Henry David Thoreau (1817-62) U.S. philosopher
I went to Seville to play rugby and instead ended up dancing Flamenco. Before any of that came to pass I had no inkling as to what fate had in store for me as I laid in bed with a plaster running all the way up to my hip.
My teachers had always said it was what I did best. My mother had always said that it was a shame that I couldn’t get paid for it and I was certain that it gave me some of my happiest moments. However, sitting there looking out of the window, day-dreaming once again, it now took on a whole new perspective because just for once, come the end of this particular mind meandering, it would result in a decision that would actually change my life radically.
I looked out of the bedroom window. Looking over the tree tops of the gardens below and out to Plymouth Sound, my gaze followed the water past Drake’s Island floating in the near distance and across to the Mount Edgecumbe Estate on the Cornish Coast. Beyond the breakwater the sea sparkled like falling confetti. My imagination ran around inside my head like an interminable and pleasurable game of pinball. I didn’t want the moment to die nor reach its conclusion too quickly. I realised the rarity of the occasion and knew that it would be a long time before I could do such a thing again, if ever. I had the luxury of time granted by youth and the inclination to go off and seek out my own corner of the world. And I was going to decide on a destination, right now from this bed. All I had to do was let my thoughts and dreams wander in the right direction and when the grey matter stopped, that was where I would be heading come the end of the summer. Only problem was, I had to get my leg out this boulder-like plaster first. The rock hard mould ran from ankle to my hip itching every inch of its way.
Plymouth Sound Breakwater
But just then my leg didn’t hold my thoughts as I imagined myself flying between Buenos Aires and Rio; trying my luck in Africa; seriously weighing up the possibilities of South East Asia before finally returning inevitably to what I knew best, and that was Spain. And in Spain there was one place that had attracted me like a magnet ever since the age of sixteen: Seville. The name alone was enough to make me set my notes aside in class and dream the lesson away. Over the years I had gradually built up an impression of the city without any first hand experience of it. I had never read nor spoken to anyone - visitor or native - about Seville, so how it came about I don’t really know. Perhaps too many monotonous European history lessons where the only place that seemed to shine through all the confusion and dark Medieval times was the city of Carmen, Don Juan and a certain barber. If fables of ‘wine, women and song’ were to be believed during these unpleasant times it couldn’t have been a half bad place.
But what clinched it for me was the unique character that was Byron. Lord Byron, had stayed in the city in 1815 and eulogised “her strength, her wealth, her site of ancient days” and penned his most lasting praise: “a pleasant city, famous for oranges and women.” If he was the very epitome of the European Romantic era and he had given a little of his patronage and prose in the name of the city’s pleasures, then that was all I needed to convince me of the city’s mystique. And what would the Romantic Movement have been without Andalucía and especially her lyrically named capital of Sevilla? But just how much of it was still true to this day would remain to be seen… would remain for me to discover. The modern era of industrialization and consumer mass produced culture had been harsh on the image of ‘Merry’ Old England, but had the same happened to Seville, the city of my school-day dreams? As soon as I was out of plaster I would hobble off and find out.
