Walking Commentary
Thoughts and cycling from Manchester to Rome in 2023
I was hearing voices and not for the first time. There was an epauletted man in ironed khaki across the desk from me. His lips were moving earnestly in French. There was a tea leaf on one of his teeth, a single leaf that distracted me. I knew that this man was not to be crossed. The black fleck on surprisingly perfect dentition got me thinking. I might be better off looking for the future in tea leaves rather than hearing how cooperative this man’s army would be.
Four anecdotal health and safety tales from memory. These are encounters from a span of two decades that serve to illustrate how things might escalate to tragedy. And special for today, a bonus with a cautionary afterward.
Funny how even the size of a word on a bottle of shampoo can float memories back to the surface. ‘Hair Shampoo with Argan Oil’ was written on a bottle on the shelf in front of me while I shaved. Glasses off, ‘Argan’ is unclear yet unambiguous. My subliminal messaging retrieval kicks in and I’m back in a restaurant pouring an Argan oil dressing on my salad. I was there with five other colleagues. It had been a long day towards the end of a complicated three month geophysical project. We had been recording two dimensional profiles in a hunt for commercial hydrocarbons.
7 Mar 2020 – 9:23 GMT – 9°C Light Drizzle – Co. Longford, Ireland
That last night in Agadir, the concierge booked us into The Admiral restaurant, a recommendation I got from the guidebook in my hotel room. We drove over at 1930. It was closed. Very closed. Very, very closed. Think American ghost towns with tangleweed drift. Peeling paint. Corrosion. Our Moroccan driver suggested another place. Great fish, though really just a roadside bistro. No alcohol for my guests. Thin cats stalking among the street side tables, hoping for morsels we were never going to share. Beggars looking from across the street but not begging. Reminded me strangely of lepers in Burma.
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