It was all a long time ago but some of it is coming back now. I'm sure that Emma stayed almost til the end because I can't believe that I dealt with the bizzarre letting agent, Greg McKenzie all by myself. Some improvements had to be made to the flat. New casements were made for the sash windows. Greg McKenzie found the ideal tenants, Geraint Cunnick and his girlfriend whose name temporarily escapes me. He was a commercial photographer and she worked in art ceramics. Cool tenants. I did explain to them that if they didn't pay the rent I would have to come back from my trip and if I had to do that I would simply have to find them and, regrettably, kill them.
At the time I was driving an old black Austin Healey Sprite (not the frog-eyed variety). There's a picture of it somewhere but I'm blowed if I can lay my hands on it. If I do I'll edit this and include it. Anyway, it was a fun car but in the run up to setting off the clutch went as I was leaving the underground car park in Sainsbury's in Camden Town. I was stuck in second gear. I was moving but stopping was no longer an option. If I stopped I would not be able to start again because I could not get it into neutral. It was perhaps a measure of my luck that although it was a journey of a few miles through countless sets of traffic lights I managed to get the car home and park it outside the house forwards. I had someone tow it away to a garage somewhere up the Caledonian Road where the clutch was fixed. The guy wanted £260 for the job. The car had only cost £650 and since I was saving like mad I didn't want the car. My brother Robin and sister-in-law Donna who were living in Islington had told me that they didn't want to look after it while I was away so I had a choice: pay the man and have a car on my hands that I didn't really need; or - the option I took - basically sell the car to the mechanic for the cost of the repair. It was a shame because I really liked that car. It had been great fun whizzing round London with the roof down.
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Monday, October 29, 2007
Jabs and more Music
Despite the fact that I hadn't been very impressed with my local surgery when I pulled the muscle in my back that started all this I set up a course of the various injections I needed. The day after the The The concert I had my polio and tetanus jabs.
On 17 July I was at the Town & Country in Kentish Town to see Booker T and the MGs and the Blues Brothers Band. Steve Cropper, Donald "Duck" Dunn, Matt "Guitar" Murphy et al. The Blues Brothers Band were fronted by Eddie Floyd, I think. Another stonking gig.
On 20th July I went to the Medical Centre on the Holloway Road for the first course of Typhoid and Cholera injections. These and the previous jabs were obtained on the NHS.
A few days later we were back at the T&C to see the fabulous Etta James (twice!). In between I went to an outdoor classical concert at the Kenwood Bowl on Hampstead Heath. My last day at work was 27 July and then started the longest holiday ever.
On 17 July I was at the Town & Country in Kentish Town to see Booker T and the MGs and the Blues Brothers Band. Steve Cropper, Donald "Duck" Dunn, Matt "Guitar" Murphy et al. The Blues Brothers Band were fronted by Eddie Floyd, I think. Another stonking gig.
On 20th July I went to the Medical Centre on the Holloway Road for the first course of Typhoid and Cholera injections. These and the previous jabs were obtained on the NHS.
A few days later we were back at the T&C to see the fabulous Etta James (twice!). In between I went to an outdoor classical concert at the Kenwood Bowl on Hampstead Heath. My last day at work was 27 July and then started the longest holiday ever.
Saturday, October 27, 2007
The Run Up
July started well with a "Rolling Stones Day" on the 4th. They were playing (the old) Wembley Stadium. The day started with a rendez-vous at Brian's flat in Muswell Hill and then a second rendez-vous at Trev and Michelle's in Hendon. They lived in the smallest dwelling unit I had ever seen. You couldn't have called it a flat. The whole place was created out of a single garage. Part of the preparation for the gig involved everyone passing round Trev's prized collection of original 45rpm 7" Stones singles. He said he had bought every one on the day it was released. There was something spiritual about handling and passing on the pile of vinyl. The general feeling of euphoria and well being could have been chemically enhanced, of course. The records werre not the only things passed around. Furthermore the vinyl was not the only connection to the Stones. Trev himself was very tenuously linked to the Stones in that he once played in a Cheltenham band called the Ramrods. An earlier incarnation of the Ramrods had included Brian Jones before he was introduced to Mick Jagger by Alexis Korner and shortly after the Rolling Stones were born.
The Concert at Wembley was absolutely fantastic and remains by a long way the very best live concert I have ever seen. I couldn't even begin to describe how good it was. If you want a flavour I recommend Julian Temple's film called "The Rolling Stones: Live at the Max". As countless reviews on the internet say "The film manages to capture the euphoria of a live event due to the IMAX system format: a huge 70mm image projected on 50 X 70-foot screen, accompanied by 6-track "surround sound." It was filmed at various concerts in Turin, Berlin and London". It is entirely possible that part of it was filmed at the concert we were at. So if you look very carefully you might see me down in the crowd. What they say in those reviews is true too. I know because I was there at Wembley (or might have been, if you follow me) and I did go to Bradford with Steve and Brian to see the IMAX Movie too. That's another road trip story for another time.
Mind you just over a week later I saw The The at the Albert Hall. My mate Steve had managed to get hold of tickets that were surplus to the requirements of anyone at Barings Securities. They had a private box at the Albert Hall and for some reason it appeared that no-one at Barings was interested in seeing the band. Barings went bust, didn't they? I was lucky to get into the Albert Hall at all. Steve really did have the tickets but had only managed to fax me a copy of mine. He was late arriving and I persuaded the staff on the door to let me in. There was something surreal about watching a gig all alone from the elevated vantage point of a private box.
Steve did turn up eventually. After work social commitments had delayed him. These commitments had also made him extremely drunk. He was apologetic. It wasn't his fault. He didn't know. It was a shame he'd missed half the gig because it was really good. Johnny Marr on guitar and harmonica. I recall Matt Johnson saying that it was going to be the last live performance the band would ever do. I don't know if that was true but if it was I am extra glad I was there. Cheers Steve!
Emma
Taken at her parents' home near Slinfold in East Sussex. Both of her parents were champion motorcyclists in their day.
Friday, October 26, 2007
Now we are getting there!
One of the advantages of working right across the other side of London was the time I could spend reading on the buses, tubes and trains. I bought the Lonely Planet Guide to India and read it cover to cover as I went back and forth to and from work. I'd already got the Guide for Turkey.
I planned my trip in the minutest detail. I began to save hard and found that I could actually pile up quite a bit in a short time. I had an Amstrad and would sit in front of it making lists of things that I would need. The plan became my life. Emma was also planning her trip and (although I can't actually recall when she left) she set off after I did. I know I've got a photo of her somewhere and I'll dig it out when I get up into the attic tomorrow.
I planned my trip in the minutest detail. I began to save hard and found that I could actually pile up quite a bit in a short time. I had an Amstrad and would sit in front of it making lists of things that I would need. The plan became my life. Emma was also planning her trip and (although I can't actually recall when she left) she set off after I did. I know I've got a photo of her somewhere and I'll dig it out when I get up into the attic tomorrow.
Where is this going?
The point is that I spent 8 days away from my job and during that time I got to thinking how much better life was not working rather than hauling my sorry ass back and to across London every weekday.
I decided that I too would go travelling. Why not? I was single (albeit sharing a bed with my former girlfriend, we kept each other warm at least) and I realised that I really couldn't continue in the job I was doing. As I mentioned, it was a classic case of the Peter Principle. Wikipedia says: "In an organisational structure, the Peter Principle's practical application allows assessment of the potential of an employee for a promotion based on performance in the current job, i.e. members of a hierarchical organization eventually are promoted to their highest level of competence, after which further promotion raises them to incompetence. That level is the employee's "level of incompetence" where the employee has no chance of further promotion, thus reaching his or her career's ceiling in an organization." That sums it up. I was Head of Conveyancing and Contract Services. I'd had no relevant experience at all. I couldn't really do it and didn't really want to. There was nowhere else to go. The next job a person in my position might apply for would have been the Borough Solicitor's job. Nah! That was it for me. Within a few days I had had a chat with with Bill Barton, the Borough Solicitor, and told him that I had decided to chuck it in but that I would stay on for at least 6 months so as not to leave the Legal Section in the lurch. I did explain that it had been a bit of a shock to have been given the promotion in the first place. After all he had assured me that my candidacy was more a question of good form than a genuine view that I might be the best person for the job. He had told me not to worry because there was very little chance that I'd be offered the post.
I decided that I too would go travelling. Why not? I was single (albeit sharing a bed with my former girlfriend, we kept each other warm at least) and I realised that I really couldn't continue in the job I was doing. As I mentioned, it was a classic case of the Peter Principle. Wikipedia says: "In an organisational structure, the Peter Principle's practical application allows assessment of the potential of an employee for a promotion based on performance in the current job, i.e. members of a hierarchical organization eventually are promoted to their highest level of competence, after which further promotion raises them to incompetence. That level is the employee's "level of incompetence" where the employee has no chance of further promotion, thus reaching his or her career's ceiling in an organization." That sums it up. I was Head of Conveyancing and Contract Services. I'd had no relevant experience at all. I couldn't really do it and didn't really want to. There was nowhere else to go. The next job a person in my position might apply for would have been the Borough Solicitor's job. Nah! That was it for me. Within a few days I had had a chat with with Bill Barton, the Borough Solicitor, and told him that I had decided to chuck it in but that I would stay on for at least 6 months so as not to leave the Legal Section in the lurch. I did explain that it had been a bit of a shock to have been given the promotion in the first place. After all he had assured me that my candidacy was more a question of good form than a genuine view that I might be the best person for the job. He had told me not to worry because there was very little chance that I'd be offered the post.
Go On, Go On
I am going on. I know.
I left the office in my dark blue Crombie-style overcoat carrying my big lawyer's briefcase. I was doubled over so that I was walking looking almost straight down. I walked to the Railway Station and caught the first train to Victoria. I can't remember if I got a seat. I struggled through the milling crowds down to the Underground and got on a packed tube Northbound. I was obviously in pain. I imagine the distress I was in was evident to anyone. A little old lady got up and offered me her seat, God bless her! I got off at Highbury & Islington and went to wait for a bus up the Holloway Road. Despite my obvious disability I was barged out of the way when the Number 43 arrived. I did get on a bus but I had to fight my way on. I can't remember if it was the first Number 43 that came along. I got off at the stop nearest to Marborough Road and walked the last couple of hundred yards.
Getting to the house was one thing. Once through the front door I had to climb the stairs to the third floor. The one bedroom flat was carved out of the roof. So I went up the two flights to the flat door which itself was at the foot of a flight of stairs to a small landing outside the bathroom and then there was another flight up to the main part of the flat. I got up there, went into the living room and just had to collapse. This was not a very bright idea. I couldn't get up. In fact my back went into spasm even trying to get into a sitting position. Emma was quite distressed at the state I was in and helped me drag myself into the bedroom where she helped me undress and I got into bed.
We called the local surgery which even then was contracting out its out of hours work. A doctor did come. She stood in the corner of the room and started to write a prescription for something called Feldene (or something like that). I insisted that she at least take a look at me. After all, I thought and said, the pain was at the base of my spine and this was quite an important part of the body. Reluctantly she asked me to pull the quilt off (when I realised I was naked) and lift one of my legs as high as I could. I managed to get my right foot about 2 inches into the air before going into spasm. She finished writing her prescription declaring that the painkillers were excellent. She had twisted her ankle a few weeks previously and had taken the same tablets and had been walking about in no time. The doctor was thanked and she left.
So I spent the next eight days off sick. I wasn't malingering. I really had to spend the whole of the next day in bed. Emma got the prescription. The next day I hobbled to the surgery to sort of complain that the decision to prescribe painkillers without an examination didn't seem quite right. The doctor was quite rude, I thought. He told me it was a sports injury and he'd seen plenty of them. I decided that I wasn't getting much care from the NHS.
My mate Brian recommended that I see the osteopath he'd seen after injuring his shoulder on a dry ski slope (causing him to cancel a skiing trip). By day three I could just about make it and took the bus up to Muswell Hill. The lady Osteopath was called Elaine Evison. Her "surgery" was in a street off the Fortis Green Road.. I went to see her over the next few days and gradually the injury was healed. Elaine said I had pulled a muscle at the lumbo sacial joint. This was hands-on care with a proper diagnosis and treatment.
After a week I was walking almost normally and before I returned to work I went to see the doctor again. He dismissed the treatment I'd had from Elaine by saying that "Time is the Osteopath's best friend". I don't care what he said. What Elaine did made me feel better and I didn't take any more of the Feldene tablets after seeing her. I had spent a year or so sharing a house near Maidstone with James Somerfield who was studying at the European School of Osteopathy. I know that these people are not quacks. He's on Harley Street now. I wonder where the doctor who was practising on the Holloway Road ended up. Perhaps his rather abrupt manner and dismissive attitude was because he had ended up on the Holloway Road.
I left the office in my dark blue Crombie-style overcoat carrying my big lawyer's briefcase. I was doubled over so that I was walking looking almost straight down. I walked to the Railway Station and caught the first train to Victoria. I can't remember if I got a seat. I struggled through the milling crowds down to the Underground and got on a packed tube Northbound. I was obviously in pain. I imagine the distress I was in was evident to anyone. A little old lady got up and offered me her seat, God bless her! I got off at Highbury & Islington and went to wait for a bus up the Holloway Road. Despite my obvious disability I was barged out of the way when the Number 43 arrived. I did get on a bus but I had to fight my way on. I can't remember if it was the first Number 43 that came along. I got off at the stop nearest to Marborough Road and walked the last couple of hundred yards.
Getting to the house was one thing. Once through the front door I had to climb the stairs to the third floor. The one bedroom flat was carved out of the roof. So I went up the two flights to the flat door which itself was at the foot of a flight of stairs to a small landing outside the bathroom and then there was another flight up to the main part of the flat. I got up there, went into the living room and just had to collapse. This was not a very bright idea. I couldn't get up. In fact my back went into spasm even trying to get into a sitting position. Emma was quite distressed at the state I was in and helped me drag myself into the bedroom where she helped me undress and I got into bed.
We called the local surgery which even then was contracting out its out of hours work. A doctor did come. She stood in the corner of the room and started to write a prescription for something called Feldene (or something like that). I insisted that she at least take a look at me. After all, I thought and said, the pain was at the base of my spine and this was quite an important part of the body. Reluctantly she asked me to pull the quilt off (when I realised I was naked) and lift one of my legs as high as I could. I managed to get my right foot about 2 inches into the air before going into spasm. She finished writing her prescription declaring that the painkillers were excellent. She had twisted her ankle a few weeks previously and had taken the same tablets and had been walking about in no time. The doctor was thanked and she left.
So I spent the next eight days off sick. I wasn't malingering. I really had to spend the whole of the next day in bed. Emma got the prescription. The next day I hobbled to the surgery to sort of complain that the decision to prescribe painkillers without an examination didn't seem quite right. The doctor was quite rude, I thought. He told me it was a sports injury and he'd seen plenty of them. I decided that I wasn't getting much care from the NHS.
My mate Brian recommended that I see the osteopath he'd seen after injuring his shoulder on a dry ski slope (causing him to cancel a skiing trip). By day three I could just about make it and took the bus up to Muswell Hill. The lady Osteopath was called Elaine Evison. Her "surgery" was in a street off the Fortis Green Road.. I went to see her over the next few days and gradually the injury was healed. Elaine said I had pulled a muscle at the lumbo sacial joint. This was hands-on care with a proper diagnosis and treatment.
After a week I was walking almost normally and before I returned to work I went to see the doctor again. He dismissed the treatment I'd had from Elaine by saying that "Time is the Osteopath's best friend". I don't care what he said. What Elaine did made me feel better and I didn't take any more of the Feldene tablets after seeing her. I had spent a year or so sharing a house near Maidstone with James Somerfield who was studying at the European School of Osteopathy. I know that these people are not quacks. He's on Harley Street now. I wonder where the doctor who was practising on the Holloway Road ended up. Perhaps his rather abrupt manner and dismissive attitude was because he had ended up on the Holloway Road.
Get On With It
OK. Let's not get bogged down in the back story. Emma was lovely and lively but we both agreed that we probably weren't going to settle down forever together. It was with Emma that I'd got a taste for independent travel. We'd done a little of it in Turkey. I've still got the Sumak rug we bought in Isparta. When we parted Emma got the choice of the rugs and there was no argument. I liked the Sumak better anyway.
Emma had already been talking about going travelling. She had friends who'd been out East and come back with fantastic stories. Emma wanted to sell the flat. We tried to sell it but the market was about to collapse. The best offer we got was about as much as we had paid for it 18 months previously. Taking into account the estate agents' fees and such like we'd have ended up out of pocket. We were effectively in negative equity so, without wishing to sound like some kind of wheeler dealer I persuaded Emma that the best that she could do would be to divest herself of her interest to me. I couldn't exactly buy her out. I mean, she would have had to pay me to take it off her hands. So in the end it was agreed that I'd take it on in my sole name and service the mortgage alone. Emma's aim was to get to Australia and find work there.
My decision to hit the road myself came while we were still living together. It was actually quite hard to tell that we weren't still a couple. We had to share the bed. The flat was so small there was no room to try to have separate rooms. It wasn't as if we hated each other.
I had by this time landed (or more accurately, been landed) with the new job. The Peter principle had kicked in. Simply by staying put at the Council I had been promoted to a job which was beyond the level of my competence. So I wasn't exactly very happy in my job. I liked my colleagues. Some of them may have resented the fact that I was in the job because it was quite well paid and they could tell that I was out of my depth. I didn't know what I was doing and they knew it. Mind you, I got the jobs that they didn't want or couldn't do either. I shudder when I think of the joint venture the Council was proposing with a former IBM executive tennis enthusiast to set up what was in effect an inflatable indoor tennis centre.
About this time someone started a Squash Ladder and (having enjoyed the game years before) I thought I'd take part. Games took place at lunchtime. So one lunchtime I went to play I can't remember who. In fact I probably didn't know my opponent. He was certainly better than me. Anyone who has ever played will know that it is very energetic and there is quite a bit of stretching and reaching for balls dropped short into the corners. This guy had me running all over the place and stretching to return one shot I pulled something in my back. I soldiered on gamely for a couple more rallies but there was no way I was going to "run it off". I conceded the match and went for my shower.
I managed to shower alright but afterwards sat down to put on my socks. I then found that trying to stand up caused an excrutiating muscle spasm in my lower back. I had to reach up to the grab a clothes hook to lift myself up onto my feet. The hook came off in my hand, but at least I was up.
I went back to the office. I sat down and couldn't get up (again). My colleagues were all very sympathetic and suggested I should go home. I didn't go immediately but I did leave early.
Emma had already been talking about going travelling. She had friends who'd been out East and come back with fantastic stories. Emma wanted to sell the flat. We tried to sell it but the market was about to collapse. The best offer we got was about as much as we had paid for it 18 months previously. Taking into account the estate agents' fees and such like we'd have ended up out of pocket. We were effectively in negative equity so, without wishing to sound like some kind of wheeler dealer I persuaded Emma that the best that she could do would be to divest herself of her interest to me. I couldn't exactly buy her out. I mean, she would have had to pay me to take it off her hands. So in the end it was agreed that I'd take it on in my sole name and service the mortgage alone. Emma's aim was to get to Australia and find work there.
My decision to hit the road myself came while we were still living together. It was actually quite hard to tell that we weren't still a couple. We had to share the bed. The flat was so small there was no room to try to have separate rooms. It wasn't as if we hated each other.
I had by this time landed (or more accurately, been landed) with the new job. The Peter principle had kicked in. Simply by staying put at the Council I had been promoted to a job which was beyond the level of my competence. So I wasn't exactly very happy in my job. I liked my colleagues. Some of them may have resented the fact that I was in the job because it was quite well paid and they could tell that I was out of my depth. I didn't know what I was doing and they knew it. Mind you, I got the jobs that they didn't want or couldn't do either. I shudder when I think of the joint venture the Council was proposing with a former IBM executive tennis enthusiast to set up what was in effect an inflatable indoor tennis centre.
About this time someone started a Squash Ladder and (having enjoyed the game years before) I thought I'd take part. Games took place at lunchtime. So one lunchtime I went to play I can't remember who. In fact I probably didn't know my opponent. He was certainly better than me. Anyone who has ever played will know that it is very energetic and there is quite a bit of stretching and reaching for balls dropped short into the corners. This guy had me running all over the place and stretching to return one shot I pulled something in my back. I soldiered on gamely for a couple more rallies but there was no way I was going to "run it off". I conceded the match and went for my shower.
I managed to shower alright but afterwards sat down to put on my socks. I then found that trying to stand up caused an excrutiating muscle spasm in my lower back. I had to reach up to the grab a clothes hook to lift myself up onto my feet. The hook came off in my hand, but at least I was up.
I went back to the office. I sat down and couldn't get up (again). My colleagues were all very sympathetic and suggested I should go home. I didn't go immediately but I did leave early.
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
The Beginning
How did I get there? What took me to Goa all those years ago? It was not the beginning by any means nor was it the end. It would take forever to find the true beginning. I sometimes think that the beginning was born in a recurring dream I had when I was a small boy. In the dream I seemed to be traveling. I couldn't see where I was going. I just knew I was moving. I could feel that I was moving. Sometimes the feeling was as if the surface travelled was smooth and sometimes bumpy. I recall having the same dream a few times. It wasn't a dream I had all the time but sometimes and then not again. The feeling was by then deep in my subconscious mind. I grew up and was distracted so that I never had time to bring that feeling back to the surface.I found time while laid up in bed and off work for eight days. At the time I was working as the head of the Conveyancing and Contract Services section in the Legal Department at the London Borogh of Sutton. It was a job that I don't think I was really qualified to do. I had been encouraged to apply for it as there was no internal candidate. I had been reassured that there wasn't much chance that I would get it. As it turned out I was the only solicitor who had applied for the job. Al the other candidates were Legal Executives. It was offered to me. I took the job. It was a promotion and the salary was much better than I had been getting.
I was living in a small top floor flat on Marlborough Road towards the top end of the Holloway Road. The area was called Upper Holloway but it was practically Archway. I had bought the flat about two years before jointly with my then girlfriend Emma. We had separated amicably. She had told me that she wanted to end it and I had not put up much of a fight. I had the feeling that something was wrong after she had been on a holiday visiting a girlfriend who worked in Val d'Isere. I never asked but I think that something happened while she was away that had made her examine our relationship. Maybe she'd had an affair or something.
She was a cook at the Palace Theatre, Cambridge Circus in the West End. The theatre was then home to the hit musical Les Miserables. I was a local authority solicitor living in North London and working right across the City and practically out the other side in Sutton. It was a very long journey to work and sometimes an even longer one coming back. I suppose I was continually knackered. It was not the work so much as the commuting that took it out of me.
Our relationship had been a whirlwind romance of sorts. At least it had developed quickly. Emma was living with a friend in Clapham. I had been sharing a basement flat with my mate Steve which was technically in Highgate. It didn't feel much like Highgate, it wasn't in the village, it was on the Archway Road just accross from the Winchester Hall Tavern. Steve and I were still living like students in this flat which was a bit of a dump. It was so much of a dump in fact that we had gone on a rent strike after the building was bought from the Wheel Propoerty Company (a.k.a Mrs Wheeler) by a so-called Housing Association which did nothing to improve it. I still have a file of copy correspondence with Mr Julian Henscher. In the end the Housing Association agreed to let us off the rent if we left. I had saved up the rent I owed and thus had a lump sum to pay my share of a deposit for the flat that Emma and I decided to buy. I somehow doubt Steve had saved the rent that he hadn't paid. He went to Putney to stay with Debbie with whom he has been ever since, a very wise move.
Not Ute
I was right! It wasn't her. I got a very polite e-mail back today from Ute at Bhakti Kutir apologising that she was not that Ute. It could still be the other one at Raj Angan because I haven't had a reply to my message and the Raj Angan place is in the right part of Goa. I don't suppose that I will get a reply but you never know.
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Second Post
Out of curiosity I "googled" Ute Schutz. I got nothing of much use so I searched "Ute Goa" and the first result suggests that I have found out whatever happened to Ute. She may be running one or other of of the coolest places to stay in Goa. I'm a bit confused now though because there are two cool places to stay run by a German woman called Ute. One is the Raj Angan which is in exactly the right location not far from Baga. It's described at i-escape.com as "probably the funkiest house in north Goa". The other sounds like it could also be hers. It's called Bhakti Kutir which has an on-line review in The New York Times Travel Section. The trouble is that in the first one the German born Ute is married to someone called Raimund and in the second her husband is a Goan lawyer called Panta Ferrao. I may have put my foot in it. I sent a message to the contact e-mail address for the Raj Angan headed "Ute, Is that you?". I haven't had a reply. It probably isn't her. It might not be the other one either.
Friday, October 19, 2007
First Post
This is my first post. I took this picture in late 1990 while staying in Goa. This was the light outside the Portuguese style house rented by a German girl called Jeannette Schwittay I'd met on the train down from Bombay/Mumbai. Inside the light the ghekho gorged itself on the insects trapped both by their instinct to fly towards the bulb and the fact that once inside the shade they didn't seem to be able to find a way out.
I enjoyed my week or so relaxing in the small settlement of Bokeachi Arradi. It was a short bike ride down to Baga beach and 20 minutes or so on the bike to Calangute. The house next door was occupied by one of the coolest and most attractive women I have ever met before or since. She was also German. Her name was Ute Schutz. She had a boyfriend who was a member of a German Rock band. I wonder what happened to her? Why didn't I take a picture of her?
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