A thousand miles on the road can be exhausting. This week I’ve seen the tangerine sun rise into spotted purple clouds; my jaw has dropped in awe of a vivid, vertical rainbow which pierced a porous sky, and my concentration has been stretched by the mesmeric struggle to locate other vehicles in the dense mists of M25 road spray. As stimulating as it all is I still need renewing, and exchanging tyres for feet, have found the perfect antidote to work-travel stresses ironically positioned on the corner of one of Brighton’s busiest traffic junctions.
Ahmed the Turkish barber lies me back in the soft leather chair and I’m easy game for his swift razor moves. The blade tickles as it cuts through the facial cream- generously lathered between sandwich layers of forehead and neck. The Turks know how to pamper the man in style. As the Arabic ‘house’ music beats hypnotically, I can feel my brow twitching to the rhythms beneath a Dead Sea mud mask which follows the wet-shave. Sometimes the rituals are undertaken without conversation but today there is friendly dialogue. He tells me how he was apprenticed into the cutting trade by an uncle and cousin up in Newcastle, after a string of short-term, education struggles.
‘Do you travel much? I ask .
‘I like travelling yes. Birmingham, Manchester, Newcastle, London, my Turkish village.’
Except for Turkey, they sound like my wretched thousand miles which I’d not exactly call travelling, but life experiences can richly differ. We chat some more. His thoughts wander into places yet to be discovered and inhabited. He has a centring wisdom on young shoulders which I admire, and his work clearly relaxes him. At such a young age he seems fulfilled.
An hour and a half later, he sculpts the sharp ‘number one’ short, back and sides into familiar style, empties a pourri of lotions onto my tightening skin and I am positively zinging.
I pry one last question. ‘A sunrise or vertical rainbow. When did you last see these things?’
He thinks, then wistfully replies. ‘No man. I watch films, eat crisps and chocolate and cut hair.’
But he is a curious traveller, and I am temporarily transposed from stress into relaxation.
So here is a recommendation for the weary worker. ‘Google’ the nearest Turkish Barber when you next plan your busy schedules. You might just travel the farthest distance without ever leaving the chair and leave blissfully renewed and restyled!
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It’s been three years since I was heavily institutionalised by Highways Agency laws. Yellow telescopic masts appeared overnight, beady camera eyes were set on motorists, cones reined us in and 40 signs bombarded from every verge.
Every Sussex resident knows the widening of the A23 on Handcross Hill as a major event. Initially it was a shock. In the name of progress and improvement the tree-lined reservation was cruelly lopped as some lamented the radical deforestation of a place so familiar. Then began the requisition of land for carriageway widening, followed by skilful ironing out. Over time, we hardly noticed it change beyond recognition. To be fair, drivers get used to the inconvenience, contra-flow lane snaking, diversions and overnight closures.
Then on the dot of October, travelling home with a lecturing colleague the oddest moment occurred.
My colleague is colourful. Her chatter is an incessant collage of ideas and connections echoed in her wonderfully successful commercial textiles and illustrations. The mutual banter she fashions makes the drive less tedious and infinitely more enjoyable. It balances well against my ingrained, behavioural instinct to be alert and rightly marshalled, and I slow to 40 as the hill approaches.
But for the first time ever I suddenly can’t cope. She jabbers on, cars behind flash their lights at me and erratically overtake. For twenty seconds confusion gained control of my brain, before a sudden and profound silence gripped us both! We were stopped in our tracks yet weirdly still moving on. Smooth tarmac straightness, openness, throttle releasing to 70, bridges, traffic in vertical lines and wide eyes open to newness never before encountered. We marvelled, sharing a ‘first time’ moment. The road is finished! These happening moments are never institutionalised, nor can they be. It is food for thought, and has cut twenty minutes off my colleague friend’s intricate stories; tales which could so easily weave and journey their way for three years or more.