Parries → The Soft Ache of Cold Hotels 

Here I sit cold in a hotel yet in my hometown because we have no internet access at our new place on Tichborne St. British Telecom is unable to fix “the fault in the exchange” (whatever that means) until July 4th. No, July 10th. No, July 12th. There’s broadband all around but not for me.

Why a hotel? We were invited to the local rabbi’s this past Shabbat lunch—I was very honoured and they’re a terrific couple and seem younger than what their years must be given they have nine—nine!—children, the eldest being 24. Also invited were another British-Israeli couple, he a Netanya man, brought from England at the tender age of eleven, back here to further his career in hotel management. He’s manager of the Premiere Inn right here on North Street. He invited me to come use the hotel’s wifi and here I am. Who would have thought a fellow British Israeli lived and worked here in this so goyish place!

At first it was a delight, the cool fresh hotel lobby feeling, reminiscient of exciting business travel days of yore. But oh how my extremities are getting achey in this unnecessarily air-conditioned space. There are signs up that it’s £7.50 for the all-you-can-eat hotel buffet breakfast. May just take them up on that.

So we’re settling in to the new place even though the carpets still smell rather ghastlily. That’ll be one of the necessaries for the next place I move to: no carpets. They are not color neutral for one thing (turquoise) so you’re already forced from the ground up into a color scheme you don’t necessarily care for. As it happens I can dig turquoise but still. The best part so far: the backyard is now set up and quite effortlessly picturesque, with its greenage and raw brick walls. Until we start trying to grow wee vegetables nothing else need be done except the daily maintenance of clearing the butts from the ashtray and the leaves from the ground. A weekly sweep as well. Small activities that so far are somehow pleasurable.

Speaking of hominess, let me relate a little eatiness I did recently. Use slices of cucumbers as your cracker. On them, place squares of Red Leicester cheese. On top of that, a big pinch of pickled cockles. Even better: skip the cheese and place on the cucumber a pinch of shrimps with small dollop of mayonnaise.

I did eatiness in the above paragraph. Is it ok to so abandon the language in which one is writing? Is it ok to so write with nothing but Red Leicester and shrimps to write about?

If wheat gives you heartburn too, then using cucumber as your cracker is like a Zeusy sashay among piled clouds in miniature.