Literature is perhaps one of the arts we love the most, even though it’s the one we do in the seclusion of our bedrooms and homes. It is a solitary sport after all and while tastes differ yet often converge, it’s not the topic most often heard when blowing the froth off a few with your mates at the local on a Friday afternoon.
Then one of aforementioned goes and pens a tome which gives rise to something of a perfect storm. An opening night with free flow, a host of the old mates and a book to banter about.
Nigel Simmonds escaped his other life nearly three decades ago, a lot of us didn’t know him then and only got to know him through the work he does here in Bali as the editor of the Yak magazine, then world events put a kibosh on print and he turned his dab hand to penning a book. Before you jump to the same conclusion most of us did, he told me it wasn’t a quarantine thing, apparently all Covid did was provide some time for him to pull out and dust off some storage boxes of notes and reignited a project he’d begun twenty odd years before. Part autobiographical, part fictional, you’ll have to ask him which is which, it’s an account of the heady days of his youth when he first washed ashore in Bali.
An overly moist Bali afternoon that drifted into evening undoubtedly dampened several people’s idea of travelling to Canggu to celebrate Nigel’s accomplishment. More's the pity, though a steadfast and strong crowd of puddle jumpers defied the drizzle to come out to collect their own copy of his long-awaited digest, toast his success and health and take in some wonderful hand typed extracts he’d framed up.
You can collect your own copy of "Eating the Wind", if you are in Bali by hitting the author up on his instagram, those offshore can use the Amazon link below and get a glimpse to what life was like in Bali for the author after he pulled the ripcord.
Nigel Simmonds INSTAGRAM
You can get Hardcopies and E-Books on this link at AMAZON
We'd be remiss to not thank, Nusa Cana Rum, Heineken Beer and Woolshed Wines for the fabulous Free Flow drinks.
