191009 in search of a magic faraway tree

If you can’t see the wood for the trees, run to la montagnes

Cecilia came up with a new one tonight at flamenco –

‘front bottom, FRONT BOTTOM’.

Ex-bloody-actly you enblazened genius! She was, of course, referring to the hip movement needed when excavating the rhumba, but the twinkle in my eye caught hers alright!

A break is always good for getting things into perspective. Wiping the floor with English men (still impartial to a Celt), I longed for the understanding of a man with hot blood pumping through his veins, who could lift me with one arm whilst tearing flesh from a spurned animal with the other. But as we know, extremes aren’t always the best course of action………………

Aboding doomsday, I prepared for my trip by bleeding in as many places as I could, then going to London in the cold eventime to get twisted on vodka at a groove armada gig.

And to add to my womanly joy, the husband of the lead singer decided to give me a lecture on why it was I was alone. Very easy to say from the smug-but-boring side of the fence! Apparently, I’m too fast, too overpowering – too much! Shall I change my personality for a nice boy then? Do I really want that? Pah!

A French guitarist named Dorian took rather kindly to me, but with a tampon-change a minute I was taking no risks.

I awoke on a too-short sofa and embarked on my journey into a longed-for wonderland.

Stepping off the plane into a warm sunshine nomansland, I instantly felt a weight off my knotted shoulders.

And there were my amazing hosts, the beautiful Evie, in tow with man and bebouncing baby.

We spent the night pigeoning in Catalan, drinking cheap wine and eating some sort of swine.

Saturday saw us attending a few parties – of which I’d been prewarned of the clientele. And they weren’t exaggerating. The first was further up the mountain, so we clambered into the back of the pick-up whilst the sun set, baby gleeing in the wind.

We arrived at the neighbours meek but warm place – stone walls, a fire burning, and presented them with the anomolous cake we had purchased from some dodgy Spanish supermarket. Apparently we did well with ‘chocolate’; the yellow one was in fact egg yolk flavour!

And there was the herd of wild stallion. Feral, to be more accurate. Some strange Chilean man in chorded slacks who lived in Stuttgart when he wasn’t pillaging, leaping up and down the rugged terrain off his head on some brand of carpet cleaner. A big, rotten-toothed foul-breathed local raucously laughing whilst stumbling about panting over the startled babies. These were men having a bewildered good time at 7pm in a shack. These were not the kind of passionate men with whom I choose to grace my custom.

Quick escape, and a hurtling ride to the piece de la resistance – another self-built house in the middle of nowhere, populated with swollen-eyed drug-smugglers and petty thieves. And I am standing with a plastic cup full of unidentifiable liquor, holding a baby whilst my friend ventures to the eco-loo down the bottomless path.

How the other half live.

Now the world is full of extremes, but where oh where is my middle man?x