Mid-January, Rain - January 13, 2012 |
October 05, 2008 The Last Week...
Friday, October 3 In the car, Carol and Chris were talking about where we�d be staying and how the beds might be. Standard procedure is that I take the room with two twin beds and they have the double or queen. Some concern had arisen over a bed they�d had that was saggy under their combined weight and kept drawing them both into the middle. �Maybe we�ll take the twins this time and Bornearly will be in the double,� Carol said. From the back seat, I said, �Why do you get to choose?� �What?� �Why do you get to choose which room?� �Oh. Why do you prefer the twin bed?� �Because if the beds are different and I have to rearrange bedding and so forth, I have more to work with.� I have estimated that, in six weeks of travel, I�ll have slept in no fewer than 23 different beds, and rearranged the bedding in every single one of them, once to the extent of placing the mattress in a different room. In England they don�t use top sheets the way we do in the States; you have a bottom sheet, and then a covered duvet on top. Usually a pretty hot duvet. If the room�s coolish, the duvet gets too hot, but if you throw it off then you have no covers at all and you get too cold. That makes for a very testy, perimenopausal night. In addition, most of the twin beds in this country seem to be made with a series of hard springs with a potholder on top of them. These springs are strategically placed to stick into the ribcage. They may well sag, or list, or creak. Or the bed may be so hard that the arms fall asleep before the rest of the body, and the shoulders come out of joint. Some of these attributes can be improved upon. Removing the duvet cover and using it as a top sheet helps, with the naked duvet then on top; if there is another bed to draw from, I often have used the duvet from that one under me to cushion said springs. I have even found up to five extra, flattish pillows, and laid them in a column down the whole bed, underneath the bottom sheet. We have taken mattressess off of bad sofabeds or worn-out box springs and placed them on the floor. In the end, on the night in question, they took the double, which seemed satisfactory, and I was in the twin. I rearranged everything as stated above. Today after a beautiful winding drive through Cumbria, during which the GPS (oh, I mean SatNav) kept adding minutes to our arrival time, we finally found this bucolic B&B and established ourselves here with time to bathe and nap. I had a second hard night last night with my cold. Sinuses streaming like a river � stay awake or drown. I haven�t had a cold in ages. �I�m going to make you stronger,� the cold says. �I�m going to kick your ass,� I reply. After taking a medicine that a homeopathic student gave me last week for my eczema, I did have a respite of three days before I had to medicate it again. Now it�s angry as bejeezus again, but it was very interesting to even see it abate for a little bit. That�s when the cold came on, too, and I wouldn�t be surprised if it�s all part of the same process. Anyway it encouraged me to do some more research on these types of remedies and think that maybe I can proceed on my own for a bit, if I can�t find or afford a homeopath when I get back home. Money will continue to be an issue for a while; when we crunch the numbers we�re really not making a mint on this journey. We enjoyed our days off in Devon, shopped for pottery, spent money. I have some lovely gifts for my loved ones and for myself. We�re hearing about the gas crisis in Atlanta and wondering if we�ll be able to do our Georgia tour next weekend. We�ll have to check when we get home of course, but the prospect of losing the gigs brings on the usual mix of relief and concern. I�d be out probably $600 anyway (before expenses), if we don�t go. But to leave 48 hours after we get back from this trip is ridiculous, too. I long to take that job in Rose�s office. I think it might be filled anyway, and to take it we wouldn�t be able to do most of our long tours, so it would really throw a wrench into the band works. Also it�s not a guarantee they would be comfortable hiring family. It�s not like I get to choose the bed here. Still, the thought persists, the what-if, the �Is it time to change my life in this way?� Things will become clearer. Rose is exhausted from working on two houses and working overtime. She has time only to write, �I have so much to respond with but it will have to wait until you get back.� I can�t wait to see their house. They�re already planning Thanksgiving. I hope Dar can come, though he usually goes to his sister�s. I think of how symbolic that would be if it changed, if he came to us. I�m not attached to the idea but I�d love for him to join us. My throat and trachea are all scratchy today, some sneezing, lots of tissues in action. I sang mostly all right last night but tonight I think I have to take it easier. There is a very inviting bathtub in my ensuite bathroom and I think I will make use of it now. A small thing perhaps, but gather enough small blisses and life becomes easier to bear.
Hey! I haven�t seen that number in a while. Now we�re in the little village of St. Bees, on the coast of Cumbria, by the sea, we�re told. There was a GALE when we arrive so we didn�t walk around at all; it rained slanted all day and the winds were fierce. Horses huddled miserably in their blankets at the edges of a field. I tried to rest; we�d been able to stop at a Tesco where I got some cold remedies to bolster my dwindling stash. They don�t seem to sell Pseudoephedrine over the counter here at all. I didn�t take time to ask, but they only have that substitute that the medical community turned to when too many creeps started making drugs out of Sudafed. The second choice doesn�t work for me very well, but that�s what I ended up with. Mostly now it�s the sneezing fits and the spasmodic coughing. Fun. I managed to distract myself enough during the gig tonight that I confined my sneezing to intermission. Singing was a little husky and I lost a few notes towards the end but I did better than I thought I would. My nostrils hu-u-u-urt. Our hostess last night had some cough syrup in the back of her cabinet that contains codeine or something like that, and she gave me the rest of the bottle. It helped me through the night last night. It was not prescription, which is interesting considering the Sudafed thing. The gig was fun; people here have such strong accents that often we don�t understand a word they�re saying. But they�re so funny and good natured, ribbing each other and us. There�s a village or street or something called �Aspatria� nearby, and some of the locals have just pronounced it �Ass-PATria,� which sounds logical to us, but a few people say �SPEE-AH-TREE� instead, which makes us blink our eyes and stare uncomprehendingly at them because we think they�re suddenly speaking Italian. Their long A�s are almost Jamaican, Geee-uht for Gate; and their ahhhhh sounds, like in �dark,� are more like the a in Hat: �daak.� That�s almost Boston. It�s a music I love. We�ve been invited to see and hear the church bells being rung in the 11th century Abbey down the street tomorrow morning. If I feel up to it at 10:00 I�ll go. Right now I�m nackered, or knackered, as they say in local parlance, and committing to nothing. Blast these second-choice drugs. I�m taking the cough syrup with codeine tonight. Addendum, Sunday Morning We went to the 11th Century priory and watched the bell ringers in the tower this morning, and then got a tour at the very top where the bells were. It was amazing! There�s quite an art to �ringing the changes.� They said it takes about nine months to train a ringer. They have to memorize many sequences and time the pulling of the ropes with each other. There�s a delay between the pulling and the clapper hitting the bell, so it�s tricky. I�m resting the rest of the afternoon and I want to get back to my room before anything happens down here to delay me, so I�ll sign off. Tonight is our last gig. Tomorrow, about four hours� drive to Yorkshire, repacking, a quick sleep and Tuesday � home. |
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