Are we there yet? No one knows for certain, but it’s sure beginning to smell like Armageddon. Forgive the typos; it’s dark in this bunker.
So the much-predicted, much-derided day of financial meltdown may, we think, have finally appeared. It’s like the ghastly fiend whose threat invisibly haunts the first two thirds of a horror film. We don’t want the ghoul to appear, but we know it’s there, and when it does finally step from the shadows, darting a deathly hand towards the jugular, it’s almost a relief. At least we know what we’re fighting at last. It will all work out just dandy in the end, but there’s a fair bit of torture and fear to withstand first.
And so, as the banking system dissolves and seeps away through the cracks in our complacency, how best to mark the occasion? I guess the textbook temptation is to turn to hard liquor, but as hinted in the previous entry, I’ve decided I need to be lean and mean to defend my homestead. So instead of hitting the bottle, I hit the gym instead. A run through the sumptuous forest would have been a purer choice, but there is no forest — sumptuous or otherwise — within striking distance. And anyway, I ran yesterday. Sort of. I managed 3 miles along the canal towpath, but it was a juddery trip. with the final mile including two brief….ish walks. I’ll try again in a couple of days.
But this evening, it was the gym, and my 6th visit in 12 days. I normally lose interest after two or three, but this time I’ve persisted. Why? Hard to say. It helps that it’s a small, local gym within walking distance. There’s rarely more than one other person there, and often I’m on my own. It’s quite intimate — just me and the 100 decibel sound system, pumping out disco music. I’m almost enjoying it. There’s something gratifying about seeing your own sweat dripping off your face and splashing off the equipment. Perhaps it’s a middle-aged thing. I don’t remember feeling so delighted with it as a kid, playing football. Then, it was a nuisance. But now, an hour of steady cardio-vascular works up a good half bucket of the lovely stuff. I guess it’s a manifestation of effort.
Despite all this feverish activity, my weight hasn’t shifted much since the first couple of days of last week. Losing the lard seems to get tougher as one matures. I’m not making the classic error of filling myself with carbs to compensate for the physical effort. Nutritionally, I reckon I’ve been leading a pretty exemplary existence.
There’s been no beer, indeed no alcohol of any description, since the penultimate day of our holiday, three weeks ago today. We’d spent three days in the delightful medieval city of Tallinn, in Estonia. It’s easy to see why it’s become a magnet for stag and lads weekends. The accommodation is cheap; the girls are absurdly pretty, and become increasingly so after a few glasses of beer which is cheap, plentiful and occasionally interesting. All these delights are contained in and around the gothic walled city, an architectural caricature that looks more like a Disney dreamscape than a recently-liberated outpost of the Soviet Union.
Each day, as my shopping energy receded, and thirst increased, I’d make my excuses and head off to the Beer House, just off the main square, where I would sit with my book (Part 3 of A Dance to the Music of Time), and my notebook, and my sunlit thoughts, and enjoy as happy an hour as I ever had. Despite the loud Bavarian music and the undoubted touristiness of the place, I liked its spaciousness, and because they brewed their own speciality beers, all of which I managed to sample over the three happy days.
[Aside: I just found this infomercial on YouTube: BeerHouse, which shows me what the place is like later in the evening. The population rarely exceeded half a dozen while I was there. Warning: it’s 4 minutes of your life that you’ll never get back.]
On the morning of the fourth day, we packed up and headed down to the ferry terminal, from where we made the short trip across the Baltic to Helsinki.
The girl in the Tallinn tourist office had done her best to dissuade us from going. She hadn’t minced her words: “Tallinn is very nice but Helsinki is a very horrible place. If you must go there, you should have gone there first and Tallinn second so that your holiday ends happy.”
The reality didn’t bear out her assessment. Maybe she was just a dyed-in-the-wool medievalist. Helsinki is certainly different: relatively large and serious, but handsome and efficient. We walked from the dock to the city centre, stopping off at the tourism office to pick up maps and tram tickets. A half hour or so later we reached our hotel in the suburbs. Pleasant, Scandinavian style.
An elegant enough city, but there is something oddly subdued about the place. Finns, particularly men, are notoriously reserved and sombre, and drink a lot. Few tram rides pass without the cranky burbling of a solitary drunk. I didn’t participate in this national pastime with too much enthusiasm, mainly because I never quite found a decent venue. One afternoon when M wanted to ‘do’ Stockmann, the department store, I was allowed to sneak away and explore the city’s social substrata for a couple of hours. I stumbled on an English-style pub and sampled a couple of local brews — Koff and Lapin, but they were nothing to get excited about.
The only other attempt I made to join the Finnish drinking culture came on our last night when, after my steak, I slipped away for a nightcap at the Irish bar close to the hotel. I was served up a massive glass (must have been a litre) of cold, neutral fizz. Coming straight after a weighty meal it was a troubling experience. I just remember staring at that daunting receptacle, thinking how unappetising it looked. But I can’t blame it for what happened the next day.
Sod’s law meant that the day we were due to spend almost 12 hours travelling, was the day I awoke feeling sick. It must have been the slab of beef I’d eaten; there were no other plausible culprits. For an hour or so I writhed around in bed, groaning, hoping that M wouldn’t mention the greasy processed meats she’d eaten for breakfast. In the end, instead of hoping I wouldn’t be pushed, I decided to do the decent thing, and jump. I’ll spare the filthy details, but it involved forked fingers heading down the throat.
It helped a bit — eventually — but I was still destined to spend the entire day feeling deeply wretched. The kindly (and possibly embarrassed, given that I’d eaten the meal in their restaurant) hotel staff allowed us a very late check-out, and we set off on the long journey home in mid-afternoon. It began with two tram rides across Helsinki to the main railway station, where I really didn’t want to run for that train — but did. Then a 2 hour train journey to Tampere, the provincial town whose airport departure seemed such a good idea when I was comparing prices. At Tampere we spent an anxious hour trying to track down the airport bus, with me trying not to hear M mutter about needing food. We eventually found it, and got to our destination, but my hopes of a bit of comfort went unfulfilled. The tiny airport is barely equipped for cattle-truck international flights, and isn’t a good place to feel ill. Hundreds of weary, cranky people were crammed into a small, airless departure area with only a couple of dozen seats to fight over. It was truly grim. And there was still a 2½ hour flight to come, and a two hour drive home from Stansted.
Climbing into my own bed at about 2 a.m. was probably the highlight of the entire holiday. It was like clambering back into the womb. As I drifted off, still clutching my stomach, I resolved to live a healthier, more active life again. I like to find positive things in adversity. It’s the best way, the only way, of rationalising and reconciling myself with bad stuff.
So being ill was nasty, but it did me a favour. It was the kick-start I needed. Two days later, I was back to subnormal, and thinking about all the stuff mentioned in the previous entry. I’m just surprised I’ve managed to keep my promise for three weeks.
Which reminds me of a conversation I once had with a policeman in Newcastle. He told me that he had once suffered a heart attack while out on the toon with his mates. In the ambulance on the way to the hospital, with two paramedics pummelling him and trying to drag him from the jaws of defeat, he whispered a desperate prayer: “If I get through this, I promise I’ll go to church every Sunday without fail, and I’ll never drink another drop of alcohol as long as I live. Just get me through this.” And had he been true to his word? “Oh yes”, he said, slightly indignantly. Then after a pause: “Well, OK, I haven’t actually been to church, but I’ve definitely cut down a bit on me drinking.”
I’ll try to do better than that. A good incentive is to think of that enormous glass of Finnish fizz — the last beer I had. It’s like being winked at by some old hag.
