
Who else could that song possibly have been written about except me and Cathy? I'm glad we're spending my last day here together, in Wales on the first day of March, driving too fast through Snowdonia where we have grown caterpillars and killed butterflies and swung from every lamppost and pissed on every tree.
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