So to the Albert, I thought it best I publicly apologise to you while you're still here. We'll have an ale on the other side.
That's why I hesitated only briefly before imbibing a quick pint at one of the Albert's contemporaries last Friday.
Just seven years the Albert's junior, the Wimbledon Tavern, south-east of Dannevirke, has long beckoned. I've passed often, arranged to meet people there at numerous times, but to no avail. That elusive Wimbledon pint has never materialised.
Last Friday I was sent on a rural writing assignment to said area. I spent an hour and a half climbing sheep tracks and stumbling across some of the most pristine coastal farmland in this province.
I was completely in my element. The grass is always greener, and this time I was on the greener side. A townie in the wild sticks. This was a rare chance to escape the heat of the newsroom, the emails, the phone calls, the requests, the bug-sharing air-conditioning and fluorescent light bulbs zapping my vitamins.
A tui high on nectar heralded my approach, Cape Turnagain stood like a shady sentinel and chain-collared farm dogs slept with one eye open. Every step in this verdant paradise marked an improvement in my mood.
The cellphone had no coverage. Bliss. Ti kouka trees clung with taloned roots to the sides of hills and an old totara shaded a 5-berth dog kennel.
As I tend to do in such beautiful solitude, I got a little existential. That is, I harked back to Paul Gauguin's famous 1897 painting, titled: D'ou Venons Nous? Que Sommes Nous? Ou Allons Nous? (Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?)
I was bedazzled, dazed, disoriented and confused. Thing is, no one, even those in academic circles, can agree on what the word "existential" means. It's because those who contemplate its definition are usually existentialists and are, as I said, dazed and confused.
To this scribe it often means melancholy - the proverbial existential angst. But nonetheless it's a healthy and constructive angst, particularly when most of the province is more concerned with which local authority's letterhead will appear on future rates bills, if fluoride is in fact the new arsenic or, (as we were recently cautioned) whether the pantry boasts sufficient rations for one's pooch in a civil defence emergency.
Give me strength. I say we need to go Gauguin a little more often.
Still in this frame of mind on the way home, I came across the intersection. Or, given the contemplative mood, the crossroads.
On the corner lay the Wimbledon Tavern. I was on deadline. The road back to work was on the right. The pub on the left. Major intersection - major decision. My thoughts returned to the Albert. The left-hand indicator began flashing.
Surely the publican would rid me of angst with a cold stout and talk of weather. No more worrying over my ephemeral place on this earth. No more Gauguin.
Instead, he inquired: "Just passing through?"
