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Anyway, wading around in the mud is something i never seem to get to do anywhere else in the world except Maldon. Mind you, Maldon does seem to have more than it's fair share of the stuff! The locals occasionally refer to the town as "Maldon-On-The-Mud", a kind of parody of "Southend-on-Sea" type of names, i guess - although that town also seems to have more mud than sea. And there used to be a race across the river at the quay every Boxing Day, called the "mad Maldon mud race". I don't know if they still have it or not. Australia's not a very muddy place, due, i suppose, to the fact that the soil there is based on sand, unlike the clayey soil of Britain. But when i've been back to Maldon recently i've managed to get back to my muddy roots somehow and Friday the first of September provided an opportunity to do it again.
My mum's boat still wasn't fit for sailing, of course, due to the fact that neither of us had been around that part of the world much in the last few weeks. It was still floating, however, which was a good omen. I began to get the feeling that if i didn't do something drastic soon, we'd get the thing finished in time for winter - if we were lucky - and then of course, it would sit there in the frost and snow deteriorating, only needing to be worked on again the following summer. I was slowly developing a hatred of boats, but this was no time to let that get to me, it was a time for action. And if i was going to do anything, i had to do it right there and then, if it was going to get done before i headed off to the mainland in a few days.
The day before, with my mum and my sister's two oldest kids on board, i'd sculled the boat the few hundred yards up the river to the boatyard to pick up the mast, spars and a few other things. They'd been sitting there since my last visit, nearly two years ago, when we'd taken the boat in to get it fixed up a bit. So on the Friday, there was no excuse left for not sorting it out and putting it all back together. Finally, we had come to a time when we were able to work on it and the tides were right - that is, it was low tide in the middle of the day when we wanted to work on it. The tide, of course, had been one of the major obstacles to doing this work - it's no good being around and ready to do it, if the tide's up and you can't get out there to work. Of course, you *can* work on a boat that's floating, but it's a much more awkward task.
It was just after the new moon and the weather, as usual, had taken a turn for the worse. It was overcast and not very warm - but at least it wasn't raining. Often, when the weather's not so good, it seems to be a lot colder on the river, but that day was the opposite if anything, for some reason, and the squelchy feel of the mud squishing up between my toes made me forget it was colder than i would have liked - the temperature of the mud was pretty much the same as it would have been if the sun was out. I waded out to where the boat sat at its mooring, about a hundred or so yards from the seawall, and made a thorough assessment of the situation.
The bottom of the mast goes through a bracket that's fixed onto the back of the front seat, and fits into a rectangular hole in a piece of wood attached to the keel, in the bottom of the boat. Neither of these fittings were in place. The piece of wood with the rectangular hole in it was in fact in our shed on the seawall, preserved from rotting by the fact that it spends most of its life submerged in the salt water which is always in the very bottom part of the boat, so there shouldn't be any problem nailing that back in place. But the bracket a bit higher up wasn't going to be so simple. It was alright itself, being made of steel, but what it should attach to wasn't in very good shape. The front seat was as rotten as only the bits of a wooden boat above the water line seem to be capable of getting. I thought of patching it up, but as well as the fact that it hardly seems worth the work attaching good wood to bad, it's also a virtually impossible task. No, the whole seat had to be replaced - this could be a harder job than i'd thought.
But in the end, it proved a lot easier than it looked at first glance and by midday the next day we had a new seat, complete with the two elbow-shaped wooden brackets which hold it to the the sides of the boat. It took a bit of work to get it all to fit together properly, but it wasn't very long before i was hammering in the copper nails that would hold it together till probably well after the rest of the boat had completely disintegrated. However, by the time i came to do that job, it was pissing down.
The thought of wading around in the mud of a southern England river estuary in the pissing rain in September isn't a vision that's instantly appealing, but as it happened, it was a pleasant and satisfying job. The tide was coming up and had just about reached the boat when we got the mast in and it was a happy sight to see it floating on that first bit of water, with its mast up and a clean new seat, looking like it was being cared for. And with the tide came the good weather.
The sun came through the clouds as my mum, my nephew and me stood around in the mud and salt water, looking at the newly-finished job. Hmmm..., we said, it was a real shame we hadn't got the sail rigged up, or we could have gone sailing right there and then. But it was a bit of a job getting that ready - and anyway, we didn't have the sails there with us, so it was pretty much out of the question really. But as the tide slowly crept in and we moved gradually towards the shore with it, pulling the boat with us, i thought bugger it! after all that work, and with this unexpected good weather and the fact that i was going away for a month the next day, i just wanted to get in the thing and float about a bit. It didn't matter whether we sailed or not. So we grabbed the oars and pushed it out into the tide.
As long as i can remember, i've know how to propel a boat by means of a single oar sticking out the back, a traditional method, known in those parts as "sculling". The only other place in the world i've seen this done was in Flores, a few months before, but that doesn't mean people don't do it anywhere else. You don't even see it so much around the Blackwater these days, with the demise of the cargo and fishing industries there - the modern 'yachties' don't seem to have the skill or desire to do such things, outboard motors being much less work. But, as i said, i've been doing this since i was a kid, and it's something that, although i don't get the opportunity to do it much any more, i enjoy a lot. So off we went, out into the river, for a scull around.
As we came back towards the seawall, my sister, her husband and their other five kids came along, obviously lured out by the newly arrived sunny weather. So of course, there was nothing else to do but pile them all in and go back out again.
The place where the boat lives, off the seawall at Heybridge Basin, is only a few hundred yards away from the bungalows on the seawall at Mill Beach, where we lived till i was ten. There's a couple of little islands, out in the middle of the mud, where we used to play when i was young, and we stopped at the largest one of these and got out for a while. My nieces and nephew had fun running around in the mud, eating samphire and just being on a little, sort of kid-sized island. I was glad we'd finally had a splash around in the boat after all those weeks of trying to get it sorted out.
I spent that afternoon and the next day with some friends i hadn't seen for a while, but i didn't manage to catch up with Veronica, one of my oldest friends, who would have left for Laos by the time i got back to Britain. I'd been hoping to get away on either Monday or Tuesday, but it began to seem certain that it wouldn't happen till at least Wednesday now.
I spent the next evening with Veronica and began to think seriously about going to visit her in Laos on the way from India to Australia. I could fly with Thai airlines and stop off in India and Bangkok. Although i couldn't stand Bangkok, and would avoid ever going there again if i had the chance, Veronica was going to be working in Vientiane, the capital of Laos, which is quite easy to get to from there - and hard to get to from anywhere else. She was going to be working on setting up a training course for English teachers, related to environmentally friendly forestry, which sounded like an interesting project and seemed to give me an unmissable opportunity to not only spend time with her, but to see a bit of Laos from the comfortable position of knowing someone in that country, and also to maybe learn something about the state of the forests in that part of southeast Asia. I had time to think about it before i had to decide whether to go or not, but it looked like the chances were good that i would. Both you and i will find out if i do it or not, before the end of this book!
I stayed in Brixton that night, as it would be handy for Victoria and the bus to Dover in the morning.
"Your attention please! For health and hygiene reasons, we request that you do not feed the pigeons or other birds. We are trying to persuade them that they will enjoy a better life elsewhere."
I couldn't help laughing at this announcement! "We are trying to persuade them that they will enjoy a better life elsewhere."! How ridiculous - and how incredibly british. I don't know quite what it is that makes me laugh so much at British ways nowadays, but there are a lot of things i find really funny. They're things that somehow contain the essence of british culture, things that i only notice now i've lived away from the place for so many years. And things that somehow make me conscious of a certain aspect of the british view of reality that is bizarrely ridiculous. I can't put a finger on exactly what it is, but i see it around me quite a lot nowadays when i'm in Britain and i find myself laughing at the 'britishness' of all sorts of things. They're a very weird mob!
It had been quite a few years since i'd been across the channel, from Dover to Calais, and in that time, the ferry service seemed to have improved quite a lot. I remember them as being quite grotty and uncomfortable, but the Port Of Calais, which was the one i was on, was clean, pleasant and comfortable.
I spent most of the time inside, as it was pretty cold on deck and, although i would have rather been outside in a way, i just didn't feel like putting up with the wind. For some reason, the journey brought back a memory of the ferry between Java and Sumatra. I'm not sure why - it certainly wasn't the boat itself. It might have been the distance involved, which seemed to be about the same, and the fact that you can see the land on both sides once you're out of the docks.
At Calais, i didn't hang around, as i knew there was a train to Paris due to leave fairly soon. There was a free bus from the port to the railway station, and you didn't get to see a lot of the town on the way. But i began to be conscious of being in another country. There really wasn't a massive difference between Calais and Dover, those two towns being closer to each other than they are to the respective capital cities, but it was noticeable if you looked carefully.
At the railway station, there was a cop at the end of the platform, checking everyone who got on the train. He had a good look through my bags and then waved me on. It seemed a bit weird, but all through the journey, at every station we stopped at, i saw police on every station, doing the same thing to the passengers of this train. And the closer we got to Paris, the more police there were on the platforms. I wondered what was going on, and it wasn't until later that i realised this was connected with the french government's pathetically stupid, and mindlessly destructive resumption of nuclear testing at Mururoa in the south pacific. I don't know exactly what they were expecting, but it certainly gave them an excuse to put on a show of police strength.
At Paris Nord station, i got straight on the metro and went to Chamartin, the station where trains for the south leave from, to try and catch the earliest train possible. I had to wait about three hours for the first one to Irun, which was a bit of a drag, but i suppose it could have been worse. I had a couple of beers and a bag of chips or something. I could have done with some proper food, but there was no sign of anything that i'd be likely to want to eat, so i just didn't worry about it. I took the opportunity to write a letter to Gretchen and Victor, who must have been wondering what had happened to me by now. I'd told them i'd definitely see them before i left Mexico - but that was three months before!
I got a couchette on the train, which cost about ten quid, and i figured it was definitely worth it, if it meant i'd get a reasonable night's sleep on the way. I like sleeping on trains and i'd certainly done enough uncomfortable and exhausting long-distance travelling on this journey to last me for a lifetime.
It was like being back in Basque Country more or less as soon as i was in the compartment. There seemed to be quite a lot of Basques on the train too and their characteristic accents, loud voices and laughter filled the air all round. I'd only ever spent a total of three months in Basque Country, but still, it felt like coming home. And we hadn't even left Paris yet!
* * *
I've arrived at Irún station at least a couple of times before, over ten years ago, but it didn't seem very familiar. I don't know if it's changed, or if it's just my memory that's lacking. Anyway, it isn't the sort of place you spend much time hanging around, and that morning wasn't any different. We arrived at Irún at about half past seven and i caught the first bus to Bilbao, about half an hour later.
Bilbao seemed distinctly familiar, although i didn't really know where i was when i got off the bus. But i wandered in what felt like the direction of the Casco Viejo (old part of town), using the hills and the fact that the river was obviously downwards as my guide. I wasn't too far off track, but i certainly didn't go by the most direct route! Somewhere along the way i had a look at a map on a bus shelter and got a clearer idea of where i wanted to go. I eventually managed to find the address that Javi and Joserra had given me for Mamen.
The house i was looking for was up a longish flight of stone stairs from the street. At the bottom, the number was fixed to the stone wall the steps went up alongside. At the top of the steps, there was an iron gate, with a bell push inside, but there was no answer when i rang the bell. This, of course, was to be expected. The chances of arriving in a town you don't live in and finding who you're looking for straight away always seem to be less than zero. So i wandered off to look for something to eat.
A loaf of bread, a tomato and an onion were my breakfast that morning, sitting in the park by the river next to the Casco Viejo in Bilbao. I remembered the last time i'd been there, during the fiestas in 1984. Then, this little park had been full of txoznas, stalls selling food and alcohol, which seem to be the main focus of fiestas in Euzkadi - the Basque name for Basque Country. It seemed like an incredibly long time ago. And of course, i suppose, eleven years *is* a long time, and an almost unbelievable ammount of things had happened in my life since then. But at the same time, it seemed to have left a strong impression in my mind, and one that hadn't really dimmed with the passing of all that time.
In 1984, i spent three months living in Gasteiz, the capital of Euzkadi, which is up in the hills an hour or so's drive away from Bilbao. Somehow the Basque culture'd had a very strong affect on me that'd remained over all those years of not returning to Euzkadi. It was as if i'd left a small part of myself behind in those hills, that had served as some kind of spiritual anchor that tied me forever to that place. Whether or not i ever went back there again. A few places have had this affect on me now i come to think about it. And they all seem to have been in the hills. Euzkadi was probably the first, but a few years later, Main Arm and the area around Mullumbimby and Nimbin, in northern New South Wales, was the same. Main Arm affected me even more strongly than Euzkadi - probably because i spent more time living there, but it was a very similar thing in a way. A powerful spiritual link which keeps me almost constantly aware of its existence and exerts a permanent magnetic force which always seems to be pulling at my soul and trying to get me to go back. However, i never seem to make it back to these places nearly as often as i'd like.
The hills around Kuranda and Mossman in north Queensland are the same. And the most recent place i'd experienced this happening was in Chiapas, in San Cristobal. Although it's too soon yet to say exactly how strong an affect this is going to have on my life in the future.
Anyway, i wasn't thinking about any of this as i sat there in the park, looking at the filthy Bilbao river. I was more preoccupied with how i was going to find somewhere to stay if i couldn't get any answer from that house. Javi or Joserra had told me it was a squat (although it turned out that it wasn't) and i thought maybe they'd been evicted or something. The journey, the lack of sleep and the uncertainty that comes over me when i'm in a place i'm not very familiar with, combined in a mild and tranistory feeling of insecurity. I'd obviously go back to the house and try again. And keep going back until i found someone, but i couldn't help looking into the distance a bit and wondering what i'd do that night if i didn't find anyone i knew. Of course, it wouldn't be a serious problem, i could always find a cheap pension to stay in. If there was such a thing as a cheap pension in Bilbao in these post European Community days! But of course, there had to be. Things couldn't have changed that much.... could they?
Eventually, quite a bit later, after a lot of wandering around with a couple of inexplicably heavy bags over my shoulders, i did get a reply at the house. When i asked for Mamen, the man who answered the bell (whose name i never did manage to remember) asked if i was "Will". Mamen didn't live there, he told me, and she'd never lived there, although he did know her. But the letter i'd sent to her there seemed to have made enough of an impression on him that he'd remembered my name. I found later that a lot of people knew i'd written that letter to Mamen and somehow it had become a well-known event! And now here i was - the mystery letter writer!
Anyway, Mamen didn't live in Bilbao, but he knew a few of my other friends there and he took me out to look for them. In a bar called the Jaunak, we ran into Maite, who i knew when she was living in London in 1986 and i was back there after nine months as an illegal immigrant in Australia, sorting out my immigration stuff to go back. It was good to see her again after all that time and she gave me some news of my other friends there. Neil, apparently, was seriously ill and was back in Ireland where he was being treated in hospital. Begoña, who used to live with Neil when i knew them in London, was in Bilbao and had a son called Connor, who was already five years old. Dione was still living at her parents place in Bilbao. And Mamen was living somewhere out in the hills a fair way from Bilbao.
I'd just missed Begoña, who'd only left the Jaunak a short while before, but she'd almost certainly be back in there later on and i could catch up with here then.
*** Maite and her friend, who's name i've unfortunately forgotten now, took me to a small restaurant up in the hills, just outside Bilbao, to have some lunch. It was on the side of a road going up a hill, with a view over the whole city. There was no dining room, only tables outside, and there was a strong wind which made things interesting! It was a good place to get an idea of the scale of Bilbao from. It's really quite a small city, although with a million population, it's incredibly densely populated, like the whole of this part of the Iberian Peninsula really. Basque Country in particular seems to have amazingly high population densities in its towns and cities, with virtually everyone living in flats and no separate houses of any sort to be seen anywhere. It's a complete contrast with Australia, where a city of a million people, like Brisbane or Adelaide, would probably cover at least five times the area of Bilbao.
Later on, i met up with Begoña in the Jaunak and she invited me to stay at her place.
Begoña, Connor and Txamen lived in a flat on the third floor of a building in a street just the other side of the river from the Casco Viejo, in another old area of Bilbao. That part was more like i remembered the Casco Viejo being last time i was there, before it got 'gentrified' in the way it was now. I guessed the gentrification would spread across the river before long, but for now it was a cheap area to live in. Txamen was working as a cook in the Jaunak, but when the academic year started again, she'd be going back to her normal job of teaching women plumbing and building skills in courses organized by the city council.
Their flat was a decent size, with plenty of light and a view from the front window of the large living room down the street and across the river. They were lucky to have found such a pleasant place to live for a cheap rent in a crowded city like Bilbao - and with a five year old kid, you need all the space you can get!
An english friend of theirs, Jon, was running a second-hand clothes shop just round the corner. It was called 'Lakit' and most of the stock was imported from Britain. I went round there with Begoña and met Jon and a friend of his, Ken, who was also from Britain - well, he lives there, anyway, i think he was actually born in Jamaica and his parents migrated when he was a kid. We hung around in the shop for a while and drunk some beer and arranged to meet up with them in a bar a bit later.
That night, Txamen had said she'd stay in with Connor if Begoña wanted to go out for a drink with me. We met up with Jon and Ken in a bar not far from Begoña's place, and had a few beers around there, before moving across the river to the casco viejo. By that time, it was raining. I can't say i remember much about the rest of that night, which isn't really surprising, as i hadn't had much sleep the night before and i hadn't had much of a break from drinking since i'd gone into the Jaunak early that afternoon.
* * *
The next day, which was Friday, i didn't wake up till quite late. Begoña had arranged with Dione that we'd meet up with her that lunch time at the Jaunak, and i didn't really have much time to get myself together before it was time to go out.
I hadn't seen Dione since 1986, when she'd gone to London briefly during the period i was there waiting for my visa to go back to Australia. I met her and Mamen on the bus from Gasteiz to London at the end of September 1984, when i was on my way back to Britain after spending three months in Euzkadi. The bus had started from Bilbao where they'd got on and they were on their way to London to try their luck at surviving there for a while. They were sitting in the back seat of the bus and i sat in the seat in front of them and we got talking because they asked me if the punk music they were playing on their cassette machine was too loud for me. "No, turn it up!" i said, and we ended up getting to know each other during that journey. We spent quite a lot of time together during the next nine months or so, and they went back to Bilbao not all that long before i went to Australia. It all seemed like such a long time ago. And, at the same time, it seemed like yesterday. But it was good to see Dione again.
Begoña invited me, Dione and Jon back for a meal that afternoon and later on me and Dione went to the area where she lives and spent the early part of the evening drinking in the bars there and trying to work out a way of getting in touch with Mamem so we could go and visit her at the weekend.
Otxandia's a village in the mountains, about an hour's drive south east from Bilbao. About half way, we began to climb up into the hills and it got noticeably colder as we left sea level. The countryside around there must have been really beautiful once, but now it's pretty well ruined by the heavy concentration of industry in the area around Bilbao. There were still a few trees around on the hillsides, but mainly what looked like plantations of imported species. I didn't see anything that really looked like a natural forest, althought there seemed to be small patches of native trees in amongst the plantations.
The village itself was a nice place. The plaza had a large drinking water fountain on one corner, with four spouts of gushing iron-flavoured spring water flowing into a large round trough. You'd never have to worry about anemia if you lived in Otxandia, a few mouthfuls of that spring water every day would give you all the iron you needed to stay healthy. Around the square were old buildings, made from a creamy coloured stone, which looked like they'd been recently cleaned - although i doubt that was the case.
The village reminded me a lot of Mexico somehow, and particularly, i think, of Chiapas. It was a strange feeling, a bit like some sort of time warp. I couldn't exactly say what was similar and what was different to Mexican villages, but they were obviously related in some strange way. And obviously quite different at the same time. I guess it was the style of the architecture, more than anything, which gave me this eerie feeling of not-quite deja vu.
It was weird meeting Mamen again after so long. It had been over ten years since the last time i'd seen her and she'd changed a lot in that time. She looked a lot different - and just the same, in some ways, as people do - but she'd changed in more ways than just appearance, obviously. Somehow, though, with her more than either Begoña or Dione, the changes that happen to us all between our early twenties and our early thirties had had their effect. In a lot of ways she was like a different person to the woman i'd known in 1984 and 1985. This wasn't a bad thing, by any means, she'd lived through a lot and learnt a lot and had developed a lot as a result. I would really have liked to have a long chat with her and learn about her views on life now, and find out what those things were she'd learnt in the last ten years, because i'm sure i would have found it interesting. But i didn't get the opportunity during that visit and, although i hoped it wouldn't be another ten years till i saw her again, i didn't know when the next time would be.
We went to a bar called the Herriko, which was just round the corner from the plaza and had a couple of martinis, while Mamen and her friend (whose name i've stupidly forgotten) went off to get some food and stuff together so we could go out for a picnic for lunch.
We went to a park not far out of Otxandia, where there was a bit of a forest and a cleared area with a few barbecue fireplaces and some timber tables. There were four or five other cars there and a few people around, but it wasn't really crowded. A couple of people went off to get some firewood and the rest of us sat around and talked and drank a bit of red wine and made salad and stuff. Eventually, they got the fire going and cooked the lumps of dead animal they'd brought and we ate.
Afterwards, we went for a walk through the forest, which seemed to be mainly a pine plantation, to look for a waterfall that was somewhere not far away. We didn't find it, but it was a pleasant walk and it was great to put my bare feet on earth again, after being in the city.
That evening, we went to a small house in the countryside just out of Otxandia. It was obviously a country holiday cottage of some sort, with a large kitchen downstairs and one large room upstairs, with lots of beds and mattresses in it. Nobody explained to me whose it was or anything about it, and if they talked about it at all, i missed out on the conversation owing to my imperfect grasp of Spanish. This happens quite a lot. Often, people say things to each other, that if they'd been said in English i would have heard and understood. But because they're talking Spanish and not speaking directly to me, i miss them and then i'm not quite so aware of what's going on around me as i would be normally.
It had been a weird day in a sort of a way, and had ended with Mamen's dog killing a white kitten that lived around the house somewhere. As usual at full moon, i was tired and went to bed as soon as i could.
Once i was on my own i felt a lot better - i think i was getting a bit 'peopled out' from not having had much space to myself for a while. I lay there and contemplated.... well.... i don't know what i did contemplate, space probably!
After a while, i heard a different voice downstairs. It sounded like an old man. I'd been thinking about getting up, but that put me off a bit, as i'd just about psyched myself up to face the rest of the crew, but a stranger at that time on a morning like that seemed a bit too much like brain damage to me. However, i eventually managed to get up and stumble downstairs - and fairly quickly out of the door.
I walked around the house, across the grass of the orchard which surrounded it and then crossed the field next to that. It was nice to feel the ground and the grass under my bare feet and i slowly began to feel better than i had when i'd woken up. I stood for a while in the furthest corner of the field, as far away from the house - and people - as i could get. It was a weird little corner, there was definitely something about it which had drawn me over to that place. I looked around at the trees and the plants growing around me and i wished i was back at Wyndham a bit. There was some yarrow growing amongst the grass near my feet and i bent down and picked a few leaves and ate them. It's quite bitter, yarrow, but it's got a pleasant taste to it at the same time. You can use it instead of hops, for making beer, apparently, and it's a good kidney tonic too. Perhaps that was what i needed that morning, a kidney tonic, because i certainly felt a lot better and less antisocial when i went back into the house.
I never did work out exactly what was the story with that house, but i don't think we were supposed to be there. The old man lived nearby and had spotted our cars and come to investigate. I don't know what his connection with the place was, but he seemed to be looking after it for whoever owned it. He was sort of pottering around and vaguely fixing this and that, although he seemed to be doing it more out of the need to be doing something, than because the things needed doing.
I went outside for a while and Connor came out with me. He was showing me some cats and chatting about something when the old man came along. Connor started talking to him about the cats and the old man said there were lots of cats living there, all colours, black, white and so on.
"There's no white one any more!" Connor said, seriously.
"Oh yes," the old man said, "There's a little white one around here somewhere."
"No!" Connor repeated, concerned about being misunderstood, "It's dead. The dog killed it last night!"
I thought this was my cue to wander casually away. I didn't want to get involved in any discussion with the old man about whether or not Mamen's dog had ripped the cat's throat out or not. I didn't know whose cat it was and i didn't want to find out. I wasn't in the mood for talking about anything really, and certainly not in the mood for discussing something like that with someone who i didn't know quite how he fitted into this increasingly weird situation.
Anyway, we packed up and went quite quickly. We had a coffee and sat around in the Herriko for quite a while and then said our goodbyes and me, Dione, Begoña and Connor drove back to Bilbao.
*-*-*
I spent a week and a half in Bilbao in total and had a great time. It was really nice staying with Begoña, Connor and Txamen. I got on really well with Connor and spent quite a lot of time playing with him. Like most european kids around the world nowadays, he had stacks of toys, mostly plastic junk, of course.
The vast quantity of this plastic crap that kids have often amazes me. Their parents and the others who buy them all this shit aren't really doing them any favours i don't think. It encourages them to be obsessively materialistic and it also discourages them from being capable of amusing themselves without vast quantities of plastic shit. I suppose, in these days of small, isolated families, where total mass alienation has become the main form of social control, most kids don't spend a lot of time playing with other kids, so the piles of plastic crap are a substitute for other little humans like themselves.
Anyway, sorry, ignore the sermon! Where was i...?
I really enjoyed Bilbao. I'd never spent much time there before, but i found it to be one of the most sociable and enjoyable periods i'd spent on this whole journey. I hadn't been having much of a social life in England, except in small bursts. This was partly because i don't know many people in Maldon any more and partly because i don't want to get any more attached to that country than i have to. If i make lots of new friends and get to know and like a lot of people it will only make it harder to leave again and to live again on the other side of the world. This isn't really a conscious thing, i don't think, i think it's more of an unconscious defence mechanism.
I spend so much time wandering and wanting to spend time with people who i'm close to, but are so far away, that i really don't need any more. When new people come along and i get to know them by chance, i don't behave any different to the way i always do. But as for going out and looking for a social life under these transient circumstances, i find that really hard. It's weird really, because i do need friends around me, people i can talk freely and openly with and share thoughts and feelings with them. And anyway, i enjoy any opportunity to crap on endlessly about nothing in particular to anyone who'll listen!
The other possible explanation for this could be that i don't need to go out to communicate now. I can do it sitting at home with my fucking computer. I send and receive dozens of email messages every day to and from all round the world. Some of them are from people i know in real life - friends in Australia, mainly. Others are from people i've only got to know through internet. It's a strange little world and although i use it a lot and feel comfortable doing it, i don't really like the effect it's had on my life over the period i've been in Europe. Before, i used to do this sort of thing a lot, when i was in certain places. Melbourne, Brisbane or Sydney, where there were computers available to work on. But whenever i was anywhere else, which was most of the time, i didn't have access to computers and never felt the lack of them - except when there was a need for fast international communication about some action i was involved in.
But now i've got a portable one, i'm never free from the curse. I don't know what i'm going to do when i get back to Australia, because having this thing will severely affect my lifestyle. But then, i was getting a bit bored with my old lifestyle anyway, maybe it's not totally bad... The problem, of course is, now i've got used to writing on a portable computer, i'm fully dependent on the thing. I do a lot of writing and i find it much easier to write on one of these things (although not a large desktop model) than i do on paper. I think it's got something to do with using both hands to write with. I'm basically ambidextrous in a lot of things, although i grew up being right-handed. I don't know if i would have been left-handed if i'd been allowed to or not, or if i would have ended up genuinely ambidextrous, but my handwriting is appalling, which is probably a sign of using the wrong hand to do it with.
But with computers and typewriters, i don't have that problem. I get to use both hands equally, which is something i've always been happiest doing. I've never liked using one hand more than the other for anything, although it's inevitable with a lot of things. Of course, because of years of practice, there's lots of tools that i use better with my right had than with my left - although there's nothing i can't use with my left hand to a certain extent. Even when i write with my left hand, which is a much harder and more tortuous process, it doesn't come out much worse than writing with my right hand. And when i started using a mouse for the first time, to layout a computer communications manual i wrote, i found it much easier to use it with my left hand, and now i always use a mouse with my left hand if i can.
The other reason for my continued relative social isolation could be that i'd got so used to not being around many friends over the five months previous to arriving in England, that i'd lost some of the need for it. Or, more likely, i'd forgotten how much i needed it and how to go about finding company. Apart from Nicki, the only people i'd seen that i knew beforehand were Barny, in Darwin, and Gretchen in Taxco. And those had only been for short periods. In Mexico, particularly, there were times when i suffered from severe loneliness. In Puerto Escondido, for instance, i felt it strongly. That was probably made a large contribution to my decision to go to Britain soon after.
Whatever it was, my stay in Bilbao was a welcome break from the long period of virtual solitary confinement. As well as catching up with quite a few old friends, I met quite a lot of really good people, people i got on really well with and liked a lot.
They were all regulars at the 'Pirata' bar, which wasn't far away from Begoñas place. It was run by a bunch of anarchists and was a good place to spend a bit of time drinking and chatting. The two people who worked behind the bar most of the time, Luisme, who ran the place, and Elasne, were friendly and i got to know them quite well. Other regulars were Jon and Ken, a woman known as Gonzo, Mendi (who was the only other person, apart from me, who i saw wearing shorts in Bilbao!), Begoña, Dione, Txamen and others.
I had quite a few late nights, getting to bed at three or four in the morning, after being out on the piss for quite a few hours. The custom in Basque Country is to move around from bar to bar all night, in a group. They get restless if they stay in one bar too long and have to move on. It's a great way of passing the evening. You inevitably end up at the same places, but do an unorganised tour of all the group's usual spots during the evening.
Often we'd be in the Pirata at midnight, when it closed. Then Luisme or Elasne would join us in our wandering and we'd head off to the K2, which was next door to the Jaunak, or somewhere else in the Casco Viejo.
I met up with Concha one afternoon. She was another old friend from London, but isn't part of the group that Begoña hangs around with. Later that evening we ended up doing a tour or some bars in the Casco Viejo, but they were all different ones to the normal territory i'd got used to.
All the bars we regularly went to were run by people with much more advanced political and cultural ideas than you normally get in Britain or Australia. They were all decorated in their own individual styles, to cater for the sort of people i'm used to spending my time with. Every bar we went to had a sign on the wall behind the bar saying:
"En este local no se aceptan comportarmientos homofóbicos. Por ello invitamos a las lesbianas y los gays a comportarse con entera libertad."
Which was repeated in the basque language, Euskera:
"Toki honetan ez dugu portaera homofobikorik onartzen. Beraz, askatasun osoz lhardutera deitzen ditugu gay eta lesbiana."
It means "Homophobic behaviour is not accepted in this place. Therefore we invite lebians and gays to behave with complete freedom".
Another universal sight behind the bar in every place was an asphalt brick with a handle on top, and yellow writing on the side, saying: "asfaltoan ere bai" and in smaller white letters below: "bilbo euskalduntzen". This puzzled me for quite a while, until i got someone to explain it to me. "asfaltoan ere bai" means "it's in the asphalt too". Which apparently means that basque country isn't just the fields and forests, "it's in the asphalt too". In other words, it's not just a rural thing, it's the cities and towns as well. I'm not exactly sure of the context this fits into, but i more or less understand its meaning.
The afternoon meal is a bit of a ritual in Bilbao. Everyone has something organized every day for eating at such and such a place, or so-and-so's house. I was invited to eat at a few different places during my stay there. I could have had my afternoon meal at a different place every day if i'd wanted to. But being a vegan, i was a bit conscious of the difficulties that having me as a dinner guest caused and i cooked at home two or three times. I tried to cook for other people, but it never actually happened. I'm not sure why. A few times, too, we ate in restaurants. You can still get a decent three course meal with wine in Bilbao without having to take out a bank loan.
Just as we were about to leave, Jon and Ken came in. They'd been at a football match between Bilbao and some other team, which had apparently been a real disaster in some way or other. They decided to come along too and grabbed a couple of bottles of beer and joined us.
The two basque women sat in the front of Gonzo's van and the other six of us, all foreigners, squeezed in the back somehow and off we went. It was a longer drive than i'd expected and Ken was grumbling a bit at the idea of going so far to see a band. So i told him he wouldn't last long in Australia, where people think nothing of driving a thousand kilometres to a party!
Arrasate was out more or less the same way as we'd gone the previous weekend to get to Otxandia, and was probably about the same distance. Although it wasn't so high up in the hills. When we got there and went into the gaztetxe, there was nothing happening. No band, only a few people playing pool in the big hall on the ground floor, where the gigs took place.
"Gaztetxe" is Euskera for "youth house" and there are a number of gaztetxes around Basque Country. They are squatted buildings which have been made into community centres to give the young people of the town or city somewhere to go and do constructive things and entertain themselves. The gaztetxe in Arrasate had a big public gathering area on the ground floor, with a stage at one end and a bar at the other. Upstairs, apparently there were workshops and communal facilities which were available to people who wanted to use them. It was a great place and i would have liked to have been there at a better time to check it out properly and talk to some of the people involved in running the place.
The gig had been cancelled apparently because the drummer of one of the bands had broken his arm. I couldn't really understand why that meant none of the bands could play, but there it was. We got some beers and hung around there for a while drinking and chatting. After a couple of beers, of course, it was time to move on and find another place to drink another couple of beers.
In the conversation somewhere, somebody brought up the fact that in the spanish state, the 30th of April is national sabotage day. On that day lots of people do acts of sabotage at work and in other places and generally go out of their way to fuck up the system as much as possible. It sounded like a good idea to me. Maybe it should become international sabotage day!
I enjoyed that night in Arrasate. It didn't matter to me whether the bands were playing or not. It was nice to be out of Bilbao, for a change of scenery and to be somewhere where there was real air for a change. And i really enjoyed the company of the people i was with. We stayed in Arrasate till quite late. I think it was about five in the morning when i got home to bed.
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