Inner Peace

12 November

I have become a living cliché with nothing new to say, and no original thoughts. I know this because yesterday evening I found inner peace walking by the river. She looked like twilight would if twilight were a person, ethereal but with wisps of mist gently hanging over the water. Oh dear. Maybe there's a reason cliches exist. Perhaps some are actually based in reality.

This couldn't be a bigger contrast from tonight. Tonight I am parked at a beach, somewhere near Perpignan. It was beautiful here during the day, isolated, quiet, not a soul in sight other than some naked fat dude who appeared while I was sat watching sailing boats on the horizon. In the car park there was a fellow Brit and I crammed 12 days of English conversation into 15 minutes. Dutifully remembering the wise words of you have two ears and one mouth, use them in that proportion. Because it really would not do to be rude. Besides which the Brit was kind of extraordinarily posh. Has a residence in France, has a huge ex Austrian Army van converted to living accommodation and does something in the city when in the UK. He travels a lot and named all manner of places he'd been, Libya, Egypt, when still safe to do that. Nowadays he does Europe and Morocco. I returned to the beach this evening thinking it might be a pleasant place to stay and had a sign saying camping cars 48 hours parking only please.

Two other vans are here, and I've been talking to Pascale, the man next door. Somehow in my broken French and his broken English I have managed to establish my chosen venue for the night changes radically as darkness falls and is in fact the local dogging spot. Or possibly the dogging spot for the entire Argyles coast. I've drawn the curtains and locked the doors. Not because I feel any fear of dogging as such, it's just a harmless occupation between consenting adults and they don't tend to hit on non consenting. However, Pascale has already offered me variously tea, comedy DVDs, whacky backy. He's also offered me some words regarding my brown hair and blue eyes, new words for pretty I understand. Still, at least if he's gently and from a mild kind of a distance coming on to me, he is at least prepared to keep at that distance, and he's here if a bigger threat comes along. So the bottle of wine I bought for tonight can wait, as can my intended evening stroll on the beach. Just in case I need to get the key in the ignition and get the hell out of dodge … The second van by the way has two men in it who look the very stereotype of dogging participants.