Off Season

Max berates me for being insufficiently journalesque lately; a bit rich coming from him, but true, I suppose. What can I tell you?

Returning to the Isle of Wight was a successful and pleasant experience, but also a palimpsest of previous visits, little flashes showing through of memories both good and bad. It's the first time I've done the entire outbound trip alone; usually, either by arrangement or as a result of the quantizing effect of train and ferry timetables, I meet up with others somewhere, but there were fewer of us this time -- two couples and me -- and we didn't coincide.

The interior passenger area of the Red Falcon on a Friday evening maintains a direct hyperspace link to the Chav Homeworld, rank with the stench of inedible canteen slop and squawking thuglets running wild, so I spent most of the journey on the top deck in the darkness and chill wind, plugged into my hippies playlist and watching the lights of chemical refineries along the shore. A lonely outlook, and though I was in pretty good spirits I once or twice found myself caught off balance by a snatch of song; touched, for a melancholy instant or two, by the cold solitude.

Later, after much merry carousing in the Union Inn, we took our traditional drunken constitutional along the Cowes waterfront down to Egypt Point, where, with a little help from a friend, Iain, and a degree of consternation from our host, Max, I made good my failure of last year by scaling the defunct lighthouse and gazing out over the water from its iron pulpit. Then home again, to talk long into the night.

Tradition was abandoned the next day when we not only went cycling on the East side of the island but also did so through the afternoon rather than starting earlier and structuring the whole ride around a remote lunch. I got to splash through lots of muddy puddles, and pleasantly autumnal stops included a garlic farm (no, honestly) and an old steam railway station. The sun was bright and clear, and it was very warm out of the wind, especially on the way up the more agonizing hills -- though cresting them, sweat-soaked, into a stiff breeze, could be an abruptly cooling experience.

For some inexplicable reason, mid-October Cowes was thronging with visitors -- did nobody tell them it's the off season? -- and on Saturday night eating out proved actually impossible, so we got take away. We ate and drank very happily at home, and played silly games until it was time for another stroll to the now-conquered beacon, and yet more late chat.

As mentioned in the comments two entries back, the only real downside to the weekend was the journey home, which is always, 100% guaranteed or your money back, a nightmare. I don't know how they do it so consistently, but they do. Sundays and SouthWest Trains just aren't on friendly terms, and adding a bicycle to the mix is like a red rag to the blue touchpaper. This is a lesson I seem, in a vexingly specific instance of Dory Syndrome, incapable of learning, and must instead discover anew every single fucking time. I mention it here not in the expectation that it will remind me at all, but just so I can link to it next time and say "You see? You see?"

Work, by the way, is Hell. You may take that as a sweeping generalization or a specific comment on the stresses of the week. I leave it entirely up to you.
Posted by matt at October 18, 2005 11:18 PM