Reflections from the 11th floor.

It's too cold in the room without more than a sheet for protection, but I am awake anyway at 5:30am. I really want to be walking away from Palma de Mallorca early. Before the early summer sunshine makes it painful walking into the sun. No power cuts during the night. But deep dreams. Yesterday was too warm to linger out of the shade...

So I walked to Ca'n Pastilla in three hours. And found it's one saving grace: I can see the airport from the roof terrace... In truth it was the genuine café, comida mallorquín, next to the Iglesia. And I think I will be walking once more on the morrow so I will probably go back there for an evening meal. But now I am heading first into Reginald Perrin: I know exactly where he is coming from...

***

BOC beach hostel.

It's too warm in the coffin which is the stupid capsule of a bunk bed. The stupid lights go on all the time so it's impossible to sleep unless cocooned in this trap with the heavy curtains pulled across the gap. And the space is a little too short so I mainly had to sleep sideways, but did sleep most of the evening - I was in the café, below the flight path, by 6:45am.

But I didn't drink yesterday - 2nd day. I had a glass of wine with a white bean stew and three canjã Pilsner Urquell as I watched the penultimate episode of the first series The Rise and Fall of Reginald Perrin, before I made supper and chilled in the room with its comings and goings. 

Street sweepers, delivery vans, garbage disposal. Early morning drive to make the place 'look' presentable. It's a little cloudy and so am I... Yesterday I ended Hangover Square and then read the introduction, handing it over to the reception desk.

The hostel is two months old - perfectly ready to decay - so doesn't have a 'library'. I don't know what they will do with the book... The futility of life. Chasing whisky after whisky after beer after gin and tonic after beer, then two murders and a suicide (with note).

Yesterday I took my final painkiller and have noticed the busted knee, and hand, agonises much more than I had been aware during the other times.

Some buses go to the south east of the island... And I'll...

***

But I walked along the beach front until I came to a barrier - where a party had left the place delirious with refuse - empty cans of a variety of beers, food wrapping and other detritus. Coming back to BOC hostel I thought of going for a swim, but I am absolutely in uninterested in the sea. I have been for a long time. I enjoy walking alongside it and that's more or less it. I have always disliked sand between my toes, and into crevices, so now I sit at the entrance of Café Troyen (established 1965) surrounded by locals puffing on the end of their days as I am measuring my end of life with coffee spoons and we're expecting rain? The proprietor pulls across the shades. I definitely need to clean up. Put on a fresh(er) t-shirt - the one I found left behind as things often are in the intransigence which defines backpackery: sometimes interesting, mostly soulless but  not as soulless as I perceive hotels to be.

My father was desperate to be rich, so he didn't need to work for the man he hated, and played The Sun bingo or The Pools all the time. I think he won a small amount once on the pools. He also wanted to win the Grand National, but never did. Our cousin Robert regularly did so my father looked up to him like he was a better example of a  'son' because I was, and still am, totally disinterested in gambling so never had anything in common with him. The one time I tried to take interest I won on Uttoxeter Midlands National steeplechase and he was suddenly my best friend (almost I had something he could cherish). When my father's health failed him, not much older than I am now, then he was heading to the grave as quickly as he was bodily able, he didn't work any more.

I just clicked. It's nothing as significant as what the main protagonist in Hangover Square, but I recall me having those episodes when I was younger - almost until I was passed puberty and then it was migraines. The head isn't right.

***

Friday morning. Sun streaming in to the flat. It's almost 5am. I got back from LBA around 10am, after shopping, and washed all the items I had left to I be washed and all those I'd used in Mallorca - one load. Then a guy came to commission the new boiler and heating system. Then I had a bath. Then I slept the afternoon and into the night with a brief space in between listening to the two podcasts I necessarily had to catch up on: In Our Time and Free Thinking on BBC sounds.

And I know I will not be going to another resort... It means nothing to me. I didn't feel at peace with it. More than anything I felt at war with it and being packed like sardines on the A1 flyer bus back from LBA was the final act on the tragedy?

Esporles was nice. It's a shame that accommodation on Mallorca is so expensive as it is a very 'pretty' place. Especially in the mountains to the north.

***

Just walked into the Railway Station at City Square. Listening to the announcements and noticing the same beggars I've seen in the vicinity since COVID. The same one indeed... He must make a good living out of it? But he still cusses anyone who refuses his advances. I stepped back in to the usual tread from my flat to catch the 6:55 X99.

***

Lola and allotment - Andy and weeds. Jason and then mother and fish and chips. Then the bus from Deighton Road to Eastgate, because of a diversion, back to the flat, via The Brunswick, across Lovell Park and into the Grange to sleep until the sunlight hit the wall of my room, orange. It's calling me back. The sore knee coped pretty well with being on it a long will. Everything growing on the plot has hit busy. And their are insects everywhere. It's the season of insects and no water. We have had such a lot of water, but there are times when we need it and have none.