A trip to the shops

My Quebec winter-time outfit consists of a lot of layers of clothing that I used to wear in England, but all worn at the same time. So, I put on my multi-layered affair and head down the steep steps and onto the street to be confronted by an enormous bulldozer, heading right for me.

Of course, I was just in the way; he was really ploughing the snow off the streets. Still, the tidal wave of snow heading towards me, along the pavement, sent me scurrying along at high speed. Until I realised how slippery it was of course. Under the powdery snow is a sheet of ice, about an inch thick. It glitters, bluely, through the snow.

I calm down and the bulldozer passes me without incident, a long line of traffic following impatiently behind.

I walk down to the main street and head towards the bank. I notice that everyone is wearing less than me. In fact, I start to feel rather over dressed – no hats or gloves for the masses on Ontario Street, oh no. I feel weak and soft. Oh, hang on, there’s someone with gloves and a hat, ah, no, he’s about eighty, I suppose it’s okay to dress up when you’re old and infirm.

I manage the trial of the bank ATM (all in French) without causing too much damage to the account, and head for the supermarket. Now I notice that the whole street is singing to me. Not the people, but there is a disconnected voice everywhere singing French xmas songs. At first I thought it was just a cheerful shop, but as I walked along it followed me, the same song. I started to look around, for the source, but could see no speakers… No one else seemed perturbed. I hurried on.

The supermarket went without a hitch – IGA, which we were told stood for ‘Independent Grocers of Australia’ when we were there. God knows what it’s supposed to stand for here then.

Next stop was the ‘vrac’ shop where we buy our herbs and spices. I bought what I wanted and decided to try for the ‘coffee buy’ today. I always shy away from it as I have to ask for a ‘demi livre’, or something. Anyway I try it today, I ask for a demi-livre of moka-java-noir.

The girl stares at me for a while and then turns and points to some pens hanging near the coffee containers. She looks at me questioningly.

I point at the coffee and repeat slowly, ‘Moka… java… noir.’

‘Ah!’ She gets the idea, ‘Brun ou noir?’

When I leave the shop I decide to brave the cold without gloves or hat, to toughen myself up. I do quite well up to the first corner, when I turn into the wind. My god, that’s cold. My hands start to numb up.

I think about putting on my gloves, but I’m approaching an old man, who in typical Quebec style, is standing in his doorway (hatless and gloveless), simply watching me walk by. I think that it will be giving in, to wear the gloves now, so brave the numbness and walk by.

The pain is incredible, but I think that I’m just being soft, even if it feels nasty. I turn my hands the other way to numb my palms instead. I can focus on nothing else except my hands and the burning numbness.

Am I this soft? I wonder. It’s only minus 10 or so, I guess.

Then, a funny thing happens – the pain stops and clam descends upon me. My hands have numbed to such an extent that I can’t feel them any more. It’s bliss, kind of.

At this point I cross a road and slip, flailing my arms around like an Englishman and briefly kicking one leg into the air, stupidly. I’ve increased my speed to such an extent to get out of the cold and warm my hands that I’m almost running over the thickly ice encrusted pavements.

About ten people that just got off a bus stare at me.

I slow down.

The ploughing is still going on. There is a convoy now of three or more different types of industrial machinery, each having a special purpose in the snow removal process – one to heavily plough, one to scoop up, one to edge, one to do something else, and one to simply scare you to death as you walk by – it has a side attachment that consists of a large number of sharp spinning edges that you could easily wander into if you were day dreaming. This machine is angrily spitting out huge balls of ice and rock, grinding and screaming, as it rushes towards me.

It narrowly avoided me, luckily.

Bloggers Block

It’s just like writers block. I haven’t been able to put finger to keyboard for weeks, for some reason. All writing, in fact, has ground to a halt - the book, the screenplay, the articles, Procrastizine, everything. The only thing I’m still doing is writing the Java Applet games, and one is about a week away from release as we speak.

The writing block is cyclical, with periods of extreme confidence, when I send articles to newspapers and book extracts to agents, contrasted with periods of extreme self doubt, when I feel like deleting everything I’ve written and cringe that I sent all my friends that last article etc.

This is natural.

Centipedes

So, where was I? Ah yes, the flat in Walthamstow. I lived in the flat for a year and a half in the end, fairly happily, though I did sleep with a large kitchen knife down the side of the bed, so unused to the sound of fighting and shouting in my hallway at 5am.

This, though, isn't as bad as the flat we lived in, in Hornsey many years later. Remind me to mention that sometime – the murder, the robbery, the fighting etc.

So a pretty mushroom started to grow in the corner of my shower. It was frilly and yellow and I quite liked it. As there were no women trooping through my apartment on a regular basis, I was allowed to keep it.

It looked something like this (I do actually have a genuine picture of it, but can't find it):



Well, it grew and grew and grew until it was about fifteen centimetres tall (six inches, ye Imperial people) and then started to show signs of wear and tear. It's once proud ruffles started to look tatty, its orange ridges began to sag and display holes.

So, I was showing one day and observing my mushroom, thinking that I would put it out of its misery and throw it away, when a disturbing event happened – a sudden burst of water was the proverbial spore that broke the mushroom's back, and it exploded into a thousand bits and washed all over my feet.

Along with the centipedes.

I screamed (in a manly way) and briefly did a shower dance only ever seen performed by people in slippery showers trying to avoid angry orange centipedes, before managing to throw myself out of the cubicle.

I turned off the water and surveyed the situation. The centipedes weren't moving any more. There was one very large one, and two very small ones. I prodded them with the end of an old toothbrush, but they continued to play dead.

I say play dead, and that's what I mean. Insects are like monsters in horror movies – if you turn your back to them then they're liable to come back to life and vanish whilst you look for a dustpan and brush to dispose of them.

I didn't even know that we had centipedes in England at the time. I was quite shocked. As I've mentioned before, we don't actually have anything dangerous in the country, so wasps and biting multi-peds score strongly on our fright scales.



In the end I dry them off with toilet paper and carry them outside into the back yard, where I place them in a dry spot, in the sun. Sure enough, when I return five minutes later, they've gone. Only later in life did I consider the possibility that perhaps a bird took them...

Bad Flat

If you ever move into a new apartment, take heart that it probably isn't as bad as the one I used to reside in Walthamstow, London.

I had been staying with half-known cousin in Twickenham, and commuting every day into the centre of a (then) unknown London to buy 'Loot' and spent several heart-breaking hours exploring the dodgiest parts of London Town. If you don't know London, then you might think that Plumstead sounds quite nice... You begin to see what I mean (or don't).

Anyway, after a thousand one-room, cockroach infested pits with odd landlords that seemed to live next door to you with a glass permanently attached to the connecting wall, I found this tiny flat in East 17 (that's north, and east, and grim for those of you that don't know).

But, it had a bathroom all of its own. No more sharing toilets with un-housebroken junkies and cats, no picking hair-and-dried-sperm-and-soap balls out of the plughole, no siree, I'd be able to spend my entire weekend, or even week, inside my apartment without seeing a soul.

Now, perhaps 'apartment' is a little too fancy for what I got. There was a small room that contained a kitchen, lounge, eating area, well, everything in fact in about ten foot by six, and a nice little bathroom with a shower and toilet. There was also a mountain of month-old washing-up in the sink, but the landlord insisted that would be gone by the time I moved in.

It wasn't of course. So I put it all in bin bags and threw them (smashing noises occurred) into the hallway, where they remained for several months. So then I cleaned for a few hours and changed the lock, as the landlord told me the previous tenant still had a set of keys, and would be dropping them round at some point (in the middle of the night whilst murdering me, I thought...)

So, I'm sitting on the tiny sofa, feeling happy, when a feeling of dread comes over me.

Yes, that's it.

Where's the bedroom?

Oh my god, there's no bedroom. Then I realise that I am, in fact, sitting on my bed.

Sweet Jesus, I almost cry.

Half an hour later I gather courage and open out the sofa bed, which is about three foot wide when fully extended, and a little grubby. A side effect of this is that it's now difficult to get into the bathroom – you have to shimmy past the bed at an angle and squeeze through the door.

I feel stupid, and done, well and truly. But, well, we learn from our mistakes, and I stayed, and felt better after I went out and bought some beers.

Felt better until Mister Barry White came in, that is.

Now, I know we shouldn't speak ill of the dead, but I hate Barry White with a passion. Which is quite a contrast from the way my neighbour upstairs used to feel about him. He, in fact, loved Barry sooo much that he liked to listen to him at a volume that made my sofa-bed and all the walls of the house vibrate.

So, Barry played until about 10pm and I went out to the pub to get as drunk as I could. When I returned, mission accomplished, Barry was still hooting his heart out and I felt like throwing some cups at the wall in anger.

Instead I looked through my music collection for Barry's Nemesis, and found an Osric Tentacles tape that I used to trip out to when I was younger. On this went at a volume so loud that my speakers almost blew up. I then lay down on my bed and fell asleep.

When I woke up next, it was 3am and my looping tape was still blasting out. I leapt out of bed in a panic and turned it off. There was an eerie silence as the entire street breathed a sigh of relief.

I felt guilt.

Mind you, Barry White was never again played at a volume that bothered me.

The real point of this blog was to tell you all about my orange centipedes, but, that'll have to wait now, as I've come over all thirsty and require tea, urgently.