Cider and dreams
April 13th, 2006 at 10:42 pm by jamesAfter several pints of fine cider at the Goat yesterday evening with a colleague I spent the night – somewhat bizarrely – dreaming of interviews.
Do you have a favourite interview? Mine took place in a roadhouse in the middle of nowhere on the East Coast of South Africa. It’s a rugged rocky stretch of coast with small towns scattered irregularly along it. In between the towns there is absolutely nobody. It’s one of my favourite places.
I’d arranged to stay in a remote fishing shack for a couple of weeks and was being head-hunted by a company who wanted to see me during that particular period. I told them where the nearest excuse for civilisation was and they’d arranged to have someone meet me there. By the time the day came I’d been at the shack for a week or so, so must have smelled rather strongly of fish and other things, the shack not having benefit of a hot water system of any kind. In fact one of the best things about that shack was the ablution arrangements. Perhaps a story for another time.
That morning I bathed in cold water in a tin tub on a grassy bank overlooking iron-grey sea with a 25-knot freezing south-westerly wind whipping up the white horses. Washing more-or-less accomplished, I drove five or ten miles in a 4×4 over beaches and through rivers to meet a very nice man in a suit for breakfast. I’m sure I still smelled of fish. A little surreal it was. I took the job.