I CAN'T remember where I put my bank card and what the blasted number is – codes and passwords to countless computer accounts dance about in my head like alphabetti spaghetti. But fragments of poetry from 50 years ago roll easily off the tip of my tongue.
I can do a rollicking version of: "I must go down to the sea again / To the lonely sea and the sky." It comes in handy on blowy, blustery days. Blame my teacher, Mrs Murphy, who passed on her love of poetry spoken aloud – the rhyme and the rhythm and the sheer joy of it.
Years later, I tried the poetry thing with a young class when I was a teacher. It was the Ballad of Sir Patrick Spens and it needed a Billy Connolly accent.
"The King sits in Dumferline town / Drinking the blood red wine."
I brought out a wine glass full of blood-red wine to sip to add the drama. The children's faces were aghast. It was Ribena. But It fairly got their attention in that "Jaysus, miss is on the Buckfast" way.
And all this is a sideline to going down to the sea again a la John Masefield and dear Mrs Murphy.
It was Valentine's Day so a friend and I decided a bit of self love was in order. We took the road to Newcastle back to the seaweed baths where the temperature is hot and the seaweed is, we are reassured, well and truly washed. No fear of crabs about here.
It was cold, miserable and blowing a gale in Newcastle. The Mourne mountains were in absentia. "It's been 50 shades of grey around here this week," sighed one of the other customers. She meant the clouds and the wind and the rain. But I was thinking handcuffs and whips.
At the baths, there was a fire in the grate and a kind man who was about to heat up our baths for us and lay out the seaweed. Once, they offered a milk bath – a Cleopatra in the asses' milk experience. But we went for the regular experience with music of your choice and a steam room to steam ourselves scarlet.
A woman who was a Monday regular waited in the reception. She looked well on it. We chatted weather and the power of a hot bath. We're old hands at this too. Nevertheless, one of us is wary of God's little creatures lurking about in the seaweed. She put down the bath mat to ensure they cometh not near her nether parts. The other of us didn't give a flip.
"La vita e bella," I told her before ducking underneath so that my hair was thick and globby with seaweed oil.
It was a joy to lie like a pair of Romans at an orgy, in twin baths, just chatting. We talked big significant birthdays on the horizon. She's not over fussed. Me? I don't care. Just like I can cast off my clothes without truly caring any more. Who's looking, after all?
The next significant milestone is grand by me. "I'm here, I'm still here and I'm damn sure I'm going to have a good time," I told her.
The warm bath, the soft music; your troubles ease away. The seaweed was salt, sweet and slippery. It whispered of long-ago rock pools and limpets wedged to rocks. My brother would pry one off and squeeze its tummy until it stuck a tiny head out.
The smell of salt water on my fingers brought back a long ago summer in Connemara when my aunt, a no-nonsense maths teacher, trotted me down to the water's edge and taught me to swim. She wore a rubber swimming hat with floppy flowers. She strode along in the water with me floating behind her, my hands on her waist.
"Kick!" she ordered. I kicked. When the lesson was over, I'd turn over and float in the waves – a starfish girl looking up at the golden eye of the sun.
My Valentine's bath was about kindness and warmth. Thank's for that, Paul.
Thank you to the young woman who owns the Olive Bizarre cafe and fell into chatting with us. She insisted on serving us raspberry and coconut cake on the house after a slight cake faux pas. It was home baked and and delicious and delivered with true kindness.
Yes, life is beautiful. I'll drink to that... just not in Ribena.
