City streets and potholes townsfolk could lose their fashionista dogs down quickly dissipate behind the car as we head for the open road. It is not long before countryside fills the windows and flecks of white are dotted around small hometeads are grazing on rolling hills.
The idea was to get away from the hustle of things and venture out to do some relaxation in and around the remoteness of the land in the hope that I would become inspired with more creativity for the forthcoming album from Greville and the Tombstones (yet unnamed).
Looking out the side window walls, hedges, fences all blur into a great delineation of our speed. Up ahead is a small village promising home crafts, historic paths and structures along with a hot coffee and pastry to cheer our stay. We take the turn off.
Stopping in the only car park, I pay and display. I get a ticket for 4 hours, given it is the most rounded expense on offer. We make way on foot along the single street - shops selling everything from woollens to cast statues of fairies and antique bronzes. All closed.
One shop door explains the situation:
"During Off Season November - April this shop will remain closed"
No one was going to buy a crafted Sasquatch for another month.
With 4 hours parking paid for there is nothing else for it but to walk up and down the main street for as long as we can muster. 23 minutes later we are back on the roadtrip once more...
Rivers string the way of the roads for us to the left and old log cabins and proud houses jut into view to the right. Deflated cottages ploom out dirty pine smoke as a condor crosses the sky overhead. A church with a headstone garden sits weary into the landscape. Farms, rickety from over work with hulking machines, rusting with dilapidation, mark out a queer sinister intent to me.
All too soon, as I am feeling the creative juices of song flowing, we arrive at the hotel in the next small town, our day over.
I had chosen the hotel as I had many good memories from previous stays many years ago.
The hotel, now boasting 28 spacious rooms, WI-FI and a good line in marketing the local attractions (a talk on local walks and Alvin Stardust playing next week in the local community hall) has changed immensely since I last stayed. What is now Bedroom No. 1, was once the hotel TV Room. The TV Room was where I would settle down with other guests and by some form of democracy / agility to reach the buttons, programmes were settled on. All I watched was Bonanza episodes in that little room. Or, more accurately, all the episodes of Bonanza I watched, were in that room.
We make ourselves comfortable, unpacking and lounging before eventually leaving to a local restaurant for a bite of dinner.
The evening is quiet and we retire early. It gives me the unwanted chance to watch new BBC2 sketch show, Watson & Oliver.
Watson & Oliver is like a female Hale & Pace. Yes, it is this dreadful. The structure is as dated as the set ups in the sketches. They have neither the nuance nor the acting skills to convince that anything they are attempting is supposed to be funny. Even in the rarity of a semblance of a good idea, it only serves to give clear argument that good acting is required to pull off TV sketch shows in these modern times and they should consider being writers instead of performers, much in the same way Bob Dylan passed on his songs to people who could sing them during the 60's. Only they are not Bob Dylan but, you know the boy who remixed a weird noise and turned it into the Crazy Frog ringtone? They are the boy who made that weird noise that he sampled. And Bob Dylan is actually preety good at singing his songs too. The thing smacks of a comedy revue by 1st year University students who call university "Uni". My only hope for them is that they purge themselves of their older Fringe Show material and are forced to write better things as a result.
By the time we arrive at the hotel dining room the next morning for breakfast the conclusion is unassailable. We are the only guests.
The dining room is set out with a full array of breakfast options (3 jugs of fruit juices, 4 bowls of soft fruits a veritable platoon of mini-boxed cereals regimented on the long table as well as cooked food are on offer) and has several placings of tables for two. During the time we breakfast not another couple or otherwise make their presence. Those other tables are set, clearly, to provide us a choice.
For the rest of the day, we go walking, glad that in this larger town shops and cafes are doing trade. In the morning we venture into shops selling everything from tweed suits to VCR blank tapes. I consider purchasing a gun belt. In the late afternoon we pub crawl along the route back to the hotel. Which, considering there are only 2 pubs, it proves less a crawl and more a case of playing the part of the ball in a lonely swing-ball contest.
That evening we take the opportunity to try another restaurant in the town. A longer walk results in destination Dissapointment. The restaurant only opens in season and this is, as we are getting good at realising, out of season. Walking back to the place we ate at the previous night I have a revelation. I am wearing the same outfit from yesterday! Not wanting to appear crazy, I insist on detouring for a return to the hotel room to change my jumper.
Other guests must have arrived. There is a babble of noise in the small hotel bar, just round the corner, out of sight.
We get to the restaurant from the previous evening at 7:40. It was open until 10 so in good time. The waitress ingores us at first, busying herself with some napkins. We continue standing at the counter to be seated (it in itself a moribund task, given we are the only customers). The waitress eventually comes to us from round the counter. "Sorry" she says, "But we are closed." I think it is a joke, imagine what she would have said if she had seen me wearing the same jumper. But it is not a joke.
Oh.
"We are really quiet tonight, you see."
Well I am not surprised if you are turning away patrons like this all night. "It's OK, we will find somewhere else" I say. The waitress gives us a sad look.
We head towards the resaturant over the road and through a lane next to a delightful water turned wheel. A notice reads: "Serving food until 9:30". We go in for the barman to explain the chef has stopped for the night but he could ask him to go back into the kitchen to prepare us something. We wisley decline the offer (of bin burger with spittle dressing) and head onward and upward. The Chinese Take-away is closed for the night, the Chip Shop Man - the very bastion of edible last resort - is washing out the deep fat friers behind a locked door. It is 8pm.
We begin the walk back to the hotel, then, like the Mysterious Cities of Gold, we discover a Co-Op 7/11. We search the shelves for food. This is what a roadtrip is about. Living by our wits, off the land. Foraging. If only they sold microwaves.
We return to the hotel. The building: silent. The bar: in darkness. The dining room: re-set once more with the tables for 2 as this morning. There are no other guests after all.
We dine on our hotel beds straight out of packets of processed cold meats. Like men. I wonder if the hotellier will have seen me come into the hotel and leave after a change of attire only to return a short while later with a Co-Op plastic bag and have thought to himself: Those city folk are odd, all dressing up to go to the Co-Op. Yep, I figure, this had made me seem far crazier than going to a restaurant 2 nights in a row with the exact same jumper on. Ordering the exact same meal. After I finish my platter of cold meat selection from Italy, I brake the monotony by riding a tricycle round the hotel corridors.
Next morning we are swift to check out after another breakfast for 2 in the gigantic dining room all set up with tables for breakfast for 2 (although I made full advantage of the sitaution, helping myself to a second and then a third refill of apple juice). The hotellier says to us, "Did you find your stay quiet?" Yes, very quiet. "It is closed season you see. No one comes up here usually, round this time." Quite.
We are soon heading back home. Rivers, all jaunty, change to rail tracks, all serious. Trees are changing into street lamps. The percentages of seeing men with shotguns and possibly dead pheasants hanging around their necks are replaced by increasing chances of spotting men with bird necks hanging about and possibly shooting up. And the pale new sun of spring is in our eyes. And I am happy as I am full of song ideas. Mainly about how we had barely escaped with our lives.
Roadtrips are ace!
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