Days 8, 9 & 10

...so I spend the next three days blissfully doing nothing at all! After a successful meal at La Muraccia on Friday night (my table booking antics had been competent enough to cause no problems), we went home and carried on drinking for another couple of hours.

The ten of us are making a concerted and quite effective effort to reduce the European wine lake, and this has led to a deepening of the conversations in the evenings over the weekend. This is inevitable, a large group of people all with vastly differing experiences, associations and opinions, their brains and tongues lubricated by copious amounts of wine, will of course spend some time talking about a wide range of subjects. For the quartet of younger holiday-makers, this is a particularly interesting opportunity to establish ourselves in the group as, if not peers, then certainly people with active minds, valid opinions and something worthwhile to contribute. When things go wrong, these discussions can deteriorate into real arguments, opening up chasms of ideological differences that can wreck a holiday and possibly friendships.

Fortunately, the individuals on this trip are all strong enough, sensible enough and mature enough to know that in the morning we can all be friends again. No-one has judged anyone else, we can all blame the alcohol and if things get too hairy, we can always fall asleep.

Our "putting the world to rights" debates have covered a variety of topics, but often come back to the old chestnut of theatre, which is after all the things that unites us, and binds us together, like the Jedi force. It's been really nice for me to see people like David and Jacquie, Pete and Sally outside of the usual context and, I sincerely hope, end up closer to them. If nothing else, I would be very glad if this holiday has the sole result that these four warm, intelligent and talented people are people I can regard as true friends, and that they regard me in the same light, rather than just as people who belong to the same theatre company and get along quite well. I think it takes an experience like two weeks together in a foreign country to confirm such an outcome.

For my own part, I worry that I have been coming across as self-absorbed. The bizarre personality traits that I have developed lead to a real tension between arrogance and insecurity, and I have found myself, when making my own contributions to these chats, constantly seeking affirmation. I am aware that this could quickly become tiresome, and have resolved to keep it in check from now on. I just genuinely need, in my skewed version of egotism, to be reassured that what I am doing, or thinking, is all right, and certainly to receive this assurance from people whose views I respect and opinions I trust.

I think one real positive is that Sally and I have had an opportunity to, I hope unequivocally, clear up the fug of tension and confusion that drifted about during Golden Pathway Annual.

As late nights and alcohol consumption bordering on the obscene take their toll in the mornings, I have been very glad of taking a few days out. It has been lovely just dipping into the pool, or reading in the rocking chair that I have adopted, getting the trust and affection of the dogs that occupy the grounds, and updating this journal. A change may be as good as a rest, but a rest is pretty damn fine as well.

That said, after three days of laziness, I am eager now to get out and about again, and what better way to shake off the cobwebs of lethargy than to take a trip to the top of a mountain?