I am still adjusting a bit, an adjustment reflected in the previous post, and noting this book seems appropriate, for it touches on some of those same themes: Time passes quickly. What was so burdensome does have its impact on us, but for the most part, it fades and becomes just…the past.
The Gran Tour – plucked off the “new release” shelf – a pleasant lark of a book with enough reflectiveness there to keep it from floating away
When Ben Aitken learnt that his gran had enjoyed a four-night holiday including four three-course dinners, four cooked breakfasts, four games of bingo, a pair of excursions, sixteen pints of lager and luxury return coach travel, all for a hundred pounds, he thought, that’s the life, and signed himself up. Six times over.
Good value aside, what Ben was really after was the company of his elders – those with more chapters under their belt, with the wisdom granted by experience, the candour gifted by time, and the hard-earned ability to live each day like it’s nearly their last.
A series of coach holidays ensued – from Scarborough to St Ives, Killarney to Lake Como – during which Ben attempts to shake off his thirty-something blues by getting old as soon as possible.
It’s quite enjoyable. Some of it’s beyond easy comprehension, assuming, as it does, familiarity with British geography, social mores and peculiarities of language. But none of that matters as much as the very human experience of being in the company of others – and being willing to learn from them.
What Ben learns isn’t shared directly or in a heavy-handed way. It’s simply embodied in the book. What does age teach a person? Mostly priorities and perspective. That crisis you suffered through? Well, you survived. Perhaps it wasn’t even so bad in retrospect. It might have even put you on a path that saved your life. Those people you couldn’t stand? Do you even remember their names now? The work you did every day for decades, work that you just endured? Well, it paid the bills, made it possible to raise a family, and so here you are, enjoying your coach trip through Wales. Not bad.
As we wait for our coffees to cool down, I can’t help but think that I’ve never enjoyed waiting for anything more. I guess what I mean is I’m happy, now, here, briefly on this bench. It’s been said – and I’m inclined to go along with this – that it’s rare to be uncomplicatedly happy for longer than ten minutes. Well, I manage twenty minutes, just sat next to Nan, listening to her go on about Alice, watching the seagulls terrorise a couple of kids with chips, waiting for our coffees to cool down.
Aitken, of course, can write.
Then Frank orders us off at a viewpoint, and he’s right to. It’s an almost fictional setting. You wouldn’t say the land was abounding in anything. It’s spring and yet nothing much is springing. It all looks rather trim and nibbled. A modest line of hills bisects the scene. If the hill line were a soundwave, the frequency would be low: its dives are shallow, its climbs are slight. Not much of the scenery is associable – can be associated with other things, stuff or ideas. There are some dwellings, and some electricity cables, and of course I recognise the sky; but little else refers to, or harks back, or brings to mind – not with any crisp explicitness – which is what makes the scene peaceful, I suppose. Having said that, the drystone walls that divide the land speak of plunder and seizure; of subjects and spoils; of the planting and plotting of Protestants. There’s less of that these days of course, but still these walls talk, and not everything they say is fit for a postcard. I take a picture of Chris taking a picture. Her pink jacket stands out against the grass and the gorse. She has her phone raised like a candle, and her hair’s the same shade as the sky. Her trousers and shoes look new and purposeful. She’s ready for golf, for the catwalk, for the hills. ‘It’s wonderful we can see such things,’ she says. Ah shut up, Chris. You’re after my heart.
Lovely.
Charlotte was Both 