This is the life. It took a while to get here through a bank holiday traffic jam, but in the middle of the afternoon I was lying on a sun lounger by a lake, looking up at the vivid green leaves of a tree against the deep blue sky with the hot sun beating down on me. It was unsettlingly beautiful in spite of, or because of its simplicity. Was this Britain in April? If this is global warming, then I for one, am complaining. Because it's against God and Nature and can only bring terrible consequences to the world.
But in spite of the imminent destruction of the planet it was still rather pleasant to be able to lie down and think and not have to worry about doing a show or a podcast or a photo session. Ducks took off in flight from the water, which is quite a feat of nature and I thought about the first duck or duck like creature that pulled off this stunt and the evolutionary advantage it must have enjoyed, as well as the surprise that it might have felt at being air-borne and the surprise of the dinosaur that was chasing it (my knowledge of evolution may not be entirely accuarate). But the point is that the world was full of wonder and I had time to stop for once and I would have fallen asleep if it wasn't for the shrill laughter of a woman forty feet away on another sun lounger (who presumably evolution had caused to develop this loud cackle in order to stop her tribe snoozing on the savannah and being eaten by Brontosauruses)
We couldn't stay out too long as we had to go for our first treatment of the weekend, that old favourite Thlassotherapy, which I first wrote about
the last time I came here. My girlfriend wondered if we would be taken through the experience by Gary again and whether he would do the same jokes as last time. We were pleased to see his Father Christmas from the Planet of the Apes face come through the door. Despite my previous blog about him he is a calm and friendly prescence who seems to genuinely enjoy his job, even though, on suspects, it must be a little bit boring to guide people through this experience on the hour every hour of the day. I wondered if he did any other duties at the health farm and for a second considered the fact that he might have been the man who did the hot and cold stone treatments on me and "inadvertently" touched my penis. I don't think it was him - that was many years ago - but Gary is such a nice guy that I don't mind if it was. I am certain it wasn't him though, just in case his lawyers are reading this. And think I might have dreamed the incident in any case.
Gary was full of cheerful chat again and I was delighted to see that he had a whole raft of new material to entertain us with. He complained of the difficulty of explaining his job on the recent census form and I turned to my girlfriend and pointed out that he had incorporated some new topical stuff. His turn over of material is better than most stand ups and he has the disadvantage of pretty much all his stuff having to be about Thlassotherapy.
I still think this treatment is a bit of a waste of time, but in spite of my cynicism I enjoyed having streams of salty water shooting against my spine and up my mousehole. I looked at Gary sitting waiting for ten minutes to be up so we could all move round to the next piece of underwater equipment. He looked pensive and quiet, sitting in the anteroom, perhaps not realising he could be observed through the window. I wondered if his job got to him with its relentless predicatability. There are much worse jobs to have and he seemed to get through it all cheerfully, but I remarked that I wouldn't be surprised if by night he vented his frustration by killing strangers. Maybe the bonhomie was a facade. I told my girlfriend that if I worked here I would definitely wank off into the pool on a daily basis as a form of revenge against the stupid people who came here. In fact I wondered if the pool was actually meant to be just water, but the years of bored and frustrated employees who had whacked off into the pool had made it eye-stingingly brackish. My girlfriend looked at me askance, almost as if it was me who was weird for even thinking this, rather than the frustrated custodians of the Thlassotherapy pool surreptitiously spilling their gametes into the waters. Some people are weird.
Gary sprung to life every time he came back out to the pool and told us of the argument that he had witnessed between two women recently when there had been confusion over who should be in which bit. I admired his professionalism. I only have to perform once a day and sometimes it takes a little while to work myself up into a state that makes this possible. He has to stay on for the whole day. No wonder he looks pensive in between. And who could blame him for killing people under the cloak of night or soiling the waters with his bodily emissions. There is not a court in the land that would convict him.
He doesn't do that though. Let this be a warning to any health farms to never allow me to be in charge of any water-based equipment.
