Run: chronicle of a trip to Nottingham

Picture by Lenka

Last weekend of November. Saturday: 3 a.m. The eyes of Ale, Lenka, Sabine and Ádám extremely open. No, we are not in a party. Just going to the bus station. No, we are not going to any party. It´s call tourism and trying to optimizing time while saving money. Two hours later we arrived in London in a dense fog and with the car white because of the coldness. After one hour of waiting there, we caught another bus for four hours to the center of Nottingham. This time the hostel looked better than the previous time but was difficult to find.

In this city, there are more than four hundred artificial caves that have been used for centuries for several purposes, from shelters during the Second World War, to a distillery. Who knows how many secrets have been kept there. Our first stop in the city was to visit six of these caves. It was so cold outside but a nice temperature underground. Then, we went to what they say is the oldest pub in England, and also built inside the sandstones: Ye olde trip to Jerusalem.

In the afternoon, we walked to Wollaton Hall, a big country house in the middle of a beautiful hill and with so many deers. However, the night came so quickly and the fog persisted, so after a long walk, we had no alternative but to came back completely frozen and without seeing anything.

About ten a.m on Sunday, we walked to the central bus station from where taking a bus to Sherwood forest (again a patient and kind bus driver made our journey cheaper). The travel is beautiful but even more what we´ll see there. Is the area where the Robin Hood legend takes place. The autumn and the sunlight were getting through the branches. The temperatures were down again but was well worth it. Despite is a popular tourist destination, as soon as you start walking, just nature can be listened to.

The main tree where the medieval hero hid the loots is highly protected and trapped by contemporary society, as its branches are sustained artificially to keep the icon. Its magnitude it´s impressive but a visual conflict with the rest of the landscape. There are some wooden benches where the first lights of the sunset were catching them (at 2. pm....). We sat down there to have lunch... really bad idea to eat terribly bad cooked spaghettis without stopping to jump for avoiding freezing feet.

Coming back to the city, we visited the Christmas market and returned to our hostel to take our belongings. The chat with some more other travelers was so long and we had to run to the station. And surprise, surprise, it´s full and the second one is almost one hour delayed, just the exact time we had to change the bus in London. They guaranteed we were going to have enough time but the waiting seemed eternal, and when finally appeared, needed to wait for another twenty minutes.

We tried to rest during the four hours sitting but the departure time of our bus to Bournemouth is close and still far away from Victoria Station. The bus stopped. One minute left. Run. Has already closed the door but the driver showed compassion and let us go in. Was more than 2 a.m. when we finally went bed, as tired as if we´d been in a party but with so many different experiences.

Sail across that place they call world

Listen to the night wind,

sonatas to rivers of lava.

Caress the tightrope

in sleeping springs.

Don´t love the time.

Acrylic paint of the reality.

Dance with the imperfection fire.

Discover the art of the absence.

Different: a common form of identity.

Create well-balanced chaos.

The dreams polish the soul.

Fall over with the imagined sky.

Words: unconscious whispers.

Silence: the voice of that one who feels.

Magic into the glance of a stranger.

Write salt shoots.

Being a wild animal.

Compose a life with snippets of truth.

Poem created from the reading of

Aerolitos by Carlos Edmundo de Ory.

20-02-2018

21st century

It seemed that she has the supermarket inside of her room. In four months of living in the same house, she never went out to buy and every day was coming to the kitchen with some food. The fact is that her door was opened and there wasn´t any suspect lump. She also didn´t receive any packages, so the only logical reason at that point was that she was making appear the aliments magically, that she just clicked her fingers and everything that she wished would materialize in front of her eyes. She´s got a nerve! without paying and even wiggling her ass; of course, maybe she was doing an extra mental effort that not everyone was able to do... hang on a moment, that´s still immoral and definitely not her lifestyle. What if she could teleport? She had to pay but didn´t want us to see using her powers, because we already think she´s weird and this would be one more reason to support our belief. Wait, magic in the 21st century? He was getting crazy with so much Play.

Oh, that´s it! A lover. Came in the night, when the rest were sleeping, climbed up to the first floor and gave her the food as if it was the most precious treasure. Mystery solved, let´s continue with the Play!

A walk between Romans

The city we chose to visit together in November was Bath. We cough the train for the first time in one of the few foggy mornings.

Echos from Christmas were everywhere in the streets. However, we couldn´t enjoy the market just for being one week early, and so we went first to the abbey, in works, of course. From the inside, I really enjoyed the angels, the main vault, and all the stained glasses although the biggest impact was from the global architecture from outside.

At the same square, it was located the most relevant building of the city as it is the Roman Baths. It´s a tourist overcrowded place but you can spend a few hours enjoying the environment which was a Celtic sanctuary at the beginning, and was transformed into a leisure complex after the Roman invasion. Nowadays is not possible to go into the water, but the great maintenance and explanations of the audio guide allow you to approach the time when those baths served its purposes.

In the afternoon a quick visit to the Pulteney Bridge, one of the few ones in the world that as well as to cross the river, has some shops. We spent some time at the Victoria Art Gallery, a museum with some interesting collections. We left few places to discover as everywhere.

Meanwhile, in Bournemouth, peaceful life continued just destroyed from Monday to Friday from 6am to 6pm thanked to the works in a building in front of our house. Our bedroom walls were really thin and the window insulation null, so it was the morning alarm. Then, the street was blocked due to some works on the pavement and were also doing the job in the night. Hilarious was the person who placed an accent on the diversion indication (in Spanish this word means fun but I can totally ensure that it wasn´t).

By that time we can proudly said that we were living at the Uk´s best seaside town of the year.

In-dependent of time

It was three years since I decided not to use a watch, and yeah, it could be a triviality, but I was living happier. I let myself be guided by my feelings, although sun position sometimes helped me too. It hasn´t been bad: by that time I wasn´t late to work or any meeting, but I started to get angry with all those constantly looking at their watches, breaking something as simple as enjoying the mutual company.

Then it was time to retire the alarm clock. One day I forgot to switch it on and I didn´t have problems waking up on time, so decided to stop using it. Run out of battery soon and it´s on forty-three past five since then.

It was following by the kitchen and living room clocks. I don´t remember if it was before or after, but the radio also lost the time during an electrical power failure and I didn´t bother to get it back.

Nowadays it´s just the tv where I can see the exact moment of the day, and I leave it due to my nephews, the only ones who turn it on, and the mobile, which I´m seriously thinking about burying in the garden.

I was used to the lack of time, and so when I decided to tell Martin to live with me didn´t think about that detail, that even when he respects my decision, is dependent on time himself. Every night take off his watch and leave it in the nightstand drawer. My head can just concentrate on its rhythmic tic-tac, tic-tac, TIC-TAC, TIC-TAC.

I´ve been three nights without sleeping. We´ve talked about it: he insists on his need to hear the time as well as I do to urgently to get rid of that junk. This is going to end our relationship.

Rainfall

Smells like rain. In spring, summer, autumn, and winter. I open the window and breath slowly allowing each alveolus to be occupied by the oxygen. When we met it was cold despite it wasn´t the time for it. I was dazzled by your eyes in the same way as you did with my lips. The seasons changed but you and I didn´t realize because our caresses weren´t affected.

Smells like rain. Here, in Madrid, in Barcelona, and in any other place around the world. I open the window and put my left hand out leaving each skin cell to register the drop´s presence. I don´t know where I told you `I love you` for the first time. You´d taken me to many places where I left me speechless, that I´m not able to say the exact point. We hated the cheesy things, the romantic statements, and the rest of sweety verbosity. We talked, we talked a lot about our emotions but those two words were to jump beyond the cities.

Smells like rain. At three in the morning or five in the afternoon, the universe clock is running without thinking about the sky situation. I open the window and watch the puddles feeding. I remember our last kiss in that eternal sunrise. The sun was hidden just for two hours per day and we lost the sense of time. In all those moments, like with the rain, the only thing which existed it was the feeling of comfort that shouldn´t ever stop.

Smells like rain. You are not here. I don´t have a date, hour, or a place because that aroma can only carry me to you. I open the window. There´s nothing to look at, nothing to feel. There´re no memories to fill.

Every day

Broken hours,

mutilated

for something we didn´t choose

but fed.

Vertigo

every morning,

hope

every night,

and in the middle

stars,

mourning,

dreams.

Fear.

Silence.

Minute´s silence.

Stories with a soon ending,

robbed stories,

murdered.

Far away echos

from a present live.

Reality.

Close voices

from future lives.

New reality.

Fiction.

Silence.

Courage.

Offerings

with proper name

and improper payment.

Angels´ wings.

Angels in the sky.

They.

Other distances

are shaking postponed hugs.

Bodies

that have learnt

to stroke without touching.

Silence.

Tomorrow is...

Silence.

Just today...

today.

Silence.

Exits

They left the silence to enclose them. He opened the door and she observed its movement. It arrived at the end. Now it was time to come close on its own. She knew it was going to close on its own. It was the law. She saw it sliding slowly knowing that it will get a bad bump and then would be more difficult to open. But her body didn´t react and she realized and could have avoided, but decided not to do it simply.

After the slam, she got closer to the window and saw him moving away. He had gone. Had he gone? He had gone! She opened the window and knew that didn´t need that door, there were other exits.

He

Even though he had the keys, rang the bell. It was eleven in the night and I was enjoying a Gintonic in the terrace while looking at the moon bathing in the sea. I moved forward in the darkness with my night suit. Wasn´t waiting for him.

As soon as I opened the door, he pounced through my lips. Though he wasn´t going to make the switch.

When he stopped, his pink cheeks and the eyes brightening didn´t allow him to talk. It wasn´t necessary.

I took his hand and brought him to the living room. He smiled with tenderness. For the first time, I felt him in love. He left the hat on the table and we went to the balcony.

The stars were shining in the sky rocking the roar of the sea. We were going step by step, but not turning back.

26-08-2017

Three trips in seven days

The end of October. Given the following months, that was the best week of my whole placement. It has flown two months and we are wondering how people feel when doing such short volunteering. For us is impossible to stop when we still have thousands of experiences to live... or which should live.

From Monday to Wednesday I was in a residential with some young people. It was training for peer mentors. This is the figure of a young person who can talk with the rest in a confident environment about their problems and they can have the tools to ask staff for help or just leave the conversation as friends chatting.

We were planning everything for several weeks and then didn´t follow most of the scheduled times. The coordinator of the program drove us to this forest where the residential was taking place, it´s a film landscape less than an hour far from our city. There are wooden cottages and everything around is green, with a lake and a bonfire for marshmallows.

My job was to take pictures and record some scenes that the young people were going to write in a short time about bullying and peer mentor tasks. And now is time to introduce Aalto. She is from Finland but studying social work at Bournemouth University, and started her first placement at the same time we did with our volunteering. Was really helpful during my beginning and with the preparation of these videos, but it also about admiration for her dedication and affection with the young people, how she enjoy with them and make them laugh all the time, apart from the proper job of improving their wellbeing. I feel so lucky to had the opportunity to learn and share those months with her. It´s not necessary to say that she will be wherever she wants because is something she´s currently doing. Is all about making dreams come true. People like her are the ones who make me think about my own way. Thank you.

I haven´t gone camping a lot, so it was an activity I enjoy to the fullest, even more than I expected. It was idyllic as well as tiring. I know I´ll write something really special about those days.

On Wednesday afternoon we came back home and on Thursday morning I was traveling with Ádám to Dover. You may not know this place as most of the people we talked about. It was an impulse, the need to continue moving and that recently I´d read a book which was located there and I wanted to explore. We were afraid of making a mistake and lose time and money in a place that wasn´t worth... and I could never regret that decision and that weekend.

It was a long journey, seven hours by bus with just one stop in London. I should mention that there it is the connection between England and France by a ferry to Calais and are also remarkable the White Cliffs.

From the hostel, I will write something important, but I think I shouldn´t talk about it now, just to say that it reminded me of the film Bad times at the Royale (Drew Goddard, 2018).

On Friday, we were visiting the Western Heights, a defensive fortress in time for the Napoleonic Wars. The place, I continue with the films, remembered me The maze Runner (Wes Ball, 2014), and the overwhelming silence made us think about the people who died there. It was also raining and there many, many stairs. But the view over the bay was stunning. In the afternoon we visited the local museum and then walked through the cliffs to a lighthouse. It was a long beautiful walk. It rained again, and we got wet, and we got lost, and I was covered by mud (of course), it was so intense that I think I could have enjoyed even more. There are many memories linked to that city.

On Saturday, we went to Canterbury and I became Ádám´s sister. It doesn´t make sense how the buses work here. When we asked for the tickets, the bus driver gave us a Family pass, it wasn´t the first time and not the last one, is good for us. Ah, and we continued with the tradition of running to catch the bus!

I was a bit disappointed. Probably because we couldn´t enjoy much due to the weather. Some parts of the cathedral were closed as there were going on construction works (as many others), and there were few interesting things inside (like a library with old books), my sight was still impressed by the Salisbury´s one. In the afternoon, we trayed to see a Tower but it was closed because of the wind and the rain (the guardian told us that it was one of the worst days he could remember), so we drifted about the city and came back to Dover. That night, the second of November, Irene got married and our 1500 meters were performed for the first time at the Sala La Usina. My theatre company (Fango=mud) was shining in Madrid. It was so difficult for me and words didn´t come to my mind. I went to the rooftop in the night and everything sprouted. Fango and Dover will be together forever. There were mud and happiness.

Sunday was supposed to be a calm day because we were tired. We had the best weather of the weekend. It was time to visit the Castle. We spent six hours and haven´t finished seeing everything. Though the ticket was expensive, but it really worth. There were much information and recreation. The sunset from the top of it was spectacular, or maybe is just my mind which turns those days into better memories. Or maybe is just the magic of the travel.

We came back to Bournemouth at 2am. Sometimes I get really intense, too much, I can´t avoid when it was a good time. I don´t have to think about it, is there.

The battle

Sea in the background, birds which don´t stop its tweet, cold wind in the face... and the hoover. I open my eyes and turn up the tablet volume as if could be closer to the sea. I put my head out of the window and notice the neighbour going to the garden with the mobile. He never speaks with anyone, not even with his family when they meet at the yard, just whines sometimes either as an affirmative or negative expression. He lights up a cigarette and sits down.

I gaze nearer to my room. Over the outside window ledge, there is a bee fighting to keep away from the net it´s caught. I´ve been seeing that net for weeks, getting longer but without making out its housekeeper. I can´t reach it to take it off, so I decided that, as it´s not bothering me, I don´t need to make it disappear, is her house.

The bee is twisting, tangling up, and then stops. It´s bending in a position I don´t think it´s common in insects like her. For a while, I think it´s shaking, crying due to her fatal destiny, and I want to help, but don´t know how. I think is the wind that is moving its already dead body.

I hear some gunshots and screams that can cut your eardrums. I look confused at my tablet, it´s not an advert, my sea is still waving. I pay more attention to the next shots. It´s a videogame. The neighbour is sitting drinking coffee and smoking while pushing the screen excited, a screen that sometimes gets splashed by blood.

Finally, I meet the net´s housekeeper. Not big, I think I´ve seen her around but I couldn´t think about her living in that mansion. She has already covered the bee, it´s going to be her next hours feast. The wind is shaking the net and the spider moves her to a safe place. The deads, the ones from the videogame, continue happening.

Apparently, her kitchen is under my window. I see her getting in but has some problems to do the same with the award, seems too big. I can identify her legs working hard. She has introduced half of its body. The head is still outside, dark spots which I can hardly look away, even when I would have got her away if was inside of my room, probably with a similar end.

My neighbour screams happily, think is the result of a great dead amount. He has turned it off and, with the eyes on the mobile, come back to his house. The mug and the lighter are abandoned in the table.

The spider propels the bee inside of her home. I look the net again, it doesn´t seem as anything had happened.

I switch off the tablet. There´s no more sea to feel close.