h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

[I apologise for what is surely the longest journal entry I will ever write. Please don't anyone feel they have to read and/or comment. Although if you've got 10 minutes to spare, then help yourself to as much as you like. As my mother-in-law once shockingly said in public "Never mind the length, feel the quality".]


Jersey is OK, if you give it the time of day. Giving Jersey the time of day isn't something I've done much in the last year. I come here to work, not to rest or play. OK, so I spent a bit of time walking about (aimlessly) last summer. But then the days started getting shorter. And the weeks started feeling longer. I worked harder. And things just slid away easier. The internet cafe shut down. The coffee shop (with free wifi) would close for the night before I could get there. The best I could manage in an evening was to come back to the apartment, cook dinner, phone the nippers, iron a shirt for tomorrow, go to bed. In short, I got into a rut.


None of the above is what I came here to write. Hmmmm.


This evening I had something to put in the post. So I went out. And turned left. Which is the opposite direction to the post box. I walked round the block, came out on the Esplanade and thought to myself 'I might just cross the road'. So I did.


And this is what I came here to write. I hope it comes out OK.


St Aubin's Bay is a 3 mile long arc of beach that stretches out like a vast amphitheatre hewn into - no, blended into - the southern edge of Jersey by the sea's natural forces over - presumably - thousands of years. (I deliberately say 'edge of Jersey' and not coast, because, well, because Jersey is tiny, and when you've stood on the North Devon coast on a windy day at, say, Harland Point and looked down at the breakers smashing relentlessly into the cliffs all the way down to Cornwall, you've seen in one glance as much coastline as there is on all of the Channel Islands put together. But I digress. St Aubin's Bay is a different proposition. As we will see. If I ever get there.)

Down at the eastern end of the bay, where the beach ends and the Esplanade starts are Les Jardins de la Mer. Take a minute to stand at the entrance to the gardens, facing south - seaward - with your back to the office and apartment blocks (as a matter of fact, the office/apartment block immediately behind you is the one where Paff works/sleeps). This is just a small area of public space with some bushes and palm trees, paths curving off around to the fountain area, then running out across the grass to join the cycle path that runs along the bay. But step into this little piece of solitude here and the hustle and bustle of St Helier is behind you. Quite literally.

Walk through Les Jardins and out to the bay wall. To the right is La Frigate, a bizarre café designed to look like an upturned boat, all golden ship-lapped wood and little painted porthole windows. Parked behind La Frigate are a couple of Puddle Ducks: even bizarrer amphibious vehicles, half boat, half bus, that take tourists out to Elizabeth Castle on the causeway when the tide is low. (And yes, my spell checker is on, and yes, 'bizarrer' is underlined in squiggly red). Looking beyond La Frigate and the Puddle Ducks, the bay curves away and stretches off into the distance all the way round to St Aubin's Harbour. A three mile walk. Or a two and a bit mile swim. But we're not going that way.

Follow the path to the left, alongside the Waterfront, approaching the marina. We're already far enough away from the Esplanade to not hear the traffic. Instead there's the sound of a group of French kids playing football on what remains of the beach as the tide comes in. A lone backpacker sits on the wall, holding his mobile phone up at the impending sunset westward, peering into the tiny screen desperately hoping that the few thousand pixels he's just committed to Memory Stick with a click of his index finger will do justice to the view he's looking at: a 640 by 480 summing up of the sun, the sky, the sea, the sounds, the ambience.

Up ahead is a bronze tree. Yes, a tree, made of bronze. The Liberation Tree. The plaque says it was unveiled by Her Majesty the Queen in 2005 to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the Channel Islands from occupation. It seems a bit out of place here. In 2005 this would've been the perfect place, but now there's a building site adjacent that we've been turning a blind eye to up till now. Profit hungry property developers have done themselves proud and are building a huge great four storey block of luxury apartments right up against the bay, spoiling the view for most of St Helier it has to be said. The Liberation Tree is 'planted' just yards away. Give it another 60 years and maybe a new clowder of fat cats will be liberating Jersey from the scourge of the developer's occupation.

Let's look past the bronze tree. Walk on a bit. Here's the marina. Water still. No activity. Boats all clean and white, luxurious and expensive. (Jersey residents live offshore, do their banking offshore, and mess about on the water offshore). There's a ferry in the harbour beyond the marina. It looks huge, ungainly and mechanical compared to these sleek vessels in front. The ferry is unloading. There are sounds of lorries struggling down off-ramps, containers being winched off, and dock workers shouting instructions at other dock workers.

At the very end of the marina, where you can go no further, some guy has gone further, has climbed over the railings and is down at the water's edge standing precariously on some rocks - fishing. And what a place to fish! The backdrop is the English Channel, and off unseen in the distance is the French Normandy coast, but between the two, just a stone's throw away - well, a few hundred yards away - is Elizabeth Castle.

The sun is going down, and the lights are coming up on the castle. Golden outer walls. Silvery central keep. The causeway that leads from the castle creates a stripe of darker blue in the sea. The flag pole atop the castle keep points at the crescent moon, which in turn points at where the sun was.

Shhhh. The unloading ferry has quietened down. There's just the sound of the water lapping at the rocks around the marina wall on which our fishing guy still precariously stands. Lip lapping. Lip lap. And the dull sound of bells on boats tied up but rocking to and fro. B-dong. G-ding. And the breeze fluttering at bits of sail that have come slightly unfurled. Flitter flutter. And rope creaking as it is slowly stretched. Released. Stretched. Released.

Look back now towards the Esplanade. The lights have come on along the path, and all the way around the bay. Between the suitably olde worlde lamps are strung coloured lights, most of the way round that 3 mile stretch to St Aubins Harbour.

Walking back, briskly now as the temperature is dropping out of the air now that the sun is well and truly gone, the other sounds of life return. The French kids are still there. Not playing football any more, but standing around in a huddle. Chatting, joking, sounding romantically French, although for all we know they could be being coarse and rude. Let's assume the best though. Back here the sea is not lip lapping, but is breaking against the beach in gentle wave after gentle wave.

Across the grass, into the Les Jardins, and out. Traffic. Not much, but there it is. Back across the road. Round the side of the office block. Up to the post box. Finally posting that letter. A one minute walk back to the apartment.

Glad I went the long way today.

Paff

You gonna make an Entry outta that?

I don't even go that far on my holidays.....

hey it dont matter GB lol

GB, it never occurred to me to make an entry of it. You're not suggesting an EG entry though are you? Surely to get anything remotely like this through PR I'd have to make it less personal, which would effectively rip the guts out of it. Where else could it go? The Post? AWW? Don't know?

I don't know the AWW at all. But The Post would take that as it stands.

Yup, go for

You might even think about doing a regular column on "The joys of Jersey" or suchlike.

zdt

You know Terri, when GB said The Post would take it, I did think, "Hey, I could do a series". Then I thought I was going a bit far, what with my inability to finish anything I've written this year.

But I'll take your comments as a nudge in the right direction: I've been wanting to get out and see more of this place I spend 4 days a week on... Writing some entries will give me some purpose... _Not_ trying to write with EG / PR in mind might just take the pressure off...

Now, what to call it? "Notes From a Small Island"? No, Bill Bryson has beaten me to it. Hmmm.

They're very flexible at <./>thepost</.> so you could maybe start off doing a "one off article" then if you felt like it, expand & do a once monthly/fortnightly/weekly, whatever...

I wrote a weekly column for quite a while; "The Hootoo Home of Today"; archive is at A1008550 . The first one is pretty crap, far too long & rambling, they get better as i get more practice! It's certainly good discipline "oh gawd, it's Tuesday & i haven't started my column!"

I might decide to do some more stuff my self later, we shall see...

zdt

Thanks again for the encouragement. I'm really considering putting an edited version up for The Post.

As for writing a series though...
Deadlines
The prospect of "oh gawd, it's Tuesday..." fills me with dread. On the one hand the Paff family moto is "there's nothing like a good deadline", but on the other hand, I've always been of the opinion that Real Life is more important than this virtual malarkey, so I might not quite have the commitment.
Improvement
Like you say, I'd expect to get better with practice. I also think there's room for improvement with some serious editing (which I didn't do with my journal entry).
More material
I did a 6 mile walk last night (especially for this reason), came back and rattled off 600 words to cover the first 400yds. It already needs an edit down, or all 6 miles will take 14,000+ words.


Right then. I'm off to have a read of A1008550 .

s back. Then when I've done that, I've got 5 and 3/4 miles to write up.