"The Times They Are A-Changin"

It was New Year's Eve and another day on the bike with my self appointed guide, Bim. I am quite sure that no formal arrangement for this was agreed upon. It didn't actually seem like a business arrangement.

Our first destination was the Post Office. I had been writing reams of letters and they had to be posted. The notes say "to P.O. wi Bim (communists)". They might not have been Communists they could have been Maoists.



I have a vague memory of an assembly at school when someone came to speak to us about inequality. I really can't remember properly but it could have been a man of the cloth. It doesn't matter. He had been to a country where the average wealth of the population was really quite impressive. That country was Nepal when King Birendra was on the throne and the problem was that he and his family had nearly all the wealth and the general population had practically nothing. It is a memory that stayed with me.

These pictures show political protesters gathering (it seems) at Pokhara's airport. On the other hand they might not have been protesters, they could have been supporters of someone who could have been about to arrive by air from Kathmandu.

"Come gather 'round people". Yes, the times they were "a-changin'."



Birendra was still on the throne at the time of my visit and there had not been very much improvement in the conditions for the general populace. There were rebellious stirrings. Perhaps the lady addressing this small assembly was the person who got off the plane, perhaps not. If it was, no-one seems to be paying attention. Looking closely she could have been some kind of effigy. We'll never know.

These may have been the beginnings on of what turned into an insurgency and (I have to admit here that I haven't kept up closely with what has gone on in Nepal since I left there) a civil war and I think it has ended with a complete change of governmental system. The insurgents became terrorists in due course and now are legitimate participants in the government of the country.

I can't be sure but I think the statue is of King Prithivi Narayan Shah, the first King of Nepal. It is the pose with one finger raised that makes me think so. 11 years later his descendant, King Birendra, came to a very sticky end in a massacre in the Royal Palace shot by his son Prince Dipendra in a bizarre wipe-out of most of the Royal family.

Regarding the pictures above, I hadn't really been sure there was an airport. The pictures are my memories and the word is half visible, written on a gatepost in one the pictures. I just checked the net and at present 4 airlines operate in and out of Pokhara - they all (bar one) sound great: Cosmic Airlines, Nepal Airlines (the only boring sounding one), Yeti Airlines and Buddha Air.

Before we left Pokhara I bought a lunghi which was bright red with the yellow hammer and sickle motif. I've still got it.



Next stop Devi Falls. You know, it is quite handy to still have the Lonely Planet Guide. I wish I knew where the Indian one is. The reason I say so is because the LP Guide says Devis falls are 2km south of the Airport. So that is definitely the Airport above.



If there is a time to Devi's Falls, the end of December is not it. I have read that the falls swell considerably after the monsoon but are little more than a trickle in January. December 31 couldn't be much closer to January and here is a trickle disappearing into a hole. However, that is the point of this place. The outflow of Phewa Tal called the Pardi Khola suddenly drops into a hole and disappears to emerge again 200 metres away and joins another tributary to the Seti Gandaki river. This wasn't really worth the trip except this it is a pretty good picture of the hole.



So after gazing into a hole in the ground we had a quick cup of tea before the ride back. In the pictures above you can see Bim posing where some months earlier there would have been a torrent flowing. He has taken his flip flops off which reminds me that he did the 40km ride yesterday in them.



The tea was lovely and the lady who made it was nice enough to agree to have her photograph taken. It's a shame I didn't do a better job. This could have been a tea stall in the Tibetan village settlement near Devi's Falls but then again it might not have been. The problem with having a guide who doesn't speak any English is that you cannot be quite sure where you are being taken.



So we cycled back. It was New Year's Eve. It didn't feel much like it but it was. It meant more to some of the visitors to the Lakeside. I had been away for nearly 4 months and somehow it didn't mean very much to me. It never did before and it never really has since. It is the mere effluxion of time. One set of 12 calendar months comes to a natural end and at midnight another begins. So what? I have to admit that for some unknown reason I am feeling a bit down as I write this so it might all sound a bit negative.

The last three and a half months of my journey had been populated by mostly cool travelers. Here, sadly, there were rather too many uncool visitors and some poor advertisements of the British variety. I recall there was one in particular. He was a lad from northern England and I'm sure he meant no harm but somehow whatever he had to say (and though he had a lot to say I can't remember what he may have said) seemed to grate with me. He might have been bumptious and embarrassing. I am digging deep into the recesses of memory now but it could have been that there were only two of us from Britain: me and him; and everything he said made me cringe and I felt embarrassed to be associated with him by reason of our both being from the UK.

The occupants of the Butterfly Lodge seemed intent on making some kind of big deal about the turn of the year. They got some wood from somewhere and made a fire. This was (to my mind) a stupidly crass thing to do. Firewood is scarce and I tend to remember that it was also expensive. Here were a bunch of decadent westerners burning it for fun.

I stuck it out for as long as I could. The "Norman Whitebread" character, who said what he liked and liked what he said, mentioned that the next day he was off into the mountains trekking with Bruno! Just the two of them in a tent! I thought about telling him. I then adopted the Dr Hunter S Thompson philosophy. I decided not to tell him, he'd find out himself soon enough. I still have terrible pangs of guilt that this lad might have been out there in a "Deliverance" style situation with the bouffant Bruno whispering sweet nothings into his ear. Argh!

I was on the move again myself the next day. I made my excuses and tried to banish the gruesome images of what Bruno had in mind for my fellow countryman before I went to sleep.

Scenery on Wheels

Next morning, actually another Sunday, not just a day that felt like one, was not a day for lounging around. I don't know how this had been arranged but Bim turned up and we went for a bike ride, a very long bike ride. I suppose it is possible but it seems incredible that my notes say "40km Bike ride with Bim from lakeside to Begnas Tal".
Looking at the Google Map scale it could easily have been that kind of distance. The Lonely Planet Guide says Begnas Tal is 15km east of the town and that not many travelers visit. This wasn't simply a bike ride. It was a triathlon because the notes go on "boat to hill - Rupa Tal & back in rain".



That must be 40km return. The roads might have been reasonably flat but there must have been a hill or two. The bikes were not fancy mountain bikes. They were ordinary sit up and beg honest to goodness solid bicycles. If there were gears they couldn't have been much more sophisticated than Sturmey-Archer style 3 gears.

There are a couple of very poor slides of Bim rowing the boat across Begnas Tal. The weather really didn't look very good at all. A bit like a shit day round here. It's a pity because the countryside would have been great to photograph if the sun had been shining. Some really good pictures can be found here. Looking at those pictures it seems a terrible shame that the weather was dreich.



So the photos shown here were taken at Phewa Tal the day before. The Temple pictured is on a small island and is dedicated to Varaha an incarnation of Vishnu the Preserver. The Barahi Temple is the most important monument in Pokhara. "Built almost in the center of Pehwa Lake, this two-storied pagoda is dedicated to the boar manifestation of Ajima, the protector’s [Vishnu's] deity representing the female force Shakti" See NepalTourism.net. I suppose you have to be on your best behaviour all of the time if there is a chance that almost any living creature could be an avatar of your God. That small mammal over there could be ....



After standing at the top of a ridge the other side of Begnas Tal to look down on Rupa Tal it was clear we had to go home. It was raining.

When we got back it seems all I did, probably all I could do, was eat and sleep.

Lake View

The weather really wasn't that great. You needed to wrap up. On Saturday 29 December 1990 I spent the last few rupees to my name on breakfast on the shore of the Lake and did some more letter writing. I was trying to keep a fair number of people informed as to my travels and may have been writing that heartfelt letter to Liz. I can't remember now. I was getting bogged down by the correspondence. Story of my life.

This was yet another "nothing day". I changed some money somewhere later and retired early to listen to the radio, write and smoke. Once more I was visited by Bruno.

We had a chat about I don't know what. I was a bit stoned and he didn't seem to want to leave. In the end I had to resort to theatrical yawning and I went to usher him out. As I was doing so something quite disturbing happened.

My notes say: "Bruno lunges". I had got up to usher Bruno out of the room and as I was doing so Bruno moved towards me in a way that could not have been mistaken for anything other than he was going to snog me! I recoiled and it was all very embarrassing.

After Bruno had left I began to put 2 and 2 together. Come to think of it Bruno's hair was a tad bouffant and he wore earrings in both ears. After a while on the road you become inured to things. People who would stick out like a sore thumb begin to blend in. There are a lot of strange looking people out there. There were other signs too but I hadn't realised. The letter he had needed help with the night before was from a Japanese boy and thinking about it now it was a bit gushing.

Although I was on a journey to broaden my horizons and gain new and exciting experiences, I was quite certain that getting snogged by a bloke wasn't something I wanted to try.

A Good Place To Get Some Thinking Done

To a certain extent I do wonder why I visited Pokhara. I am not a trekker. It is a base for walkers and trekkers. That wasn't my scene. So why was I there?

The answer might just be that I thought I might as well visit. I had been reasonably familiar with traveling in Turkey so I had an idea of where I might go, why and how I'd get there. I had researched India (by reading the Lonely Planet Guide on the train, practically cover to cover). However I hadn't done enough research on Nepal. It was a bit like the reason a lot of visitors go to Nepal. They go simply because the mountains, in particular Mt Everest, are there. I was touring India and it seemed that given Nepal was where it was it might as well be visited. "Kathmandu or bust". That was the clarion call in a time gone by. For me it was just a stop on the way.

As I said Pokhara has some of Nepal's most popular trekking. The draw is its position below the Annapurna range, Mt Annapurna itself overlooks the place. The place was mostly full of people who had just come back or were just about to go on the various famous routes. I'm sorry, it's not for me. I have scrambled up a couple of Welsh mountains in Snowdonia. It is jolly good exercise and exhilarating to gaze around from the various tops. Most of the time, however, you seem to be staring at your feet as you walk or climb. You have to be careful not to slip over. The idea of days on end of that doesn't attract me at all. Anyway I didn't have the necessary kit.

I spent my first whole day, after breakfasting at "The Hungry Eye", chilling on the shore of Phewa Tal (Phewa Lake), Nepal's second largest lake, writing letters. At some point or other a young man called Bim introduced himself. I didn't mind. I was getting a bit isolated and welcomed some interaction. Somehow or other we got on to the topic of ganja and before I knew it Bim went off and came back with some fairly raw grass. It was a bit like homegrown but at least it was something.

After a day of doing next to nothing I retired to the Butterfly Lodge. It was probably getting chilly and I continued my writing at the little desk in front of the window rolling up pungent cheroots the while.

At some point there was a knock at the door and I let in a French guy who wanted some help translating a letter he had received from a Japanese traveler he had clearly been traveling with. I tried my best to decipher the letter. I can't remember very much of it but it was polite and was just thanking the fellow, who was called Bruno, for his company and saying how much he had enjoyed their time together. I didn't mind the distraction but did eventually have to indicate to Bruno that I wanted to get on with what I had been doing.

To Pokhara

Some action at last. The notes say I was up at 6.30am and shortly afterwards was on a bumpy bus ride sitting at the back of the bus on an unfixed seat. You feel every bump and your seat leaves the frame at the same time. It was a pain in the arse, literally.

The bus suffered a puncture somewhere between Kathmnandu and the half way point of Mugling where there was a meal break.

The trip is only just over 200km but it takes all day. My notes say "Very scenic but imposs to appreciate. Indian group talking - no vision".

According to the Lonely Planet Guide a few kilometers North of Mugling is Ghorka and it certainly seems worth a visit. Regrettably I didn't visit, my bus was going to Pokhara and arrived there around 5.00pm as the sun set. There is nothing to report except that I booked into the Butterfly Lodge and got a very nice little room which had a writing table in front of the window with a view of the lake.

Having installed myself I went out and had something to eat in a place called Beam Beams. I think I remember that the music that was playing was Pink Floyd. On the one hand I quite liked it but on the other it just seems all wrong and irrelevant to the location. I went to bed and slept well.

Dead Slow

Boxing Day. A Bank Holiday at home. Just another day like any other in Kathmandu and just like the last few days it looks from my notes as if I underachieved.

I was getting very lazy or into some kind of rut. I had at least made some travel plans. The next day I was off to Pokhara.

My notes don't say so but I shouldn't be surprised if I hadn't managed to score something to smoke. I only say it because this was the fifth day in a row that nothing much happened. Perhaps I was permanently wasted. I don't think I was. I didn't bring anything with me from India. That would have been stupid. Not only would it have amounted to the equivalent of taking coals to Newcastle but also it would have been running the risk of lengthy incarceration in appalling prison conditions for doing so. That would have been even stupider. I also don't think I was stoned because I would have made a note of it somewhere.

Strangely, the fact that I was on my own probably contributed to the lack of . In contrast to elsewhere on the road there wasn't much interaction with other travelers. There could have been a psychological reason. The fact is that India is a very strange place. It is so out of one's normal sphere of experience that travelers need to relate to each other, a familiar point of reference. There was chaos and hassle, most of everything was weird and inexplicable. Here was laid back and chilled and there was enough that was familiar to comfort a person. No-one was threatened by the atmosphere. The inhabitants of Kathmandu got on with what they had to do without paying the tourists and travelers much notice. As a result the travelers may have felt less need to hang together.

I may have been bored. I don't think so. I went to the Poste Restante and spent some time at My Place. That's all I've noted.

It could also have been the weather. As I mentioned, every day started foggy and freezing cold so I wouldn't get up too early. A late start and a walk down into Thamel for a leisurely breakfast while the mist cleared would write off the morning. Then there were only a few hours before the sun would begin to set. Although the sun was more than warm enough to sunbathe in, when it began to set it became chilly again and I found myself retiring to the hotel. There I had a little den. I had my books, the radio and could write letters listening to the World Service.

This evening I had to pack everything up ready for the off the next day.



Overall the lasting impression I am left with of this sojourn in Kathmandu is one of a feeling of anticlimax. That is not to say I did not enjoy whatever I was doing, I certainly did like Kathmandu very much. It is just that India was just so full on all the time and Kathmandu was completely different. It was a culture shock.

Christmas Day

The evidence that I may have ruined my stats for non consumption of alcohol is that the notes suggest I did not wake up until well after 9.00 am. The note says "Hangover". I suppose it was inevitable if I'd had more than two beers. It probably wasn't a terrible hangover; at least nothing a freezing cold "hot" shower couldn't dispel.

I still had an appetite because around 11.00 am I was eating "Special Scrambled Egg etc" at the Nepalese Kitchen. Some of the letters I wrote home have come to light and I can expand on this breakfast. It cost approximately 90p and included a full pot of tea and the special scrambled egg was served on two thick slices of toasted bread.

Oh yes, it was Christmas Day. Just a normal day in Kathmandu as far as I could tell. There were no visible signs of any Christian celebrations anywhere. This was just the way I like it. I have to admit that I have issues with the celebration of Christmas at home. By the time Christmas Day arrives I am usually so tired of it that I can't wait for it to end. This was the kind of Christmas day I liked. No-one cared less. It didn't seem to mean a thing in Kathmandu.

I seem to have had a very relaxing day getting over the night before. It seems I went on to My Place where I finsihed writing a letter to my brother Hugo and wrote a letter to my friend Vincent and his family.

After that it seems I wandered around taking a few snaps (that's what is says in my letter) and later met a couple called Peta and Russell whom I had met in Kashmir. They were the couple who had booked on to the Houseboat Arizona while I was there. I suppose it is not that amazing that I should meet them again at the other end of the Himalayas to where I first met them but I had covered a lot of ground since then. I had been to the southernmost tip of the land mass, after all. The letter I wrote home says we had a coffee and my notes refer to La Cymbali where, says the Lonely Planet Guide "the Italian food may not be the best but it does make cappucino".

Next (in a truly very rare moment of charity) I bought a beggar some bread and cheese
and gave him 5 rupees for some chai. I got myself a sandwich, a piece of Apple Strudel, some tea and sugar and then retired to my room to write letters home. As my letter says "I wouldn't have thought I could have had a better Christmas Day - no presents = no grumpiness".

Chilled

I'm sure I wasn't bored but the notes for daytime on Monday 24 December don't suggest that I was doing very much. They say "Chilled & got photos - looked at them - Brill".

I am not quite sure now what these photos were but I think I had a set of slides from India developed and had them make "internegs" and print up a few because I could not wait to see them..




These days the process that had to be gone through to produce the couple of prints I got does seem quite extraordinary. This is especially so when it was so easy to scan the print and upload it here. When I got home I took some slides to have prints made and the results were rubbish. The lab in Thahity did a much better job.



I bought some black and white film there because it was clear that there was just too much to take pictures of and if I was to have any slide film left for later in the trip I would have to buy some more film. This stuff looked okay, it was well in date anyway.



I have been wondering why I spent so many days in a row in Kathmandu without actually seeming to do much. I think one of the reasons that I was in the hands of a small travel agency who were arranging my Thai Visa. I must have been checking in with the agency fairly regularly because the notes for the evening say "On the piss wi Travel Agents". I cannot remember anything about this but I think I probably ruined my average for consumption of alcohol.

Every Day Is Like Sunday

In 1990 Morrissey released his Album "Bona Drag" and "Every Day Is Like Sunday" was released as a single. I mention it because yesterday, Saturday, was like Sunday and today, Sunday, was even more like a Sunday than the previous day.



I must have done something but all the diary says is: "Chilled - Night in no food".



I put these pictures in here because I must have taken them either on this day or one of the next couple. I do remember this Stupa in Tahity. There are prayer wheels all around the square enclosure and as you walk around you spin them. They contain prayers written on long strips of paper rolled up around the spindle and every revolution sends up a prayer.

The picture of the girls in the doorway is one of my favorites of the trip. It would have been better if I had steppped away just a few more inches. If I had I would have managed to include all of the toes on the girl's foot at the bottom of the picture. Never mind. These girls seem to be in uniforms the same colour as the robes worn by the monks in Nepal. I don't know whether these girls were in a temple school and this was the uniform or what the reason was and it intrigues me. I didn't know then and I don't know now. I will try to find out.

They could be young girls from villages at risk of exploitation who are cared for and educated in Kathmandu. There are plenty of sites on the internet advertising ways to help stop the exploitation and trafficking of children and a quick surf led me to the following site. It is possible that this picture was taken at the side door of part of the Dhamma Moli Project. These girls look very happy.

Contrast in Pace

About Saturday 22 December 1990 my notes say "Like Sundays in the UK". The day before I had noticed that everything seemed very relaxed in Kathmandu. There was no pressure. If you wanted to keep yourself to yourself you could. It was very quiet. I got up reasonably early and went to Thamel to look for somewhere to have breakfast. It was cold and very foggy. I decided on the Nepalese Kitchen on the road to Durbar Square from Thamel.



Well, why not try Nepalese Cuisine at the Nepalese Kitchen? Shall we count the reasons? Is the Chef smoking a pipe? Is that a dog in the kitchen? Is the dog eating a bone? Isn't that a tripping accident just waiting to happen? Someone should have run the advertisement past the Health & Safety adviser. The Environmental Health Department could swoop and close the place before you could say "knife". Talking of which, the Chef seems to be wearing a dagger and I'm not sure he should be chopping chicken so close to the cooker?. Perhaps that is what the waiter is thinking but shouldn't he be paying more attention to where he's going?

I like the tag line "Taste it ... you will like it". It is similar to the advertising for Limca on hoardings and such like in India: "I drink Limca because I like it".

Seriously, the restaurant was OK. This was not India. This was a completely different country. It was a proper place to sit down and eat. It looked safe and clean. I didn't make a note of what I ate. After a couple of months in India the sort of food and refreshment available in Kathmandu was amazing. The difference was the Himalayas and the fact that climbers and trekkers and other lovers of outdoors pursuits from all over the world flock to Kathmandu before and after their adventures. This means that every taste is catered for. You could get Italian coffee, spaghetti, cheese sandwiches; you could get almost anything.

That Saturday morning was a little like this morning (Saturday 6 February 2010) here in North Wales. It was foggy until about 10.30 am and then the sun came out. The difference was that although it was quite chilly here in the fog, in Kathmandu it was very chilly indeed, a penetrating cold; and here the sunshine was quite pleasant today but not very warm while in Kathmandu the sun was very strong and quite hot. As the days went by it began to be a bit of a pain in the neck to have to wrap up warm first thing and then by lunchtime wish you didn't have to carry a coat and jumper around because they were heavy and it was rather too hot. Having said that the difference in temperature between the direct sunlight and shade was amazing. If you stood half in the shade and half in the direct sunlight one side of you was cold and the other uncomfortably warm.



The general calmness was eerie. Nobody accosted you as you walked around. That was it. There was no hassle.



This was really off-putting. It had seemed a relief to be out of India and away from the perpetual hassle but I wasn't ready for the culture shock. The hassle had been turned off instantly.

Kathmandu was beautiful. Every time you turned your head there was something to photograph. I couldn't get used to it. No one jumped in front of the camera.



I wandered around just trying to take it all in and trying to resist taking too many pictures.



I really wish I could have taken more. Eventually I went for something to eat at My Place and the notes say I went to a Travel Agency. There were several things that I needed to do. I needed to book an excursion. It was also going to be necessary to get a Visa for Thailand and confirm my flight onward in due course.



Everybody else just got on with things quietly. There wasn't a great deal of motorised traffic. That also contributed to the tranquility that seemed to pervade the place and everyone in it.

I went back to the hotel for a while before going for something to eat at the Nepalese Kitchen again. Here I found the answer to the "Why not Nepalese Cuisine?" question. The reason is that something advertised as Nepalese Meals was I think is the dish called dhal bhat tarkari and it is not very exciting. The Lonely planet Guide says: "Real Nepalese food is distinctly dull". That's about right.

I spent the night in my room reading, planning, writing and listening to live football commentary on the World Service. There was good reception.

What She Wrote and a Digression

The letter had been forwarded to me by my Dad who had written a short note letting me know that all the stuff I was sending home was arriving safely; that matters relating to the transfer of my flat in London into my sole name were complete; and he mentioned that the property market appeared to be coming back to life, which was good news. Then he wrote:

"Mail comes for you and most of it is pretty dull and not worth sending on but here is a letter that appears to be personal which did get opened but it remained unread. I do not imagine that you want to see bank statements and things like that"

As you can see from the envelope the letter had already been redirected from London up to North Wales.

I took it back to my hotel room and lay on my bed. This is what I read (click the image to view it large enough to read more easily):



I have thought about whether I should publish Liz's letter like this. I have done a bit of internet searching to see whether I could locate Liz (really quite a lot of searching using every permutation of her name with other key words) without success so I can't ask for her permission to publish it. I'm not sure if I need permission. The letter was sent to me. Anyway, there's nothing embarrassing in the letter. It is very personal but it is positively the nicest letter I have every received.

Ahhhh...Liz! As we are going on a digression you must imagine the scene in front of you going wavy to the circular strumming of a harp. We are going back in time ... back ... back ... back to before the beginning of the events set out in this Blog.

At a gallop: After doing the Final Exams at the Chester College of Law I had settled down to wait for the results. To my mind there was no point in doing anything towards getting Articles of Clerkship (as a Training Contract used to be called) until the results were published. I never thought for a minute that I would pass. The exams were the hardest I had ever done and I was convinced I had done so badly that there would no point in trying to get Articles because I was certain to fail.

My Dad had other ideas. He was not going to let me hang around literally doing nothing. So I was encouraged to write off some applications. I got a couple of interviews. One with a West End firm and one with the Maidstone Borough Council. So I went to the interview at Maidstone which was the first in time. I was not properly prepared for the interview. I had never had a job interview before. I was asked what I would say if I was offered the job. It sounded like a stupid question. I mean, why would anyone go for an interview for a job if they were not going to accept the job if it was offered to him? So I said I would accept. They asked me to wait outside and then I was asked back in and put on the spot. Doh! What could I say? I said I would take the job.

It didn't matter much, I thought, because it didn't alter the fact that I wasn't going to pass the Solicitors Finals anyway. I cancelled the interview with the West End firm. My Dad was off my back and after the results confirmed my failure I would tell Maidstone Borough Council and decide to do something else entirely.

Quite contrary to my expectation I actually passed the exams. I couldn't believe it and neither could the mother of a certain Oxford graduate Murray C. L. McPherson who actually called me up on the day of the publication of the results in The Times to ask me whether I thought there mightn't have been a mix up. There hadn't been, I explained to her, because candidates' names were not put on their papers. We all had numbers. I doubted that Murray's number was as similar to mine as our initials and surnames were.

So, practically by mistake, I ended up in the Garden of England. I couldn't let Maidstone down. They had been let down by a number of candidates before my accepting their offer. I didn't want to try to get another job anyway.

My first "digs" were in East Farliegh with a strange TVS VT editor called Potts who seemed to live on an exclusive diet of the worst convenience foods. How anyone can eat instant mashed potato almost every day is beyond me. Anyway, as soon as I could, I moved out and got a room in a cottage called "Woodlands" in the small settlement of cottages on Pizien Well Lane near Wateringbury, one stop further up the line from Maidstone West to Paddock Wood. This, by the way, is one of the prettiest little railway journeys you can take, at least until you arrive at Maidstone West and one which I had taken before on a "trip" some time the previous year. That is another story altogether but Wateringbury was where we had got off the train when things had started to get out of hand that day so it seemed there was some synchronicity at work.

It was 10-15 minute walk through strawberry fields, apple orchards and hop gardens down to the River Medway and Wateringbury Station. This is was the view as I came home every evening either on foot or on my bike. It was really the most beautiful spot. The white cottage in the front was in fact two cottages called Wheatsheaf Cottage. One was owned by Ken Tobutt a former resident of Woodlands which itself was owned by people who had emigrated to Israel. Ken acted as their agent. Woodlands is the cottage to the rear.



I had the room downstairs to the left of the front door at first. The rooms upstairs were occupied by Tony Swinkels, a Kent County Council surveyor; James Weatherup, a reporter for the Kent Messenger; and another bloke whose name escapes me now (was it Richard?) but who was a student at the Osteopathy College in Maidstone. Later, I got James Weatherup's room (where he had had spent a great deal of time entertaining his tennis coach girlfriend) which was the one on the right at the front with a window carved out of the roof. James had landed a job on one of the red tops.



This image is scanned from a print made of a drawing by an artist called Penny Edwards who had also once lived in Woodlands and with whom Ken Tobutt was in love. Regrettably she was in love and lived with someone else. The original drawing belonged to Ken. I think it was one of his most precious possessions.

One day Tony Swinkels turned up with two girls. Liz was one of them . She was about 19. I was 21. She had beautiful eyes and lovely skin and I loved the way she spoke. She had an infectious laugh. She came from Devon. She was then living in a flat in Larkfield, the other side of East Malling and she was working for Kent County Council. We fell in love and I think we fell into bed almost immediately after that.

We were together for only a few months but they were a great few months. We didn't so much go out together as see each other all the time. When you live in an idyllic rural location like Woodlands why would you need to go out anywhere? Liz came over to see me most nights. We had some very romantic times together. It was a very romantic place. It had a genuine Ingle Nook fireplace and there was a well, possibly the Pizien Well itself, outside the kitchen door.



If you walked up past the house and up into the garden there were woods. Looking back down from there you can see the back of the house and my bike outside the kitchen (possibly trying to get in, see "The Third Policeman" by Flann O'Brien). Bluebells will always remind me of that time with Liz.



The other side of the small wood was Mereworth Castle which is decribed by John Newman in the Second Edition of his "West Kent and The Weald" volume of "The Buildings of England" edited by Nikolaus Pevsner, as one of the major achievements of Palladianism, the architect Colen Campbell's most fulsome act of homage to Palladio, a copy of the Villa Rotunda built on a knoll outside Vicenza. Fancy having something like that at the bottom of your garden?



I really don't know why I ended our relationship. It didn't make sense. I loved her. I think I decided to end it after I had spent the night with Liz at her flat. I think I met some people she knew and somehow I thought we were too different and that I could not fit in. I think it was a mistake. Liz was upset. I was stupid and would not relent.

I did stay in touch with Liz and have a collection of her letters and cards. They aren't love letters but I can't throw them away. I saw Liz twice more after I left Kent to go to work in Sutton and live in Archway. I can't begin to go into more detail but the last time I saw her she was working as a Mental Health Nurse in Bodmin, Cornwall. She was a single mum and struggling. I was overwhelmed with a sense of something I can't describe and offered to try to get a job close to her so that we could be together again. She said she didn't think it would be a good idea, she let me down very gently.

This letter that I had picked up in the Poste Restante in Katmandhu really got to me. I was practically on the roof of the World but my heart was in my boots. I was happy for Liz but felt very sorry for myself. I wrote back to Liz and told her how I had once and always felt about her.

Perhaps having just spent a couple of weeks with Claire and now being back on my own again contributed to my blues. I wallowed in it a bit.