The view through the window of the restaurant on the beach
was light sepia tinted as the wind had whipped up enough sand to make watching
the view better than actually being in it.
And when you have a meal as delightful as the one that I consumed to
distract your attention from the lack of sun, one can be philosophical about
the little lacks in life!
To be fair,
I think that I was still feeling some of the after effects of the liquid
evening in the poetry group: I was stationed far to near the table with all the
bottles on it and pushed a little outside the immediate circle into a little
area of self indulgence all of my own.
Still, I did manage to make it back to the hotel and in far less time
that I usually take.
The last
journey I made after the poetry was positively epic in the manner of one lost
in some Surrealistic labyrinth. I put it
down to all those little cramped streets which lead away from the Cathedral in
Barcelona. At the back of my mind is the
panic which almost took me away in Mykonos when, having secured a room, I
scurried away to explore my surroundings and then couldn’t find the ‘hotel’
among all the other white blocks that Mykonos old town comprises. I had to keep making my way back to the sea and
then going into the exit which I remembered to be the right one and hoping
against hope that I would simply come across the place and all would be
well. It took quite a few attempts but,
as is the way with me, it worked out exactly as I expected it to and I was
reunited with my passport, money, clothes, camera and everything.
Well, old
Barcelona is the same for me. But this
time when I hit the sea, as I have done on more than one occasion, I know that
I have really and truly gone out of my way.
And I hate
wearing shoes. Even if they are sports
shoes. Today after bowing to city
prejudice I am suffering the consequences of not wearing my accustomed
sandals. I have to admit that the
wearing of sandals in January is regarded as the most flamboyant form of
eccentricity in a country that believes the month rather than the temperature
and consequently expects everyone to be dressed for winter, even if, as I
constantly maintain, the temperature is positively balmy for one of my
country’s sons!
Never mind,
my feet are starting to recover and my late morning swim was more than usually
welcome and refreshing.
And I have
finished a finalish draft of the poem that I started last night. All my new poems, well, some of them, can be
found at:
The Open
University continues to take pride of place in my academic concerns especially
as I have decided to use a Chilean painter Alvaro Guevara (1894-1951) as part
of my research. Although from Chile, he
was sent to England to study the cloth trade in Bradford where his artistic
ability was fostered, he won a scholarship to study in London and eventually
became associate with the Bloomsbury Group and produced paintings around
1916/17 of swimmers and swimming. I am
trying (and failing) to find the present whereabouts of a painting called ‘Little
Splash’ which I was hoping to compare with David Hockney’s larger and more
famous version of the idea.
As part of
my research I have managed to get in contact with a great grand nephew of
Guevara (now a candidate for a PhD in Leeds) and various other people and
institutions in an attempt to get to know more about him. At the moment I am stuck in one of those
in-between times when things have been set in motion and could reveal excellent
results, except they aren’t. I live,
however, in hope and, anyway I am enjoying myself trying to piece together
enough information to make my research project work. I have Plan B and indeed Plan C, should
nothing more make it to this part of Spain, but I do hope that I can do
something which will genuinely add to knowledge about someone who is perhaps
unjustly neglected today.
Meanwhile
the wind continues to blow, but I confidently expect sun tomorrow.
