Tom Graves / Tetradian

I’ll admit it: I’m running away.

This would-be holiday has instead been more like an endurance-test often verging on the kind of nightmare that won’t stop but also won’t let you wake up. What it certainly hasn’t been is either of the two things I’ve really needed, namely a sense of relaxation, and time to get deeper into writing. So I’m cutting my losses both literally and metaphorically, and heading back tomorrow morning, with an all-night drive to the airport at Porto after a seminar I’ve been asked to give in Sintra this evening. (The Portuguese like their events late: the damn thing doesn’t even start till 9:30pm…)

Coimbra was definitely the highlight, yet even that hammered home again the all-too-frequent emptiness  and loneliness of this life of mine. The Portuguese word soldade is right at the core of fado: in a very loose sense it’s similar to the Welsh word hiraedd, but also perhaps even more about the sense of belonging, or more accurately of enforced disconnection from the literal and metaphoric ‘place of belonging’. Seems that sense of connection is something that I’ve never had – not even in the shallow popular tribal form of ’supporting’ some football club :wrygrin: The dull nothingness of soldade – not even the definiteness of a hurt or pain, just a constant background gnawing, the ‘black dog’ – is something that been so much a constant companion that it’s a shock to notice its rare absence. Which certainly hasn’t been the case here.

Oh well: ’twas a good idea at the time, I guess…

A quick note about Internet in Portugal. Wi-fi is available in the larger hotels, such as the Ibis chain at which I often stay, but it is not free – in fact an absurd €5/hr or €20/day (i.e. more than £4 and £17 respectively).

The Portuguese government, however, has other ideas. Most larger towns now have a free internet-cafe, run by the local Chamber of Commerce or equivalent – and they do allow tourists to use them. This one is in the small walled town of Obidos, about an hour north of Lisbon. Back in Coimbra, there was a sign apologising that the building was closed for repairs – but they’d deliberately left their wi-fi running, so there was a huddle of students and others sitting with their laptops on the steps outside. Nice. Worth looking out for whilst you’re travelling, anyways.

Just spent a couple of days in the university city of Coimbra, roughly in the centre of the country. Last time I came through here, all manner of serendipitous matters occurred – good cafe conversations, a play, a Brazilian comedic-poet, and a one-off event of a fado gathering of alumni from the University who’d gone out on the international circuit and returned home for the one day that year. Hence I’d had a chance at last to hear some real fado, rather than the ghastly tourist-junk we’d had the misfortune to hear at the TOGAF conference in Lisbon back then.

(If you don’t know of it, fado is a specific Portuguese musical style, with either a tenor – as in Coimbra – or an alto – as in Lisbon – as the singer, accompanied by one player on the guitarre – actually a kind of twelve-string mandola – for the counter-melody, and another on the viola – which confusingly is what anyone else would call a guitar – providing the bass. Like the original blues songs, fado is [almost?] always about loss, in Lisbon about the loss of a lover, in Coimbra about loss of connection to place: no doubt Dave Snowden would be happy to hear that in Welsh terms this would be hiraedd about cynefin. )

Coimbra did it for me again. Happened to notice a reference to a fado place called A Capella (apologies, don’t have the URL), a re-used chapel up on the north wall of the old town. Started off as kind of upmarket fado-for-tourists, but as the evening moved into night, I was just about the only tourist left, whilst the rest of the place was packed with Portuguese, many of them clearly friends of the musicians – in fact a couple of them joined in as soloists or accompanists – and one of the final pieces was just stunning as pretty much the entire audience joined in for the chorus, as a full-on choir. The only catch was that, like way too many Portuguese events, it didn’t even start till 10pm – well after pretty much everything in Britain or Australia would finish – and finally wound to a close somewhat after 2am, or about four hours after I’m usually in bed. Hence kinda wrecked this morning, especially as I had to check out in a hurry. Worth it, though: very recommended.

(Will post a photo or two when I get at a wi-fi – this is in an internet-cafe in Obidos, of which more in the next post.)

Okay, fado is an odd musical taste to acquire, but feels like one that’s worth doing so.

And just as I was leaving, a young woman busking on the main drag, playing a button-accordion with some really good Breton tunes – one of which I knew, and really must learn. Oh dear, I hear the infection / infatuation of another musical-instrument coming on… Breton tunes really work on the accordion…

Coming somewhat out of my glumph from the ‘Dispirited’ post: apologies for inflicting it on y’all and that, but I is who is, y’see… :wrygrin: