family – what the afternoon knows

Yes, I know it means dead in Godfather-speak. But it’s what makes snorkelling different from swimming: that you can see you’re swimming with the fishes. So I’m going to call thing 25 that anyway.

Crete, early September. Still around 30 degrees; sea deliciously warm, sky a cloudless forget-me-not blue. We’re towards the end of a two-week stay and unfortunately, because of some health problems (which aren’t mine and must therefore remain private) quite a lot of it has been pretty bad—a debilitating medley of stress, heartbreak, fury, frustration, exhaustion, helplessness… It’s all gone on for years and most of the time I just get my phlegm on, so to speak, and “deal”, but lately I seem to be finding it harder to do so—or perhaps am less willing. Here I am in a lovely place, on holiday and in sore need of relaxation and refreshment. Instead I find myself howling tears of desperation in the middle of tourist-crowded street while people try to sell me lunch, leather goods and windchimes made of shells. More Mike Leigh than Francis Ford Coppola (and (more…)

The odd pizza? Yes. Some piazze? Certainly. But… a penis (plus veg. accompaniment), deliberately worn outside the trouser, at a vaporetto stop at 3 in the afternoon? Nobody mentioned that in the guidebooks. No wonder they called the film Don’t Look Now.

Definitely not one of the images I wanted to bring home from Venice. Fortunately I brought home some better ones, too…

… My sister, who hadn’t been that keen on going, stepping from the airport waterbus at our nearest stop, San Stae, and saying very quietly, Wow, as she pulled out her camera to take a picture. She never takes pictures. My Mum, who had always wanted to go, standing on the Rialto bridge for the first time, looking down the Grand Canal. A mixed experience, I’m sure, as (more…)

what the afternoon knows

Tag: family

thing 25: ‘swimming with the fishes’: sun, speedboat, snorkel

Yes, I know it means dead in Godfather-speak. But it’s what makes snorkelling different from swimming: that you can see you’re swimming with the fishes. So I’m going to call thing 25 that anyway.

thing 8: ‘the glazed and brittle palaces’: a few days in Venice

The odd pizza? Yes. Some piazze? Certainly. But… a penis (plus veg. accompaniment), deliberately worn outside the trouser, at a vaporetto stop at 3 in the afternoon? Nobody mentioned that in the guidebooks. No wonder they called the film Don’t Look Now.