Expectations

When readership is low, their voice is powerful.

If there was a survey, 100% of readers would tell me my posting is below standard and I need to do better.

To my one reader, thank you for the feedback.

“Forgiveness is a heartache and difficult to achieve because strangely, it not only refuses to eliminate the original wound, but actually draws us closer to its source. “

David Whyte

On Tuesday I decided I was not going to drink on the weekend.

On Thursday morning I put a bottle of Vino Verde in the fridge.

“Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)”

Walt Whitman

It is Thursday evening and we have a friend drop in.

There are some friends who are friends, but inconvenient. Are they even friends?

You enjoy their company, but you do not want them in your personal time.

Invasive.

This friend is a person who is welcome. She is interesting and easy to be around and you can let yourself be yourself and not feel judged.

A true friend, who is always welcome, never an inconvenience.

“What do you most value in your friends?
Their continued existence.”

Christopher Hitchens

We talk and drink wine. We share some food and she knows the perfect time to leave.

It is Saturday and we are heading to Ras Al-Khaimah for an early morning paddle.

We are out on the water as the sun rises and it is the perfect way to start the day.

A sea turtle surfaces near the boat when we are taking a break.

There are flocks of cormorant flying overhead. Not the common Socotra, these have a silver belly.

As we pull the boat into the shallows I watch the tiny fish in the shallows through the light oily scum that sits on the surface.

I am constantly shocked at natures commitment to existence despite our best efforts to destroy it. How anything can exist in a world we treat as a resource to be pillaged, until it is a dump for our waste, is beyond my understanding.

“Humanity has passed through a long history of one-sidedness and of a social condition that has always contained the potential of destruction, despite its creative achievements in technology. The great project of our time must be to open the other eye: to see all-sidedly and wholly, to heal and transcend the cleavage between humanity and nature that came with early wisdom.”

Murray Bookchin

Bruno Latour writes that the human capacity to separate is our ultimate failure. We separate culture from politics, science, from everything, when in fact, they are all part of the same. Latour extends this to how we behave in the natural world, there are humans, and there is nature. Therefore, nature is a commodity for us to own, rather than coexist. We elevate our own species in order to justify the rape of everything that is natural, and not human.

If we were to see every animal, every plant, every rock as equal to humanity, we might start the path to healing our planet and ourselves.

It will never happen, not in my lifetime.

Humans will kill each other over a patch of dirt in the desert, oil or fairytales, take your pick.

Nature stands no chance.

“You who are on the inside, this world terrifies you because, according to you, it’s ‘without a divine master’. But don’t you see that it’s also without a human master? You who are on the outside, this call for renewal of ‘God’ horrifies you because, according to you, it would bring back the old tyranny of the divine. Don’t you see that this world is forever without a creator?”

Bruno Latour

We head home and it is time for Shell to have her braces removed.

Straight teeth.

I lay about doing nothing but reading.

I finish Outer Dark and reaslise I have no fiction books ready to go. I have three books by Cormac McCarthy lined up, but I am determined to read them in order, and these three are not in the chronology I have decided on.

I have no idea why.

I am also out of money, so I cannot afford to buy Child of God and groceries.

Books or food?

“I have no money,” I said severely, “and I have no time. I am busy!”
“Busy with what?” she asked innocently.
“Why my dear child, do you see all these books?”

Guy Endore

I will finish The Ecology of Freedom and start something by William B. Irvine.

I read through the day and don’t eat dinner. Before I realise, it is time for bed.

It is Saturday and I am not feeling the best.

The only thing I can think of is that I didn’t drink any wine last night. My body is reeling from lack of antioxidants.

“yet at times it must be stimulated to rejoice without restraint and austere soberness must be banished for a while.”

Seneca

Shell has a work conference this morning. It will give me a chance to do some jobs and the groceries.

I have cooked dinner and I have started reading A Slap In The Face by William B. Irvine.

Time for a wine. Gaja Brunello (see the notes below on this unique and incredible wine).

We round out the evening with a few ports, vintage and tawny.

Paddling at Nikki Beach tomorrow.

Hopefully the wine restores my constitution.

“And although wealth can procure for us physical luxuries and various pleasures of the senses, it can never bring us contentment or banish our grief.”

William B. Irvine

Sunday and I am feeling much better after the restorative wine the night before.

The swell is down so we are out of Nikki Beach this morning on the OC6.

There is a thick fog. Dubai gives the impression that it is not polluted. After Kuala Lumpur and Phnom Penh, it certainly seems like the air is clear.

Today the fog has an unpleasant brown aspect.

Of the top ten polluters per capita, gulf countries make up eight. UAE comes in at number six. A nod to Australia, who comes in at number 10 and is the only country in the Pacific of note in the top twenty.

“Because normal human activity is worse for nature than the greatest nuclear accident in history.”

Martin Cruz Smith

A solid two hour hit out for 17km and we head to The House of Wisdom for a coffee and some food.

Nothing builds an appetite in me like paddling.

I read some more Irvine before we head home.

I lay about for the rest of the day and accomplish nothing more than reading and preparing lunches for next week.

Paddling or age seems to be catching up with me.

“The old writer couldn’t write anymore because he had reached the end of words, the end of what can be done with words.”

William S. Burroughs

The wines we drank –

Thursday

NV Gazella Vinho Verde (Portugal)

Fun drinking. See previous notes

2020 Sensi Chianti (Chianti, Italy)

Rough and ready, but good drinking. See previous notes.

2021 Cossetti Clemente & Figli Barbera d’Asti Superiore La Vigna Vecchia (Piedmont, Italy)

These Barbera’s are such great wines. Without the price tag of the Barolo and Barbaresco the Piedmont is famous for, they seem to always over deliver. Blackberries and cinamon on the nose. The palate is full and silky, definitely some malo fermentation. Great wine.

Saturday

2021 Castello Di Albola Chianti Classico (Chianti, Italy)

Typical Chianti profile. See previous notes.

2018 Gaja Pieve Santa Restituta Brunello Montalcino (Montalcino, Italy)

More famous for his Barbaresco, Angelo Gaja is a bot of a juggernaut these days. This is a single vineyard wine (Pieve Santa Restituta) which sits right next to the famous Soldera plot. Ancient vines, low yields, sought after aspect, single vineyard… I had no idea what I was opening until I found this wine in Kerin O’Keefe’s book on Brunello.

This is a stunning wine. Powerful and structured, yet elegant and balanced. Dried herbs, flowers and strawberries dominate the nose. A beautiful wine.