Today...it's my birthday!!!! Yeah!!!!

Birthday!


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You say it’s your birthday
Well it’s my birthday too yeah
They say it’s your birthday
We’re gonna have a good time
I’m glad it’s your birthday
Happy birthday to you

Yes we’re going to a party party
Yes we’re going to a party party
Yes we’re going to a party party

I would like you to dance (birthday)
Take a cha-cha-cha-chance (birthday)
I would like you to dance (birthday)
Dance

I would like you to dance (birthday)
Take a cha-cha-cha-chance (birthday)
I would like you to dance (birthday)
Dance

You say it’s your birthday
Well it’s my birthday too yeah
You say it’s your birthday
We’re gonna have a good time
I’m glad it’s your birthday
Happy birthday to you!

:-)

Oxford metido en la niebla

Oxford me encanto! La niebla y el frio por fin materializo lo que tanto habia imaginado leyendo las aventuras de Sherlock Holmes en Londres.

Camine a toda prisa la manyana del domingo para coger el unico autobus del dia que va a Bristol. ?Sera que mi fascinacion viendo las telaranyas congeladas en los arbustos, rejas, arboles, hizo que llegara a la estacion de autobuses justo cuando el autobus acababa de partir?

Estuve a punto de pedir alojamiento por otra noche...pero el tren lo evito.

Por cierto que casi me remadreo cogiendo el tren...que estuve a punto de perder. No suficiente con la madriza de caerme de la bicicleta la semana pasada, resbale en el congelado piso justo antes de saltar al tren. Me lleve un golpe en la rodilla...justo arriba del enorme raspon de la semana pasada...al menos.

Pero el viaje en tren valio la pena. Fue un viaje a traves del tiempo, del tiempo de las estaciones. Didcot Parkway nos esperaba con un paisaje nevado invernal. En la siguiente parada, a pesar del frio, Reading lucia todavia otonyal.

Llegue demasiado tarde a Bristol...demasiado tarde para unirme al taller de Biodanza al que me habian invitado. Llegue hasta el sitio...pero la gente ya estaba adentro y habian cerrado la puerta. Toque, hice llamadas a  telefonos mobiles...inutil.

Cuando abandonaba el sitio me encontre una moneda canadiense en el suelo...dicen que es de buena suerte...bueno, tal vez la buena suerte es que mi oficina esta a unos pasos del lugar de la Biodanza. Cogi refugio del frio, del cansancio y de las decepciones de la manyana en mi oficina.

Tal vez, debi haberme quedado en Oxford otro dia. Las cosas por algo pasan. Tal vez el significado de haber perdido el autobus era mas profundo...por ejemplo, el haber entonces tenido que regresar a tu cuarto y descubrir que habia olvidado mi estuche con jabon y shampoo para la ducha.

bonfire night

Saturday the 5th of November marked the beginning of not just another Bonfire night weekend. By the end of it I managed to fall of my bike, have my heart broken and get a bad cough.

---

On Saturday I went (12pm) to the Bristol airport to pick up my “love interest”, a French girl that was coming back to Bristol to finish some work that she started in Bristol last April. At that time we get on very well with each other. When she left Bristol on June I left her clear that, whatever it could happen in the future, I couldn’t be just her friend. We said we will be in contact. I don’t want here to enter on details about what happened during the year. With her return to Bristol I only expected to find out what kind of relationship she was thinking we were having. (I didn’t want to ask her by email, letter or phone call).

---

After leaving her suitcase in the place she was staying we went to have lunch in a pub nearby and one of her friend joined us. Later she and her friend went shopping to the supermarket while I looked at the shops of the mall for new trousers. We agreed to meet later (15:45h) to go to a Biodanza workshop that a common friend of us have invited us. I found a nice pair of trousers but having expended most of my free time I rushed (15:43h) to cycle to her place. I'm glad that I gave second thoughts to my first impulse of not wearing my helmet this time (the usual pretext that it was not a long ride crossed my mind).

---

My fall of the bike was quite stupid. Somehow I forgot to pull up the front wheel before jumping from the road to the pavement. I think I underestimated the height of the border. As a result the front wheel hit the border I lost control of the bike and ended rolling in the floor. The first thing that I noticed was my broken trousers at the level of the left knee and a stabbing pain in my twisted left hand thumb. A quick evaluation of my hand gave me the impression that there was not broken pieces. Only my trousers. No, fortunately not the new ones.

---

When I arrived at her place her first comment was "I don't believe you have fallen of your bike" When we looked my knee under the leg of the trousers she was convinced and I felt pain. All the surface of my knee had a bloody graze that I proceeded to clean with soap and water. With my handkerchief I made a dressing for my wound and put on my new trousers (funny and lucky that I had ones at hand don't you think? :)

---

Yes, I was in pain. Was it the pain of having caused my own stupid accident? No. Was it the pain of having to cycle to pick her up to go to the Biodanza workshop and find out that all of a sudden she decided not to go? No. Was it the pain of seeing her sitting, looking at me taking care of my own flesh wound? No. It was not one of those things it was all together. Because I can understand that you are tired after a flight and you don't want to do a physical activity, that I can take care of myself and that I am perfectly able to do stupid things, I can bear all that separately. But the synergy of all that together was causing me pain.

---

My good star made the Biodanza experience something to counterpoise my pain. The rare opportunity to be in close physical and emotional contact with myself and others was kind of a healing.

---

The plan with her was that after the workshop we were going to meet our common friend (who indeed attended the workshop by the way). I assumed that we were talking about dinner but I was wrong. After the workshop (18h) my pain and I cycled back to her place under a light rain to pick her up and find out that she was about to have dinner. The Biodanza people have invited us to a get-together in someone's place to chat, share food and keep going with the good vibrations that the workshop awaked. I gave her a sketch of the map to get to this someone's place and left her having dinner.

---

She arrived just in time to join us. The now gathering-party was deciding to move to a nearby hill to see the fireworks display occurring scattered all around the city. After all, it was Bonfire night! It was another outstanding experience...including the experience of being rocketed by fireworks fired by some people in the hill and that missed their intended direction, ha, ha, ha. I was happy of sharing this with her and this new friendly people of the Biodanza. I didn't regret to have changed my usual plan of joining my caving club's celebration in our HQ in the Mendips Hills.

---

Everything was finally looking fine. But I was wrong again. When she and I said goodnight on Saturday (I walked her home) we said that she will send me a text message with the landline phone number of her place so we could make plans for Sunday more easily (her mobile number is French and expensive). I was starting to feel ill, not only because I had started to develop a bad cough but also because I was realizing where our relationship was heading to. Of course, she sent me a text message the next day (13h). But instead of a phone number she said: "We are meeting at the Cafe Rouge at 5pm in case you want to join us" I was doing some cleaning at home and found that the noise of the vacuum cleaner covers very well the sound of a heart cracking.

---

All my fears were confirmed. It was clear that I was in the typical situation of being her "good friend". I actually have very good female friends. I was not looking for another one and she have known that all the time. She was not only being thoughtless, she was playing a disgusting role.

There are people who like admirers, not friends around them. They stimulate those "friends" playing with their instincts. I know that I was not in love for her. It appeared like that but it was only a combination of feelings and instincts. From my part it was the attraction for her, from her part the stimulation of those feelings and instincts on me. These people keep you with the feeling that something has started, they continually stimulate your instincts to make you feel the need to culminate that indefinite something. They take you to that position and leave you there alone until they feel the need to renovate the game.

---

To be in love involves not only the feelings of the intimacy and the instincts of the passion but also an amount of commitment. Commitment and intimacy make a good friendship. Passion and intimacy can make a good lover. (What kind of relationship makes to have commitment and passion?) Love involves a combination of these three parts.

---

On the verge of falling ill (in part as a psychosomatic reaction) I realized what to do. I will go out, I will enjoy my day. At 5pm I will text her back "Thanks but not. I'm going to see a movie. Enjoy your evening" At 5pm I found myself eating and talking with a real good female friend. I missed the movie but apart from that detail, my text message said all what I planned. The next day my French "love interest" wrote me an email asking:

Are you angry ? I did something that hurt you? Anyway, I'll be at --- at 2.15pm, maybe we can meet there...Love++ Bye

My reply, (technically, thanks to the PC of my housemate) was:

It's very sweet from you asking...but this kind of conversations are better over a cup of tea/coffee, don't you think? :)

Yes, I am hurt...in my knee, in the wrist of my left hand and got a bad cough :) I am staying at home today.---. Hope to see you soon! Love and hugs.

On Wednesday evening I was a friend for her. At the end of the night, after a brief chat and without drama, I had said "You break my heart"..."I don't want to be your friend, you know that"..."Write me once you are back in France" and had kissed her to say good night.

According to Oscar Wilde, I am a coward.

Yet each man kills the thing he loves
By each let this be heard,
Some do it with a bitter look,
Some with a flattering word,
The coward does it with a kiss,
The brave man with a sword!

Some kill their love when they are young,
And some when they are old;
Some strangle with the hands of Lust,
Some with the hands of Gold:
The kindest use a knife, because
The dead so soon grow cold.

Some love too little, some too long,
Some sell, and others buy;
Some do the deed with many tears,
And some without a sigh:
For each man kills the thing he loves,
Yet each man does not die.

(Oscar Wilde, from "Ballad of Reading Gaol")

Rain

Yesterday I was caught in the rain while cycling home. I rushed to escape from it like if it were poisonous. I did a frantic escape that in the first part always takes me down a hill with a medium slope (Perry Road). In the middle of this hill-road there is a traffic light in the T intersection with a big slope road (St. Michael’s Hill) with cars coming down.

I was stopped by the police once in this junction for not stopping in the appropriate area, behind a marked line. In fact, that time I was more cautious than the usual because my normal procedure to sort out that traffic light will be as follows:

• On approaching the red light apply the breaks only to reduce the speed
• If there are cars on the way, go up to the pavement and approach the corner with moderate speed avoiding the posts for the pedestrians at the same time.
• Once in the corner and without stopping completely, unless it is strictly necessary, have a quick look at everyplace, specially the left hand side looking for cars coming down.
• Run the red light.

Since I was stopped by the police I have been stopping at the red light and not going up to the pavement. I don’t have anything to discuss. A pedestrian running down the hill might bump into me with horrendous consequences.

But yesterday it was raining and coincidentally new penalties were also announced for careless driving (perhaps careless cycle riding as well?). These give imprisonment to careless driving (in the past you only got a fine) if it ends in someone’s death.

But it was raining and I was running away as if I could be soluble in rain. I am not proud of it and fortunately this time nothing bad happened. After crossing the red light I was realizing how stupid I was acting. Running away from the rain…why? I have been caving completely soak and cold…why am I escaping from the rain.

And then I started noticing the people around me, the recollection of the opening scene of the movie “My life without me” came to my mind. I started to slow down my speed and looked back to see the face of a girl walking as I passed besides her. She was walking as if the rain couldn’t touch her. Some meters forward I saw another girl walking with the same attitude. There were people scared of the rain, there were people just walking in the rain. I saw big men with their head and shoulders down, submitted to the rain.

I was happy to arrive at home.
It didn’t matter I was soak and wet.