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July 26, 2004
Jimmy Murtaugh aka Poor Man's Freddy
The first ever paid summer holiday of my prostitute life is nearing it's end. It's been a ride and a half, literally. I'd better put it down in chronological order so you'll make more sense out of it.
We broke on Friday 25th June, I hopped on the plane to Finland on Sunday with a suitcase full of shorts and t-shirts and all revved up to enjoy the beautiful Finnish summer which failed to materialize while I was in the country. It rained just about every day for two weeks so I stayed in bed for the the whole of the first week. The second week saw a bit more activity in the form of consuming copious amounts of sausages and beer, sitting in various saunas and rivers, watching the Olympic flame being carried about town, doing yoga and catching up with my family. Both my body and my mind were in need of some serious zeroing and for me there's no better place to do it than back home where my roots are. I've grown awfully far from them though. I think I need to go and buy some Sibelius. His compositions are like aural paintings of the Finnish nature. Something to remind me every now and again where I came from.
My bubble bath.
The third week of the holiday was something entirely different: a ten day clubbing and shopping spree in London. Guest lists left right and centre, burning up the dance floor and the contents of the wallet every night, break dancing with the UK champions, hitting the Harvey Nicks sales, being mistaken for Freddy Ljungberg for the fourth time and socialising every waking minute with long lost friends crawling out of the wood work. All in all a good and proper thrashing.
Only in London.
For the last week of the holiday a trip north was just the ticket. I flew back to Glasgow on Monday, promptly fell into a coma, plugged my brain in again on Tuesday, hopped on the Silver Machine and headed to Isle of Skye. God was on the roll when he made the north west coast and so was Department of Transport when they made the A 87. The buddhist monk I bumped into fully agreed. Five and a half hours of continuous rain didn't matter much when you're treated with such an amazing scenery, but I certainly appreciated the warm fire and cold drink after a day in the saddle. The wake up call was 7am and our motley crew of an it-yuppie, a hobbit and me (there was an ogre as well, but he stayed in for the day) were guided to the hills by a guy called Ray. The man spends just about every single day out there so it was hardly surprising that the places he seemingly strolled through caused us some severe tightening of the sphincter and we were more than happy to use our arses as the fifth limb just to get down alive. No macho bullshit in sight. After sampling the delights of Skye we headed to Torridon for a couple of days. The words I know are too small to describe that place. If I decide to hang up my tights I'd fit right in. According to The Rat and Mr Johnson, two fine local fellows, the life isn't too bad if you don't mind the compulsory alcoholism. Now I haven't been known to spit in the cup so they named me Jimmy Murtaugh and wanted to pay me money to watch fish spawn. Talking about parallel realities and all that jazz.
Beautiful...
...but slightly blustery...
...and very refreshing. All photos by me©
The last day of the holiday is on the way already. There's been plenty of fun and a few life changing moments, but it's about time to get back to work. I'm expecting a pretty rough five weeks before the shows. Let's see how the cookie crumbles.
Posted by Jarkko at July 26, 2004 01:10 AM |
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