I understand little but know there are many unspoken rules that are easily broken. It seems that asking someone to delay lighting their cigarette at my dining table until i have finished eating is one of them. I have been enjoying a peaceful courtyard, admiring espalier apples and pears, until yesterday when maybe eight women moved in to the adjacent property and noisily smoked intermittently through the night.
I wait until they leave the courtyard this morning to go out to eat my omelette. One returns, sits opposite me, we exchange hellos but she goes to light up. I politely ask her to wait until i have finished eating. She scowls and turns from me. I chat politely, ask her about the festival, be friendly, i learn they have been coming here for ten years to this same place. clearly she thinks they own the space but harmony is restored between us. The moment my last forkful goes towards my mouth, her cigarette is lit. I despair.
I keep thinking ive lft something behind, earlier i was shocked when i thought i hadnt put my trousers on, i just panicked that ive left my raincoat behind. It was the breakfast smoking thing that threw me, I dislike disharmony of any kind but equally dislike that i did not reassert myself and point out that loading my last fork did not count as finish eating. I just walked off but It made me a bit panicky, made me just leave before i was quite ready to do so. I had packed slowly and methodically earlier so am hopeful i have all my belongings but i didn't do my final check...
My train to odense would have been beautifully empty but is carrying around sixty teenagers on their way home from a school trip with their teachers. With surprise i just received a dropbox image from the man in Ribe and wish now i had paid more attention to the sculpture i was sitting beside. It portrayed Queen Dagmar who once lived in the castle. As photographic images go i don't find harmony in the centralisation.
Yesterday i met a woman travelling at Ribe railway station, she had spent a month workaway at an alternative health centre, today i met another woman inter-railing europe. If i have any regrets it is not meeting others on the road. if i had done so i would be full of potential places and spots to avoid, not dragging around for ideas trying to decide whether to spend five nights in Copenhagen or not for the end of my journey.
I just havent learned the way to search for hostel accomodation, i gave it about half an hour last night and found a room in a ten bed dorm for twentyfive pounds a night. Four or six bed i could cope with but im unsure about ten and dont fancy the mixed dorm. neither do i fancy an old couple in rich suburbs, new to airbnb, without cooking facilities and the cost of a twenty minute train journey in to the city at £38 a night yet just 500m from train station and 35 mins to airport so perfect in some respects.
I play with ideas, Greve, Odense, Malmo, Helsingør, Kiel. I find myself for the next week in a cabin like room, such as suits me perfectly and can see myself living in small places like this wherever i go. Single room, kitchenette, not dissimilar to my garden house but on the edge of the Baltic Sea. Old mountain bike for me to borrow, time to go explore Faaborg.
