43 / Accident of Fate
A lovely and unexpected consequence of publishing a blog that is openly accessible has been renewal of contact with long lost friends and former colleagues - as evidenced below...
I first saw Mowbray in 1963
near Carcassonne in France. He was
hitch hiking beside the road with the castle looming in the distance.
I
was also hitch hiking – on my way back from Madrid. I’d gone to Spain since it was cheaper than France, and I had
little money. I’d been working on a farm in Austria for food and board
only. I’d been sleeping rough traveling
through Italy and Southern France eking my limited funds out until I could earn
money in the vendange or grape harvest.
However, when I reported for work fish were swimming in the vineyards,
and so the vendange was delayed until the floods receded.
Later
Mowbray turned up at the youth hostel in Lezignan Corbieres where multi-national
grape pickers were hungrily awaiting the the vendange. New arrivals were easily identified by
the time they spent in the primitive toilets – a consequence of stuffing
themselves with the rare bunches of white grapes they had rescued from the mess
covering the vines…
When
Mowbray and I finally moved to the primitive little village of Roubia (our base
for the grape harvest in the surrounding vineyards) we hit it off, and became
friends. After a few weeks I hitch
hiked back to the UK – nearly two stones lighter - to start University but we
stayed in contact.
Was
our meeting an accident, fate or merely a co-incidence?
The
following year I had a serious motorcycle accident and spent five weeks In
hospital in Czechoslovakia. The
resulting long convalescence meant I had to postpone my University course for a
year. Without this I would not
have met the girl who subsequently became my wife and mother of our three
children.
Once again was this an accident, fate or merely a co-incidence.
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| © Benóg Brady Bates |
