27 August 2010 - Brighton
Written by Bob, 65 year old retired Academic living in Brighton.
Written on the 27th August 2010.
I wake before 6am and catch the end of Farming Today where there is a discussion about mackerel wars in the North Atlantic. I eat a lot of mackerel and I did not know that 60/70% of mackerel in the UK comes from Iceland or the Faroes. I get up about 6 and attend to my stoma. I have had an ileostomy for 25 years and must change the equipment every four days. I replace the adhesive flange around the stoma and attach a drainable bag to collect the shit. I've done it thousands of times and it takes around 7 or 8 minutes. Then I apply tea tree oil to my toes because of a nail infection I have.
I have my breakfast - a cup of tea, muesli, berries and yoghurt. I listen to Radio 3. I take a range of medications - mostly preventative - anti-high blood pressure, anti-arthritis, anti-arhythmic and anti-coagulants; these are all free for me and I regularly thank Nye Bevan from the bottom of my heart for setting up the NHS. It's over a year since I retired from work and although I don't miss my last job (very dreary) I do miss the routines and have introduced new routines into my life. The main one is to do some exercise every morning - either a walk of at least three miles or a 45 minute swim; after that I feel set up to get on with the tasks and the pleasures of the day.
Today is a walking day. I've recently become involved with a group called Healthwalks which organises walks of varying difficulties every day of the week in and around Brighton and Hove. I'm to be going on a training course to become a volunteer leader for the Preston Park walk next Friday. Today I'm going on one of their walks that starts at Saltdean and proceeds along a path by the cliffs towards Brighton. I'm looking forward to it because it's all next to the sea. It's raining when I set out but I decide to go anyway. I get on the 27 bus; the driver is in a bad mood and is telling people off for ringing the bell at the wrong time and so on. Because I'm a pensioner I have a free bus pass; I value this enormously. It makes such a difference to my quality of life and that of many other pensioners; in fact, most people on this bus seem to be pensioners.
It's a 25 minute journey and as we near Saltdean the driver starts whistling - it must be near the end of his shift. When I get off the bus, I'm slightly lost and because it's raining, there's no one to ask directions from. I see a woman unloading a car and approach her; she has earth on her hands and tells me that she's moving house, before giving me directions. When I reach the meeting place, it's still raining and there are only 8 people there - the foolhardy, as the group leader calls them. We set off under the cliffs and the rain stops; we chat the conversation of friendly strangers - about the weather, holidays, learning foreign languages, venues for weddings in Sussex and so on. One walker describes going to a milkman's funeral where the music which was played as the coffin went into the crematorium was "Ernie, the fastest milkman in the West." When we reach Rottingdean, we part ways - most of them go back to Saltdean but I head on for Brighton.
By the time I reach there I've been walking for an hour and a half. I go to the Red Roaster cafe in St James' Street. It has a wonderful range of coffees. I order a panini with mozzarella and prosciutto along with a salad. (An Italian would say a "panino" but the plural seems to have been Anglified into the singular form.) I like the ambience of this place very much; a lot of the staff seem to be Spanish or Hispanophone; there are also lots of LGBT people in there, especially older-gay-men-who-wear-shorts-in-all-weathers. I read the New Statesman while I am having my lunch; I've been reading it off and on since 1962 and it's usually more interesting when Labour is out of power. They are backing Ed Miliband in the Labour leadership context. I read a very powerful statment about LGBT equality by him in the Pink Press yesterday but he never mentions that in things he writes for the mainstream press.
After lunch, I cross the Old Steine to catch a bus home to Seven Dials. A fat middle aged gay man throws himself in front of a baby buggy which is about to be pushed into the path of a bus by an unthinking father; the father goes bright red and mumbles his thanks. When I get home I check my emails. Emails can be great for keeping in touch with friends who live a long way off. There are two emails from my friend, N, who lives in Spain. One is a picture of a vulture which he took on a recent holiday; the other comes from the blog of a writer called Robert Macfarlane - it's all about walking across the South Downs and it includes poems and pictures as well as his own reflections.
There 's an invitation to speak at the Edinburgh Radical Book Fair about lesgay history - I accept. There's a request for a donation for a campaign against faith schools - I make a donation. I post a video link about the miners trapped in a mine in Chile on my Facebook page. I'm having an ongoing conversation on Facebook with my friend, G, in Montreal about why he can't access a link I've been trying to send him. Sometimes, the internet can be really irritating. I finish reading a book which I am supposed to be reviewing for History Scotland; I don't like it very much and put off writing the review to another day. After my early start, I quite fancy a short siesta but a builder is installing a kitchen in a neighbouring flat and his banging makes that plan impossible. I decide to have a bath instead; I do love having long soaks in the bath - much preferable to having a shower.
After that, I feel very relaxed but I do some cleaning, some ironing and some recycling while listening to the music of Goran Bregovic. My friend, D, comes in to check his emails. We've known each other for 35 years and we lived together for 12 years in the 70s and 80s. He's just moved down to Brighton from London and has bought a flat in the same block as I live in; I'm very pleased about that. We decide to go out for a drink and a meal in a local bar called The Tin Drum. We drink Stella, I eat trout and he has rack of lamb. We talk, among other things, about settling into Brighton, Edwin Morgan, identity theft, our friend in Spain, homophobia and low level racist 'humour' in Brighton, his friend from Paisley, what we miss about Green Lanes in London, the film, London River (which he has seen and I haven't). We agree that we drink too much and resolve to do something about it very soon; we agree a date to go up to Devil's Dyke before the summer bus service comes to an end.
I come home about 10pm and watch Law and order: Special Victims Unit on Channel 5. I go to check my emails to see if G has resolved the link problem - he hasn't; there's a message from N saying that it's 42 degrees in Alicante. I listen to The Archers on iplayer. I wonder about going into a gay chat roon online but I decide I can't be bothered. I don't really get much sex these days but i do enjoy flirting; I realise that I haven't flirted with anyone today - must do better tomorrow! I take my night time medication and go to bed in time for the midnight news on Radio 4 - but I fall asleep before I hear it.
