Waking Up

So. I went for this walk.

It was raining an awful lot even though earlier it had been a good day except only weather-wise because I was having a bad day. So I thought, I’m going to go on a really long walk from Shinewater through Langney past Pevensey up to Sovereign Harbour and round to Princes Park and burn the zero calories I’ve consumed today and chill the fuck out. Mojo was asleep so I thought I’d go it alone, with my phone, like a gnome. Then I thought, whilst on this walk, fuck, this is taking me a long time. And I’m alone. I don’t like being alone. And I’m fucking tired. It’s raining, which is, without a shadow of a doubt, an absolute pathetic fallacy for my mood and life in general. But at least that means I can wear my Dad’s massive Barbour which makes my legs look slightly less fat. I’m going to have to employ coping mechanisms. What coping mechanism can I use in this situation? Probably the two I prepared earlier. I find being at my Dad’s really difficult and and I don’t care what you say for every means there is a just cause or something.

So I was walking along and by this point I was getting really tired. I passed two young lovers and a sleeping ice cream van and it made me think some more thoughts for a while. I was coming up to the Langney roundabout which seemed longer than it was but I’m really very very sorry that this story is getting too long. Holy moly. I wasn’t really thinking particularly hard as I was crossing a road but I was wise enough to know that when a red fiesta is approaching from the left it’s fair to cross as long as it’s in the distance so I did and the prick didn’t even have to slow down but he beeped because I had to maybe run a tiny bit but mainly because he was a prick which scared the shit out of me and when I landed on the other side of the road my heart was doing a funny dance and not a pretty one at that. By this point I figured that I might not quite make it all the way to Princes Park tonight. So I sat down at the nearest bus stop and said ‘Fuck’ out loud, like a don, because my bag was so heavy. I sat there for either ten minutes or ten hours and watched the rain, watched a bus pass, nearly stop with the bus driver glancing back and forth at me as he approached deliberating whether or not I was worth picking up, but then carry on; then I decided to stand up. As I was doing up my bag I realised that it had suddenly caught up on me and that everything was rippling tremendously and my self-dialogue was getting really really loud and I was beginning to have vivid conversations with myself in my head but with happy thoughts as oppose to sad ones and I thought I’m fucked this is good. 

I figured that I wasn’t going to make it home and I was beginning to worry as I didn’t fancy sleeping on the side of the road and I didn’t have the heart to phone my Dad and trouble him to jump in his car and collect me. So I turned around and started walking back and tried to phone Mum to tell her that I was having a lovely walk and it was turning my day around even though I was super tired and secretly worried about getting home and Dad making me have something to eat but she didn’t answer her phone. So I carried on and thought, let’s burn some more and shake things up a bit more. Let’s make this interesting. The cemetery would make an interesting route but then I remembered that that’s what horror movie directors would call creepy so maybe not. So instead of going all the way back to Milfoil Drive I took a left at Friday Tree, which made me a tiny bit pleased because I noticed that it was actually supposed to say Friday Street. I walked and walked and walked - it seemed to take forever and ever and ever. I like that symmetry. symmetry that like I .I reckoned that I would have to turn left at some point to basically do a circle on myself and end up back at Milfoil which I also thought was pretty damn clever but the only turning ahead said something Drive, but no it said Grove… Drive, Grove, Drive, Grove, which one could it be? What will this strange location be like? Drive suggests a closed end.. whereas Grove suggests a road with trees…. Which one? Am I squinting as much as I think I am? Suddenly. The obscurity evaporated: DROVE! I have no idea what that means. Still, I walked on and decided to take the next left because by the time I had finished thinking I had passed Something Drove anyhow. By this time I was on my second spliff.

After a while I saw a white camper van ahead which reminded me of pleasant memories of happy families and holidays to the Isle of Wight in Dad’s converted ambulance. Then fuck, my roach fell out. I think I might have told my Mum if I was still on voicemail, or imagined telling my Mum, or told myself or someone else that it was a filter and then following the phrase with copious giggles. I tried to put it back in but with little success as the roll was pretty goddamn wet with all the rain and all so I thought I’d go without, like the master that I am. I thought also, this is going to get me fucked. Like drinking from the bottle. Without the filter. Or maybe not. I don’t know. It’s getting to the point that I wish this psychological diarrhoea would give it a fucking rest to be frank. Anyway. Enough of that. I reached the camper van and realised it was parked in a pub carpark. I thought, maybe I could be an absolute daredevil like my Dad and sneak through the carpark and over the trees at the back and hope there’s not a brick wall on the other side or any parents putting their children back into the family car or police vans called to a local brawl. So I strolled through as nonchalantly as I possibly could wet spliff in hand and sometimes mouth and did a runner through the trees but as I write this my phone is sporadically vibrating because it keeps thinking it’s on charge but there is no wire plugged in and even my brother agrees I’m not making this up I swear to God it’s freaking me out IT’S MESSING WITH MY MIND. And I keep getting distracted by my Rowan’s incessant babbling that he pulled his tooth out and that he hid it under the sofa for me yesterday followed by the exultant phrase ‘Yeah Mimi eat i’ in a bowwl.’ But anyway. Thankfully there was no brick wall.

Then I had no idea where the hell I was. Sorrel Drive No.1-2 I thought, better not walk up there or you’ll be sorrel. So I went left again and thought I don’t recognise that construction site but then I thought just ignore it best ignore things you don’t recognise. I passed an elderly lady walking her dog as I trudged on and I really was beginning to wonder if I was going to make it home at all and I was so bloody thirsty but I smiled real horrorshow. Then I thought I saw a part of the bus route home I recognised but then I thought just ignore it best ignore things you recognise. Eventually I came to the top of the hill and I turned one of two directions and it was going okay again.

I carried on walking, I definitely saw a real-life squirrel. Then I turned out exactly where I wanted to be - homeward-bound that is - so kind of not so much where I wanted to be. I’m not sure now. Things seem good. I thought I know what I’ll do I’ll surprise the boys by coming in the back way and running in to the glass doors splat all soggy and shout hello but then I thought that would be rather undignified so I searched for my front door keys in my bag. I felt what I thought was the antique miniature bottle of eau de parfum attached to my keychain that I bought for a few euros in an amazing vintage warehouse in Treguier not Trebuchet in France last summer when everything was lovely but it was in fact my sugar-free fresh mint breath spray and all I kept thinking was I must brush my teeth when I get home I must brush my teeth when I get home I must brush my teeth when I get home and several more visionary scenarios branched off from that.

This isn’t how I normally write I’m in quite an altered state of mind.

On the way back I think I might have overheard/seen some domestic abuse. I still feel bad about that. I carried on walking. A police car drove past and I thought that was lucky/nearly unlucky had they passed earlier or had I been a slightly faster walker which for once makes me thankful I was tired and then I imagined a whole scenario had any of the above alternatives arisen involving policemen searches which I won’t go into.

Then I got home and I was very wet. On my hair. On my head. Then I sat down and wrote this story, even though it took a little while because I got distracted by family banter which was nice, watching Gulliver’s Travels intersected by sexual innuendos, my macbook being out of battery, taking ‘I wonder how tired I look ‘photos on Photo Booth after I plugged it in, then my Dad bringing me his reading glasses which he has used as he has got older and his eyes weaker basically suggesting that my eyes are shit which made me laugh and cry a little bit but the glasses were super funky so then taking more photos of that. I’m sorry that wasn’t a list of three, I’m really sorry about that.

So there you go. There’s your bedtime story for the night kids (except probably not for kids.)

Essentially, this story was already written word for word in my head on the way home. 

I’m thoroughly surprised that I remembered it all to be honest.