TEN DAYS Part Two

Before I know it, the various songbirds of Le Champagne have taken centre stage. Those birds are quite familiar, not that different from the hubbub of my childhood awakenings back in the burbs huddling at the juncture of North West Kent and South East London. The cheery flutes of blackbirds, the busy chatter and chirrup of sparrows, the mournful cooing of wood pigeons. It’s just another day in their world, I assume. The usual worries and tasks, flights to and fro gathering food for what is likely to be a thrashing pile of fledgling offspring, demanding, urging, and relentless.

We asked for an 8.30 breakfast. In our eagerness, we are awake early enough to bring that forward by a half hour, which is fine by our hostess. Downstairs is where continental breakfast will be served. The surroundings are spotless, of course, with a large woodburner in the corner, redundant at present. There are large wooden sideboards, a couple of tables and chairs.  The place has a kind of barn feel to it, quite probably because it was one once upon a time. Breakfast it’s self is a cornucopia of carbohydrates, coffee and confiture. There are other food types present, yoghurt and butter representing the delegate from the world of fats, but there is precious little in the way of protein. It’s all so neat in its nature this style of breakfast, so it seems appropriate for it to be provided by our hostess in these spruce environs. There is quite a lot of it though. So, because I am an absolute gutbucket, I sit for quite some time gorging myself, because I also know that this will be the last free meal till tomorrow morning, and I am going to be surviving on the road in a Vauxhall. The horror of it all! Ray seems less perturbed by the potential for starvation on the impending journey. He eats only a moderate amount. I don’t eat much bread at home, but here it’s practically ubiquitous, and as usual, I revert to whatever I can get, particularly if it’s not really costing me anything except my dignity. Dignity can be highly overrated in my opinion. This is the first trip abroad since my near moratorium on wheat based food. I think now though, a suspension of the suspension is in order, because Italy will be equally full of the stuff.

We’ve finished brekky by around 9am and the maps are beckoning us for another planning session. After a very short discussion, a decision is made to avoid tolls and opt for the casual saunter through the world’s most famed wine region. We bid our hostess a polite adieu, and hit the van, not bothering to wake Patrick just yet as he seems to be quite tired after his long day yesterday. (Good!).

Off we set, two travellers determined to get a decent starting stretch under our belts. But wait! Within a few minutes of leaving, there is a call to my mobile. Really? Who the hell?? I miss the call, which necessitates an expensive recall, reaching the answerphone first off. I can hear the cash registers at Virgin Mobile rattling from here. I get through at the second attempt. It is our hostess. She sounds deeply concerned that one of us has left something of indescribable import back at the BnB. Dammit! I knew it was going too well this morning. A passport maybe, or a computer? ‘What is it?’ I ask. ‘A toothbrush?’ .......... (RAYMOND!!) There is a snigger from the passenger seat. ‘No, thanks for ringing, I’m certain he’ll be able to buy another one....... No, really, it’s only a toothbrush...... No, I don’t think it’s anything special.....Yes, ...OK....Great, well, Merci beaucoups pour votre hospitalite....Oui, merci, et au revoir.’ The sniggers develop into laughter as Ray and I muse over what ill fate awaits his toothbrush now. Lonely, cast aside, forlorn and forgotten in a foreign land, redundant. Will it be sold on the black market, becoming just another statistic in a seedy underworld of gingivitis. Or maybe rented out with reckless impunity from the dimly lit doorways of backstreet dentists, suffering a daily onslaught from halitosis crazed French farmers with smiles like unkempt graveyards? Pauvre, pauvre brosse a dents.

Though progress is measurable once we hit the road in earnest again, our leisurely pace gives us a better chance of a tantalising view of the region unfurling around us. It’s a no-brainer decision with hindsight, this tariff free amble around rollercoaster scenery under overcast but gently improving weather conditions. The tarmac cuts a swathe through tiny towns and sleepy villages. Their names are fleeting navigational aids, and once passed through, they can be forgotten. But one cannot fail to have imprinted upon the memory the most striking thing about this place, the utter vastness of the vineyards. Rise after rise, slope after slope, tens of thousands of acres of straight rows of vines stretching off to every horizon like so many well organised legionaries. Leaf upon stem upon root, they line up dutifully at the start of another summer, waiting patiently, ready to convert the typically unbridled ammunition of sunlight into innumerable clusters of grapes. Once their efforts are realised, we will demand the ultimate voluntarily sacrifice of their fruits in our ongoing global war against sobriety. As I ponder this act of unselfishness, I assure them that their supreme altruism will not go to waste on my account. No indeed, because I intend to honour them on a frequent and regular basis.

Patrick, who has been awoken from his slumbers like a yapping Cerberus, does not approve of drinking. He wouldn’t say it to our faces, but deep down we know it. I say we, but really it’s just my stuff this feud of attrition with Pat. Ray has known him longer by far. I’ve only been acquainted for a day. Call me paranoid, but I am getting the distinct impression he doesn’t really like me. Ray displays a calmness and patience with Patrick’s idiosyncratic outbursts which I have yet to bring into play. I’m sure he must have noticed me swearing and chuntering under my breath at him by now. For the time being, Pat and I will have to tread our paths in separate forests.

The skies are lifting, and by the time we are approaching Lyon, the sun has won the most recent battle in its perennial and turbulent war against clouds. It’s getting warmer, the van funk will rise in commensurate proportion, no doubt. Lyon seems to me to be the gateway to the South. As we view it from slight altitude on our approach, its sprawl is noticeable, and to this outsider, its road system appears to have enormous potential for sinister complexities which may be the catalyst for another of my tiffs with Patrick. I have chosen to ignore him. It’s becoming my chief defence against his interruptions. Ray and I have successfully shirked tolls thus far today for the sake of scenic beauty. However, by our combined reckoning, Lyon has to be circumnavigated by motorway for the sake of simplicity, so we reluctantly fork out at the peage and get cracking. Light traffic and decent signposting put the wind back in our sails, and Lyon becomes another box ticked on our itinerary of course plotting targets. But a need for speed is soon usurped by our requirement for more intricate scenery, and again we divert onto smaller and more winding roads. The Alpine backdrop is becoming less and less distant. No longer is this a region of the world known only to my imagination. There it is, ahead, looming large and evoking the spirit of a thousand charity shop puzzle box lids.

Hunger is also looming large, and until we find a shop to buy lunch in, it will grow until it consumes our every thought, or mine at least. So we need to find a supermarche.  Foreign supermarkets being their mix of wonderment, confusion and speedy mental arithmetic, I am soon more than ready for an al fresco feast. We would like to choose a picnic spot in the suburban environs a few minutes’ drive from the shopping area, but it’s easier said than done. Eventually, we settle upon a sort of play-park with tall trees in a suburban looking neighbourhood in Somewhereville, France. One of the more beautiful regions of the world, and we decide, out of time pressured necessity, upon a place where the local kids probably come to smoke illicit tabs and drink stolen hooch. Maybe I’m looking at it through English Park Tinted Spectacles. Are we two middle aged men without children trying their best to look like they should be adjacent to a children’s play park eating a picnic lunch?

Of course, cheese is on the menu. I adore cheese, just bloody love the stuff, but though I’ll eat almost any variety, not all cheeses are to my taste. I have gone for goat cheese with its tang and roof-of-the-mouth itching qualities. Ray has gone for some kind of rubbery stuff. Suffice to say, I don’t share some peoples’ admiration for bendy cheeses. There is also bread, of course, and tomatoes. It’s simple peasant fare. Ray has purchased a bottle of red grape juice. The juice is not rich, or wealthy, or princely. Oh no, it is the most stinkingly decadent grape juice known to mankind. Ray quite aptly describes it as ‘liquid raisins’. I look at the bottle label and sure enough, that’s what it says it is. It’s confirmation in writing, though my French to English translation may lean a little toward my personal requirement for poetic licence rather than any adherence to actual fact.

Fortified and restored by our super duper picnic in the park, we must return to the van with its burgeoning emanations and make for the border. We have a target, Asti, which is some distance across the Alps. It’s funny how we are aiming at another region synonymous with effervescent wine. Coincidence? We will never know. Once more, we assess the dichotomy of toll versus non toll. If time bore no relevance to the decision making process, then an amiable sightseeing roll through this staggering region would be preferable in the extreme. But time is pressing, and we have no real clue as to how steep some of the Alpine roads may be. In an attempt to lobby me toward his way of thinking, Ray embarks on a cautionary tale from his previous experiences, regaling me with disturbing reminiscences about the last trip he made when a burning smell issued from the van due to the effects of steep gradient on a Vauxhall clutch. I really don’t fancy the challenge of calling breakdown, because there are so, so many ways in which that particular scenario can go horribly wrong, so toll it is

Herein lies a tale of simple economics, as it does in all situations where ruthless capitalism reigns supreme. We aren’t the only people who drive around here without local knowledge, and anyway, the roads don’t get any less steep just because one may know them. The ‘somebody’ who sets the toll charges knows this all too well, and not to put too fine a point on it, they exploit the Bejeezus out of it. The bit of toll road we’re to use next is far more expensive than the others. If I remember my economics A level well enough, this is an example of inelastic demand. A reasonable summation of any transaction involving inelastic demand is that it fucking sucks for the consumer. So we unfetter the purse strings once more and pay, because to not do so may mean that later we will be driving around the general vicinity of Asti in darkness, with hunger and frustration the unwelcome accompaniments to Patrick’s increasingly irksome ‘I told you so’ tone.

Once the toll is paid, progress is fast as we drive through a succession of long tunnels intermixed with bursts of wide open road in bright sunshine. And suddenly, Italy is all around us, clutching us to its rocky bosom. We notice that the non-toll road is frequently in view and not looking too slow. Of course! There is a brief moment, when stopped by a genuinely insouciant border patrolman, that I thought there was to be a hitch. But his petty questioning and expression of casual intransigence are short lived, replaced by utter bewilderment as to why two middle aged Englishmen would need to cross the Alps in a small van packed to the gunnels with such an assortment of apparent jumble. Our disguise is perfect, and we can continue unimpeded by the vice like clutch that no doubt exists at the long arm of the law. It’s not long before we trundle into Asti, follow Patrick’s simple instructions, and arrive at the appropriately named Luna, since there will be a full moon beaming once the night sky descends to guide us into a balmy stupor.

Luna is a large two storey house up a steep, narrow lane. It’s adjacent to similar old houses, with their terra cotta roofs radiating the stored heat of the first day of June back at us with accrued interest. I feel that there is an almost palpable veil of sticky air surrounding me. There are leafy vines and big potted plants placed in an unsophisticated and unplanned manner around a walled courtyard. A few chairs surround a metal table under a shady overhanging upper floor.

A middle aged woman ambles out to greet us, and after fairly brief ‘Hellos’ we are shown our rooms. They are full of dark wood and odd artwork, photos from a different era and painted mismatched furniture. In my room, above the bed is a strange painting of Harlequin, or Arlecchino, the 16^th century comic servant from Italian theatre. Do I need a flamboyantly attired jocular butler hanging over my head through my slumbers? Perchance, nay. There is also a classical painting which depicts a gathering of miserable looking folk hanging around in a garden near a city wall. Their facial expressions are so subtle they are almost invisible. I can’t figure out what they’re supposed to be doing, but the composition intrigues me for that very reason. I resolve to seek the artist and name of this painting upon my return to Blighty, but for now it will just have to remain another of Italy’s many mysteries.

And then, and by far the best example of oddness found so far in this house, there are two small highly stylised modern paintings of children, just their faces. Any attempt at a written description of these paintings cannot begin to do justice to the unnerving spookiness of their staring blue eyes.

They are the stuff of horrifying childhood nightmares, a pictorial gateway maybe, to a strange nether world inhabited solely by the most blood-curdling of Old Nick’s imps. Yes, it’s those eyes, eyes that follow one not simply around the room, but also out of the door, around the corner and downstairs all the way back to the courtyard, blowing out the cobweb strewn candelabras which are the only source of illumination along the way. Perhaps my imagination has run amuck a tad, but only a tad.

Soon we are showered and back down to receive a most agreeable complimentary glass of white wine and directions to another venue for dinner. We are recommended Madame Vigna, which is a mile or so away, and that means we need to climb back aboard the van with its lingering, if gentle, aroma of unwashedness.

Madame Vigna is a trattoria at a crossroad in Baldicchieri. Once inside, we are greeted by a young woman who it turns out is the proprietor’s daughter. Good fortune because she speaks decent English. She explains the menu in a dancing tuneful lilt so dramatically unlike our own it’s almost as if it’s emitting from a different species altogether. Soon we are indulging in a beautifully prepared meal under a vaulted ceiling, the sound of Italian chatter bouncing from its angles like raindrops over palm leaves, mingling with rhythms from one of the strangest background CD choices I have ever heard for such a venue. There is some guitar based jazz, not uncommon I suppose. Elvis Costello is not that odd either perhaps, but Joe Satriani? And wait for it, my personal favourite as incongruousness goes, ‘Peaches en Regalia’ by Frank Zappa. We must endeavour to find out why. Once the meal is drawing to a close, the owner comes over for a chat and we find that it’s nothing more bizarre than a CD his mate did for him, so he thought he’d put it on in his restaurant. We turn down generously offered liqueur chasers as we’re going to be driving. Our host, in extremely broken English, still a million miles more useful than my non-existent Italian, proudly tells us he only drinks wine or beer now. His days as a former whiskey guzzler are over due to what I believe may be ulcers or acid reflux judging by his gargoyle impersonations and abdominally directed gesticulations. I wonder what lightweight is in Italian.

We leave shortly afterward with a poorly pronounced ‘Grazie, Buona Notte’ or two. Back at the dark Bed and Breakfast, those terrible eyes pierce my soul, but I’m too exhausted to be unduly troubled by static artwork, despite its notable capacity to unsettle the weak willed. It’s time to stretch out in a comfortable if rather creaky iron framed bed. And so I do, and my world becomes the picture postcard images from my day, ushering me gently through the surreal mountains.

TEN DAYS. Part One

There is a universe sized gulf between silence and sound, and the phone alarm exploding in the general vicinity of my ear is the precise if fleeting moment that the gulf is bridged. I am somebody who dislikes being roused from sleep. It usually takes some time before my senses are fully engaged. I can be the sort of person who can look awake, be fully dressed, and yet still put the tea bag into the kettle then put oats into a cup before I snap out of that particular mindfunk and start the process of breakfast again. Once the curtains are drawn, I can take a peek at what is beyond them. It is instantly apparent that a dreary looking day is dawning almost reluctantly over this Bristol city street. As I shuffle into the kitchen aiming manfully at the kettle, the stalwart kitchen clock ticks away time gently to itself, its hands showing that the time is just past 5.30 am. It really is not usual for me to be willingly awake this early and it is stretching the definition of willingly to say I am this morning. Today though is a day for an early start, just as yesterday evening was an occasion for reluctant alcoholic restraint in the pub with two old friends, reminiscing over just a couple of beers. Many years have escaped since we were all in the same room together, some may slip through the nets before it happens again.

One of those old friends is Ray, and he has been a guest overnight on the sofa bed in my terraced Bristol house. We’re off on an intrepid excursion today, but before embarking on a journey down the many, many long roads ahead, we require food, despite the fact that neither of our respective stomachs is really awake enough to require filling. The menu I can offer isn’t extensive, but whatever it is to be, for me it must contain uber-strength coffee to fire me up for a stint behind the wheel.

It’s been said many times, I suspect, that any journey, however long, starts with the first step. As we step towards the van, I get that exact feeling. It is one foot after the other, marking out a few yards at a time. It’s the first few yards of 1500 miles of road, the first few seconds of three days of travelling.

Since the arrangements were made to drive to Italy, I’ve been waiting to see what the van allotted to such an arduous pursuit will resemble. Behold! It’s a small white Vauxhall with two seats. The back is full of what looks like an assortment of charity shop tat, but is actually somebody’s possessions. Really? I remind myself that being instantly judgemental is both an understandable and reprehensible personality trait.

A driver’s seat is the throne upon which any self-respecting would-be Monarch of the Open Road must place his or herself in order to begin their reign. Upon opening the driver’s door, it is plain that this particular seat may be harbouring anti-Royalist sentiment, because at first glance I discover a slightly less than comfortable looking amalgam of old sofa cushions and rope. On second glance, the conclusions leapt to as a result of my first glance are irrefutably confirmed. This fiendish construction of lumbago-inducing menace stares casually back at me, alleging profound innocence with its quaintly wonky contours. It’s the look that an aging farm dog would give a lost rambler just seconds before it sinks its three remaining tallow-hued teeth almost intractably into an unsuspecting calf muscle. On an olfactory note, the seat is not genuinely unpleasant, but there is a general mingling of low level aromatic funks, the like of which only old vans and their dubious upholstery can emit with such aplomb. A reliable steed though, at least I hope so, because it’s going to be a hell of a journey if it proves otherwise.

I have volunteered to drive the first leg so that I can get used to any idiosyncratic behavioural issues regarding a Vauxhall. I’d rather be doing that in England before having to do so whilst simultaneously concentrating on remaining on the right hand side of the road. The journey starts in a fine drizzle, continues in a fine drizzle, and remains drizzly all the way to Dover. The only breaks in drizzle are the times when it is raining. England my England, this ‘green and pleasant land’, this ‘Sceptred Isle’, I cannot wait to see the back of you.

Dover is not all that Vera Lynn cracked it up to be on this truly miserable Sunday morning. In truth, its appearance is not enhanced by the near-horizontal precipitation, I grant you. However, the purely functional nature of the fencing and gateways, with the Channel beyond, give it the look of a vast sheep dip. But the queue is short enough to drive straight aboard the waiting ferry, and our spirits are as buoyant as the bubbling plumes left in the wake of the vessel as we pull away from the dock, positive because we know we are heading toward a comparative paradise. I have been aboard quite a few of these ships, and they all smell exactly the same. The whiff of diesel fuel and salt spray transports me back in time in that way that only smells can. It evokes memories of school trips, cricket tours, hitch hiking to and from Ireland, all in an instant.

The sea leg of our journey is uneventful and calm, surrounded, of course, by many travellers of mixed nationalities. Some are going home, some breaking away from the everyday grind of the norm, perhaps. I’m compulsively nibbling away at a bag of peanuts, staring at maps, discussing the odd plan with Ray and generally enjoying the concept and reality of not being where I have been.

As our liner glides into one of the many portals to mainland Europe, I am left with the assured knowledge that ferry terminals are indisputably ugly, universally it seems, because when we arrive at Calais, it wears a joyless, misty countenance which stares blankly back at the white cliff broken-toothed grimace we have just left behind.

With Ray now behind the wheel, we exit Calais. Barbed wire fencing along the roadsides reminds me that this is a last bastion against the alleged ravages of asylum seeking hoards. Their desperate plight in this continental cul-de-sac on this morning of gritty reality somewhat juxtaposes our utter freedom to travel to the hard but pleasant working holiday ahead. There are thousands of men, women and children in those makeshift camps hidden by mounds of bulldozed soil, driven there by a desperation I have never and will never feel or experience. How lucky I am.

And so on we travel, through the succession of gentle waves of low hills that is Northern France as viewed from a French motorway. My job is navigator. Whether I am or not, I feel that I’m quite good at this, giving frequent geographical updates which are interspersed with occasional bird spotting reports. I can’t help but allow my mind to wander across those foreign fields, corners of which Brooke would have us believe are forever England. It’s late May, the last day in fact, and from that ‘rich earth’, scarlet poppies adorn the verges as incongruous as cheap lipstick smudges on a vicar’s starched white collar. So many poppies, waving cheerfully like blood-red flags, reminders to us of a bygone era of open hostility, grief, pain and death as we fly past. Whatever occurs upon this venture, I must bear witness to my own good fortune, fortune which brings it to my life. This bolt-from-the-blue opportunity has landed in my lap for a reason, and each moment that it brings is to be breathed in as one would the scent of rose petals at dusk.

We have been on a toll road to enable a fast escape from the port and its immediate hinterlands. Once that road is behind us, the sight of harsh fencing has faded into memory like mists under a summer sun. We downscale one road category, and the scenery calms. France is a big country, and the spacious nature of the landscape is beginning to add flavour to the tasty brunch that is an open road. OK, it’s Sunday, I don’t expect a busy road anywhere, but I am suddenly very aware that there are just less people per square mile here, which translates quite directly to less cars. I mention this to Ray, assuming that it would suit him too. He has always, on the face of things at least, had a laid back style of life. This attitude has sewn seeds, sprouted, taken root successfully, and flourished to embellish the bare trellis of the Highway Code with a lavish and colourful vine of eclectic driving techniques. With the wrist of his outstretched right arm perched on the midnight position of the steering wheel, fingertips resting on the dashboard, he nods in agreement that the dead straight stretch of uninhabited tarmac ahead of us would be teeming with traffic in England. Not necessarily everywhere though, I’m used to inner city life. By comparison, Ray lives in the middle of nowhere, a place where he maintains he may not pass another road user on an early Sunday drive. That fact alone reminds me that I don’t see enough of my own country, let alone far pastures.

We are a microbial white Vauxhall shaped speck on the Petri dish map of France, and we are moving, moving inexorably closer to our first destination, which is a pre-booked B-n-B near Troyes. There are roadside signposts warning passers-by that locals don’t want fracking here. I have always felt that France is a country where civil disobedience bubbles near the surface as a societal reaction to any differences of opinion between the government and the rest of the population. I hope they succeed in this particular pursuit of opposition.

We arrive at that first night stop with a feeling akin to job satisfaction, and exchange mutual gratitude for a near perfectly executed plan. Ray the Eurodriver, myself as the map reader. And then of course, there’s Patrick. I haven’t mentioned Patrick until now, because I’m not so sure I like his company. I have been fermenting growing mistrust for his opinions regarding my map reading skills, and also developed disillusionment with his erstwhile assumed helpful sense of direction. He appears to be easily confused by what on the face of things, seems to be the most fundamental of requests. And there’s another thing. He has a bloody annoying habit of interrupting our conversations by suddenly blurting out where we should be going next. We already know, and he doesn’t take a hint when we say, “Yeah, Patrick, we know that, we’ve read the map.”  He has no compunction whatsoever regarding pointless repetition, and just keeps on stating the obvious until we’ve actually made the turn, despite telling him we heard him the first time. He’s has given me the distinct impression that he’s ‘on the spectrum’. Begrudgingly, I have to admit Patrick has been a help along the way, though. We bid him a bland ‘Adieu’ as he’s relegated to sleeping in the van. We head off into the tidy, clean world of Le Clos Poli.

We are greeted by our gracious hostess, who is quite frankly, a cliché personified. She is as informative as she is petite, and as far as I can make out, as she is speaking quite quickly in a potpourri of French and English, appears to be married to a large St. Bernard dog. That part may have lost a certain ‘Je ne sais quoi’ in translation, so it’s fortunate at this juncture that she notices our politely confused expressions. She continues our instructional introductory mini-tour employing only English and an increased level of multi-faceted gesticulations, thus rescuing myself and Ray from the profound discomfiture of displaying our combined grasp of the French language. That grasp could be likened to one which a morphine affected octogenarian may have upon an amphetamine crazed and well greased pig.

Bed and Breakfast means precisely that, and so after introducing ourselves and attempting to converse in, not just broken, but completely annihilated French, we are recommended a local eaterie which is a short drive away. First we need to rinse away the day’s grunge, and after a quick scrub up, we clamber back into the van trying not to wake Patrick up in case he wants to ruin dinner by joining us. Soon, we are arriving outside Chez Gibus.

I am sometimes guilty of preconception on a grand scale. I have imagined, as if influenced only by the amateur dramatic societies of middle England during the 1950’s, that the restaurant would be run by a portly chap squeezed into a fully buttoned waistcoat, his perfectly waxed moustache pointing at a quarter to three position underlining a pair of kitchen-heat rouged cheeks. Suffice to say however, one did not envisage the gentleman who greets us as we amble slowly through the door. He is an East Asian man of diminutive stature, dressed in loose fitting chef’s blues, and sporting a long thin straggly grey beard. He greets us in French, and of course, swaps seamlessly into English the moment he realises how far we are going to bite into his Sunday evening if he forces us to order food using any off-piste language skills. It’s already starting to grind with me how embarrassing it is trying to conduct a normal life using a conglomeration of my long forgotten low grade O level French and Ray’s GCE equivalent. Add to the recipe the kind of addling that an early start and a long drive will engender upon the human mind, season it with hunger, simmer for two long, fingernails-on-a-chalkboard minutes et Voila! Soup de Chagrin. Come back Patrick, all is forgiven. How we need his insistent Brogue to steer us manfully away from carnage upon the rocks of lingual ineptitude, toward the becalmed waters of bilingual ability.

Food is prompt, sufficient and delivered with charm. Wine is a half carafe of house red, unspectacular but pleasant enough. Once the meal is concluded and paid for, we thank and bid farewell to this Vietnamese/Frenchman who has received and fed us with graceful and efficient hospitality.

I am designated driver for the journey back. This is my first stint on the ‘wrong’ side of the road for nigh on fifteen years. There is a mantra reverberating around my cranial region, “KEEP RIGHT! KEEP RIGHT! KEEP RIGHT!”. By the time we’re halfway back, I feel totally comfortable with it as long as I have the mantra. It’s the junctions that are the weirdest. But since there is a dearth of other vehicles anyway, we can enjoy the quaint architecture of the genuinely cute village without becoming one of tomorrow’s talking points by crashing through a gate into one of the well manicured lawns.

Once back to the b-n-b, we can digest our dinner and our day whilst planning a route for tomorrow. After a brief description from our hostess of what to expect for breakfast and deciding when we would like to take it, we adjourn to our room. Our room is pretty much spotless. There are small decoupages, humming birds stuck to otherwise plain walls. A brief reconnaissance of the bathroom reveals an en suite. I wonder what en suite is in French? Gosh, how I wish I had listened more to my French teacher at school instead of indulging in teen fantasies involving the mountainous environs which were hidden beneath her roll-neck sweaters. And back from the world of dreams, one cannot help but notice again what a very tidy space our room is. Not for long, because both Ray and myself are not feeling in a tidy mood, what with the fatigue and all. In the morning however, I will be rested and become tidy again. I’m not so sure that Ray requires tidiness in life. He’s always been a little like this. It’s one of his endearing features. In our youth, I was always amused by how he could walk without falling over because once his shoes were removed, within seconds both socks would be dangling halfway off his feet. He is a man of many endearing features.

We settle down to a messy map reading and route planning session. Once we’ve agreed upon our strategy for the morrow, we groove on into what remains of the evening. Ray is skyping home, I do texts. They don’t take long, so I defer to my holiday pottering routine. It is at times like these, I enjoy taking photos of the night creatures mesmerised by, and attracted to, artificial lighting. A Clouded Border becomes the latest addition to my collection of lepidopteran souls.

Soon it is time for sleep. Sleep will require ear plugs and music, because Ray may be snoring. At a distance of five yards, it is enough to clash discordantly with my snoring. As a result, I have resorted to Nirvana. Not in the spiritual sense, in the Seattle sense. Soon however, it becomes apparent that Kurt’s beauteous angst may prove a tad unsuitable on the lullaby front, and he is usurped by Node, a little known combo churning out fairly random dark ambient splurge. Node carry me out into deep, deep space. I am an abductee of their sound, borne willingly upon their nebulous cloudship of dark matter. There beyond, through the worm hole that is the night, the parallel universe of the next morning will, as always, be waiting to greet me.

LONG LIVE THE SHED

Greetings once again from Rex.

Thank you for visiting/revisiting. It's been a while and I suppose apathy and distraction have torn my attention from this blog to such things as cricket, children moving schools, and work. None of these things are capable of stopping the creative flow. They actually are or can become the conduit for one's creativity to blossom.

And so, inevitably, to the issue of the hitherto unseen new shed.

Here is a summary of comments elicited from those who have laid eyes upon the shed's unique form and astonishingly intricate and thoroughly appropriate design. The content of these statements is subject to possible digressions from the original due to time induced recall lapse.

I have also changed or omitted names to protect the innocent/guilty.

"...I was talking to a friend who built a shed from a patchwork of different bits of wood. I had envisaged something like that, but this is something really different." remarked friend and neighbour Ozwald Guillimot.

Socialite stalwarts the Ming-Bunters, who were over for the annual Art and Mindbend Soiree, were moved to point out the conflict between it's use as either leisure or practical space. However, lover and Director of Weekend Entertainment Doris Blotch had this to say " That's nice dear, what is it?"

To some, it seems, my work has become inappreciable.

During the many hours of labour, though it was not the hottest of summers, teabreaks were a-plenty. Pictured here is the scene of one of those many pauses for refreshment. To the right can be seen the cunning use of internal doors as a large window. Sheds can be such dauntiingly dark places, and I decided to make mine quite the reverse. It helps when looking for those screws/nails/little bits of stuff which ping off into the otherwise dingier recesses during the process of junk shifting I call D.I.Y.

Here is a brief pictorial summary of the type of chaos I seem to prefer to work by whilst constructing anything bigger or more complex than a cheese sandwich. Surely, I hear you cry, somebody as reluctant to employ the necessary organisational skills or regard to health and safety regimes usually attributed to adult humans should never be allowed to purchase let alone use power tools such as the one depicted.

It's a free-ish country however, people can keep caged birds, cycle without helmets, drink strong coffee etc. So I figure I can tempt fate with a speedily rotating saw blade which would have ones digits reduced to mere bloody stumps within a split second.

And as those heady days back in 2008 rolled on, and the cricket season in it's politeness gave way to another brash and noisy bunch of overpaid oiks in football kits, the ediface began slowly to take shape.

Recycling all I could gather in my locale, the greatest aquisition I believe was the 4' square kitchen window. Whole, unbroken, in full working order and fully waterproof. It weighed quite a bit, so controlling the skateboard upon which I chose to transport it was tricky at first.

But control it I did and after several months of sitting under a tarp in the garden, the installation was a success and it looked like this. Note the flowering fennel in front of it, attracting as it does a variety of hoverflies and their nectar-guzzling cousins

Artists impression of what transporting windows on a skatebord could have looked liked to an innocent bystander.

Here I can show you the interior doors that were in the best condition put to use as the comely face of the shed. It faces the house this way and I wash up looking straight at it. Washing up needs a decent view if possible. I'll allow you to make your own judgements, but I can stomach looking at this for 10 minutes at a stretch.

And here is one of those arty-farty oblique sort of views.

You may note that the tree in the background looks bare and yet this was reportedly the end of summer. Well, it's down to the ravenous nature of sawfly lavae. Those little bastards stripped every single piece of greenery from next door's spunky smelling tree inside two weeks of spring, reducing it to the skeletal form which it holds to this day.

A couple of years after completion, in the spirit of Alan Titchmarsh and the Ground Force team but without the smarm or wobbley boobs, I am proud to revisit the scene where architecture meets a junk yard. It is a unique construction, and is a place of solace and solitude without which I would get rained on, and so would quite a few of my rag-tag possessions.

Ladies and gentlemen, raise your glasses to that most characterful of garden dwellers,

THE SHED.

Hmm..

I travel in my mind to a thousand different places a day. If only my body could follow. I know very little of astral projection, but if I could get some in a jar nearby and reconstitute it by simply adding hot water I would. I despise the modern era of instant life via credit, coffee jars, dvd links on the net. This virtual reality we are fed every waking minute of every day is killing so many of us from within and yet even those of us who are aware of this are apparently powerless to alter the cataclysmic course these invasions are taking us on.



(Written in January this year, somewhere in a dark place I surmise.)

DISCOVERIES

I'll write this all in large type for the hard of hearing.

Here is something utterly stupid I have learnt to do whilst I have been away from the blogosphere. It's not all I've been doing. There has been work, decorating, cricket, drinking tea, visiting The B.F.G. and watching the days get shorter and shorter and shorter.

Soon I will be watching the days get longer and longer again. There is a possibility many more works of depth and integrity may ensue in time, but for now, all you lovely people will have to put up with this one addition to the wonderful world of utterly ridiculous 'art'.

Please enjoy.

I apologise for my lack of posting, especially about the shed as some of you will have burst with the suspense by now, of that I am sure.

I also apologise for not continuing to comment on your own efforts blogging about all manner of interests, but I lost all enthusiasm for doing so and hope to be back to my facetious and sardonic japes forthwith.

Until then good fellows, adieu and be good at least till Santa stuffs your stockings.

Happy Solstice!

JUST SOME FUNNY THINGS TO THINK ABOUT.

ANTROPOLIS

CITY OF A MILLION LEGS

This photo of the Great City of Antropolis was taken last year when the sun shone. It shone again I'm sure this year, but the rain today got into my ear at a funny angle and appears to have washed my memory bank clean so I can't remember it.

And here is my next door neighbour, the tree. It's performing an astonishing feat of balance here, by balancing millions of tiny pieces of frozen water on top of each other. I don't know how it keeps so still. Probably practises when nobody is looking.

I think also I should show you all that there are lovely places to look at in this Sceptred Isle and that I've been to one or two of them. I went alongside The B.F.G. to the faraway land known locally as Kernow. It has a jagged edge which gets you wet if you stand too close to it. This was the view from the B.&B. Not bad if I may say so myself.

Anyway, Enough of the raiding of my hard drive for inspiration and a few memories. It's time to tuck up in a little bed with a cuppa and start a new and B.F.G. recommended funny book.

Nite Nite.

SHED OR ALIVE !

Reports of my death would have been greatly exaggerated if there had been any.

Sorry about the lack of shed stuff.

It's still stands and doesn't leak.

I broke another finger.

My head aches, not presumably related to a finger snapping incident.

My cricket team hasn't won any games this year.

I have accidentally usurped the captain to regain my rightful place as The Big Cheese.

My son is growing at an alarming rate.

My daughter is a legal adult, but struggles daily with the real implications therein.

I have been a legal adult for 28 years and 2 weeks and I still struggle with the legal, moral and other general implications therein.

I still wish for the extermination of all advertising executives.

I have completed Meta's questionnaire, a life achievement akin to climbing Everest or discovering time travel.

I still have a job.

I still love the B.F.G.

It's still fuckin' rainin' here!

Solstice came and went and I hardly noticed it.

I haven't had an alcoholic drink for 10 days.

Elderflower champagne doesn't count because it's far too weak.

If I ruled the World, every day would be the first day of last week.

I'm so very glad I'm not called Percival.

How much wood can a woodchuck chuck?

I should write to my Australian mate.

My neck hurts.

Cheese can possibly save the world from annihilation.

I'm just trying to find the bridge.

Moffs enjoy the environs surrounding my bathroom light, even they probably know it isn't good for them.

Bob Dylan can't sing.

Is this the eighth wonder of the world?

GANG OF TEDS

This took me back to a much older persons childhood. A gang of Teds hanging around the street in the dark.
I expect they were all just off to listen to some Elvis or comb their D.A. 'Barnets' incessantly whilst trying to chain smoke Chesterfields without removing them from their pursed lips.

Actually, I could be making all that up. They may have been waiting for a bus.

When they got on it, they would probably have hogged the backseat upstairs and tried to dodge their fares, and then when they got off they would have said

"GET STUFFED GRANDAD !!!"

to the conductor as they bounced away on their beetlecrushers and winklepickers.

To tell the truth, once I'd plucked up the Dutch Courage, I asked the nicest looking one of them what such a fine upstanding socio-economic sub-group was doing at that time of the evening.

He replied that Paul McCartney was doing a photo shoot for his new album, 'Band on the Run Again' and had asked for a group of hip kids to pose for the cover, and not to forget the spotlight.

Bastard never showed up, did he!

No wonder they look so glum

TINY LITTLE DUDE.

Here is a photo of a tiny little dude.

I dont think at first he was aware of the camera, but once he did notice it,

he

became

an

absolUTe

SLUT

for the lens!!!

Quite frankly, this particular reproduction is the only offering
which is possible
to put up on a blog without fear of being flagged as leud.

If you see a very small person, male or female about your house or maybe even whilst walking your ferrets, please make sure you dont accept a cheque from one in payment for any goods or services. Very little dudes have aquired almost unimaginable notoriety as con artists and swindlers. They would gull the last stitch from their own favourite Auntie. They can't help it, just second nature. In fact, in some necks of the woods it's rude not to.

SUN IN CANCER, ARSE IN GEAR.

Yes, all you good people of the omniverse, the Earth has beetled around once again to the part of it's orbit that floats a great deal of boats. As a result, a new and Tigger like energy has risen in me which is usually the case come Solstice. Being a Cancerian is cool. Birthdays are usually sunny affairs.

I am filling my days with "buildin' fings", 16 hours a week I get paid for it, thanks to a renewed career as a handyman.

The other Buddha-knows-how-many hours construction work has gone into the previously much touted shed project.

I'm not in a position to show any photos of progress because it's all very hush-hush, don't ya know. You'll just have to wait. Gadzooks, I can almost smell the tension from here.

Needless to say, the postage stamp sized urban garden is littered with piles of wood and rusty old nails. It's a health and safety nightmare, an A&E admittance waiting to happen. But I prefer to run the gauntlet, it lends life a sense of derring-do. Besides, there's no point in clearing up until the wobbly woman warbles.

The next week or so will produce a camping holiday, cricket, an annual visit, loud music from my revamped car stereo, outdoor fires (upon which I usually sacrifice at least one piece of clothing albeit mistakenly), birdwatching, peoplewatching, a lack of watchwatching, beer drinking and hopefully a modicum of sunburn, all of which you may well get to read about.

Until then, here are some random things captured for your delectation and perhaps, if you will, even amusement.

Here, we can clearly see that a junk food empire has been brought to it's knees by a renegade sparrow. Some kind of alliance has obviously been struck between it and it's feathered friends which commonly appear on the menu dressed in tight fitting batter suits.

The upshot of this I suspect was probably several dozen spotty ill-looking natives frantically scouring the locale for a similarly puke-worthy helping of feral pigeon in a bap.

They wouldn't have to go very far in this neck of the woods.

Next on the agenda is my own fascinating experimentation with Do-it-Yourself brain surgery. The tricky part is getting the bread knife and chisels clean again afterwards. Of course, I wouldn't recommend this form of amateur neuro slicing to the feint hearted, but the more adventurous among you will be pleasantly surprised by your children's next exam results if you get it right. However, if you get it wrong they are only capable of watching Big Brother until you've gone back to the old drawing board before another well intentioned stab at it.

And here is a monster from the deep which I fished out of my garden pond. The fucker took me 8 hours to land and left me with a vicious hickey which I quite clearly cant go to the medical services with in case they think I'm one of those weird people who can only become romantically attached to lampreys.

For those among you who believe I had to turn my back on it to get attacked in this region, think again, it's not how it looks. It does however, bring a whole new meaning to the words 'blue tit'.

And that, my crusty little old barnacles upon the hull of humanity, is that. Be good to yourselves and to those immediately to your right. Anybody on the left can get stuffed.

OF CHANGING CARS AND SHIFTING SHEDS

I've been awfully quiet, in bloggy respects, of late. There are a few reasons. Attempting and failing to mend a car and then selling it for a pittance. That was a wee bit disappointing but as soon as the horrid thing was gone, I felt better, even though it wasn't my car. I hadn't stolen it or anything silly, just doing the B.F.G. a favour because she has no time for such tasks. I polished it until it stood resplendent in the spring sun, awaiting a new mug to throw good money after bad at it.

Having sold it, I then realised that trying to buy a bargainatious runaround for the similar pittance plus a maximum of £250 was going to be nigh on impossible, especially now I had no car to go and view them with. This is because my chivalrous nature has conspired to shoot myself squarely below the ankle region by lending my lovely shiny car to the aforementioned B.F.G. so she could get to work and keep me in the style to which I have become accustomed, ie piss poor.

However, after the next two weeks endlessly picking over thousands of car adds and websites about best buys and parts, the Car Fairies turned up a much better car for my lover at only £15 more than the old French charabanc. And there endeth the tale on a happy, nay ecstatic, Japanese note.

And then so on to the shed.

My garden shed is, or should I say was, much loved (by me at least). It contains/contained as you hopefully can see by the video tour, all manor of the types of crap that men in their forties have accumulated by the natural course of events. Well, events such as skip scrounging and never throwing anything away anyhow. And so when it ceases/ceased to hold out the rain and smells/smelt of rot and is/was clearly suffering in it's old age it is/was time to put it down.

So I did/have.

You can't take a shed to a vet, or flush them down the toilet like unwanted pets, so I tore it down with a claw hammer, and when that wasn't manly enough, my bare hands. Spiders of varying shapes, sizes and hues scuttled willy-nilly hither and thither as bits of mouldy plywood and 2x2 flew in all manner of directions at the mercy of a tea crazed loon in the midday heat.

Part one of my rebuild was all but done and most of the fallout taken to the dump. The rest goes tomorrow, excepting all the salvaged pieces, of which there are few.

I will shop for new (recycled) timber, and stick to my design which involves interior doors and a PVC window all scrounged for nowt locally over the past few years and weeks.

Eat yer 'eart out, The Feckin' Wombles. I'm building an architectural masterpiece. An Ediface to the Gods. Builders of similar shacks will flock from miles around just to be in it's looming shadow. Upon it, cats will sit and birds will shit. Molluscs will slime and wind and rain batter at it's corners like banshees. But it will resist because it will be held fast by love....and about 500 2"screws.

Keep your eyes on this space for hot news of the Great Project as it nears completion.

I will try my damnedest not to leave it for so long that you burst with anxiety before the next post.

Oh, and I genuinely hope you are all beginning to enjoy the summer at last, except those of you who burn easily or who live in the Southern hemisphere.

RESPLENDENT SPRING!

A blue sky, clear but for a random scattering of gently metamorphosing clouds, plays host to bleached white gulls. The seabirds laugh and wheel in a seasonally appropriate oxymoronic state of manic nonchalance, utilising the languid updraughts billowing invisibly from city streets stimulated by the first truly warm day of the year.

Far below their raucous cackling, I sun myself greedily, soaking up as many rays as I can before this most fickle of seasons turns it's many faced head to reveal an altogether less clement mien.Today though, a patient breeze has replaced the recent rash or hasty gales. It casually transports tender offerings of mingled light fragrances across the neighbouring environs to my hitherto starved olfactory sense. Tree blossom plays an unlikely bedfellow to warm skin.

Twittering finches alert my gaze skyward again. They commute across the azure with staccato flurries of wing beats which give their flight the look of a shuttle weaving an imperceptible thread under and over through the jet streams miles above them, perhaps manufacturing a simple tapestry upon which the ensuing months will eventually embroider the full heated passion of summer. Love sick buzzards arc and soar in lordly fashion above, their presence betrayed only by their eerie monotonous wails which pierce the erstwhile serenity of the afternoon firmament.

As the evening wanders on towards it's close, illuminated by a decreasing effulgence, the disorganised intricacy of trills and whistles that is blackbird song will echo around the urban environs displaying their territorial intent as they lay claim to the treetops by unremitting aria. The common toad who comes hither to feed on various tiny lifeforms will doubtless appear as is her custom on relatively balmy nights.

For now, my eye is caught by the fiery lily beetle as it prepares to gorge itself on the fresh growth bursting through the soil. I hear bumble bees amble drunkenly through the air on a constant vigil for nectar filled blossoms upon which they can fuel a cool night in waiting for yet another day. I can look on as a sunfly hovers erratically, vacillating violently between the ivy leaves as if shadow boxing for fun.

I love the spring for it's renewed sense of hope and life, it's light and the feeling that something exciting is about to happen.

And I suppose it is, if you count the rest of your life.

LUDWIG VAN SPIDER; A STORY OF CROSS SPECIES COMMUNICATION

It takes an absolute age to teach a common garden spider to play Beethoven on a web. Firstly one has to link the intricate silken threads through a midi interface, no mean feat I can tell you. I had to enlist the help of one or two of our visitor friends for that one, but therein lies another long winded tale of intergalactic travel and other-worldly antics I can tell you just wouldn't wish to be burdened with, so I'll not bother today.

I reckon this little chap seems to have embraced the subtle nuances and minor to major key changes of one of the world's most enigmatic and recognisable piano pieces, even if I, his mentor, may say so myself.
It took a great deal of patience and understanding, not helped tremendously by my own ineptitude on the old Joanna, which knows no bounds. I haven't even got as far as 'Chopsticks.'
However, through unparallelled diligence and a rigorous diet of flies and woodlice, (I hate bluebottles especially, and those invertebrates get stuck between your teeth, yeeuk!) myself and Ludwig struck up a rapport musical which may go a very long way towards furthering homo-arachnid relations beyond anything the space program and all those experiments with L.S.D. ever managed.
At first, he found it easier to play if he went too fast. Impassioned cries of 'Adagio! Adagio!' could be heard across the haphazard urban landscape, as I pleaded with him to slow the piece down from the Andante he seemed to have settled upon. I was almost at the end of my tether, and so literally was Ludwig, when one beautiful Autumn morning, I took my early cuppa into the garden to find Little Luddy, concentration etched across his tiny multi-eyed brow, winding his way around the web, calmly and with such concupiscence as to bring a tear to even the most hard hearted of fellows. Each gentle up rise in tempo, each contour of the sound so delicately navigated it put me in mind of a youthful Evgeny Kissin.
And so, today, you can hear the piece in it's entirety. I hope you can enjoy it and perhaps it may inspire you to take up the challenge of inter-species communication. Let me know if you decide to train a centipede to tap dance, or encourage an ant colony to form a Welsh Style Voice Choir. It is difficult, but if you can handle the constant knock backs, the rewards are bountiful and uplifting beyond your wildest imaginations.
Good Luck, comrades in artistic ventures. With your success, the world will owe you a debt of immeasurable gratitude.
(All music composed by Ludwig Van Beethoven)

THE ALPHABET TREE

Wandering around with one's mind at best only partially fixed to any particular task at hand is one of life's pleasures. It was not too long ago now, whilst in one of these meandering ruminations back in the Autumn of last year, that I made a quite astonishing discovery. I have discovered a tree in the park.
Now, at this juncture I can hear cogs a-whirring and jaws a-flapping saying things like

"A tree in the park isn't unusual, you silly old Rexy"
or
"A tree in the park is akin to finding a shell on the beach"
Well that's all true, but don't pick that shell up, it may still be live and blow your hands off!

And since that kind of surprise is what can be chanced upon in life, the R.A.F. and U.S.A.F. being messy people who leave things like depleted uranium lying around in other countries, a result being less pianists, I refer you all back to the tree in the park. It's no ordinary tree. The photograph above is of some of it's fallen leaves, and of it's bizarre windblown fruits. Yes, it is indeed Dendrofallacium Lexicographii, an alphabet tree.

The alphabet tree is fairly ordinary to the eye in many respects, except of course it's fruits which fall to earth around November and scatter themselves a short distance from the tree. Not every fruit contains a seed which is one of the reasons that the alphabet tree is not as common as many of it's indigenous counterparts. Imported to Britain from as far away as Greece and Turkey by the great arboretum collectors of the 17th to 19th century, this broad leaved deciduous has few uses to man in industry or leisure, and has therefore rarely been introduced to the wider countryside on a large scale.
The fruits are not eaten by many creatures, but it is a widely held folklore belief that animals with the ability to pick things up with their forepaws such as squirrels or rats have used the fruits as educational devices for their young or even to hang above the entrances to their drays, burrows etc as signs for predators to stay away. Flocks of carrion crows were often to be seen wearing large fruits around their necks to delineate between the various rival murders.

Another folklore tale surrounds how each seed containing fruit would lend itself to growing different sized trees depending on the letter shape of it. Though I'm aware of no scientific studies or evidence to back up the 'wives tales', some old verses still get passed on in the oral tradition. One such rhyme goes, to memory, something like this;

The tree of the letter shaped A through to H
Will not grow an inch above yon garden gate
A bough or a branch grown from I to an M
Will wither and die when the size of most men
From N to the Y seeds are not quite as high
As a tree from the letter shaped as a Z
Which will always stand twig branch wood shoulder and head
Above any other in forest or glade
Which are all the letters from which our words are made.

I think it's lost something in translation, but you get the basic drift.
In the days before the tree was introduced to the bounds of these shores, the natives of it's origins had their own stories bound by it. Of course, in Turkey, the Turkish trees had a different alphabet, as they did in Greece. When imported to Russia, a similar thing occurs. It's as though the tree has a very close bond with the people around it, like it can understand the basic language of those humans around it. Everybody in those countries will tell of how their ancestors could almost feel the trees listening to their thoughts, eager for human contact or even symbiosis.


The ancient Gods of Greece had their own favourite letters from the tree seeds.

I suppose we could all pick our own favourites too. Some would be quite partial to an E, and there are those for whom there is great comfort in an R. I asked the B.F.G. what her favourite is.
I'll leave you to guess what her answer was.

SCHOOL TRIP

Back in December, before the school Christmas break was upon us, my son went on his first trip away with the school. Not just a day trip, but a full on activity holiday involving the kind of dampness which can only be truly achieved by going to Wales during the winter. Dutifully, I bought him a new rucky and some ill fitting strides, pairs 2, muddy waters for the absorption of. It was suggested he take plenty of spare clothing. We packed it all, including wellies strapped to the outside of his backpack.

On the morning he was due to leave, the bag became the focus for all his pent up excitement, as he carried it around the house in preparation to go. He was driving me nuts with it up and down the stairs like Sherpa Tensing on speed at least half an hour before we were due to leave, bumping into the furniture and just generally getting in my bleary eyed way at what is best described as a part of the day when I'm not at my most organised or patient.
But leave we did, astonishingly on time, down to meet the bus outside the school. Dozens of other parents were there seeing off their excited and some slightly anxious kids. I suppose there was a little twang of 'My Baby is going away' stuff, but I just thought of all that spare time and peace and quiet, and what fun he was going to have compared with yet another week of school. Besides, one week away from a T.V. blethering on about impending Christmas was gonna be good for this kids soul and probably my bank balance.

There was a slight feeling of apprehension as the bus was late, then showed up looking like this.

In the early hours of the morning (before ten am anyway) I'm easily confused, and my first thoughts were that the bus company name had been written by an artistically very talented dyslexic. Perhaps I've been doing too many crosswords of late, because my next fleeting cogitation upon the matter was that this must be an anagram. Reaching swiftly for my pen and paper, (which I always carry for quick note emergencies, a trick learnt whilst tracking the movement and locations of urban skips) I established the obvious reason this particular coach had been sent, the anagram emblazoned on it being "Ya cab must wif". Well I expect that'll be years of pukey kids and fat arsed drivers in it, I mused.

And then, as my grey matter lurched into slovenly action, things stated to add up.

Welsh! Aha! Of course, what an oaf I felt. Send a coach from Wales. Why not? Much easier to keep your carbon footprint maximised by sending a coach from Wales over the bridge and then drive back to Wales with some kids.

Bit by bit, child by child, the vehicle loaded to just about it's full potential. I thought I'd use this valuable time to check the credentials of the cabin crew. What better recommendation could they have than this.

A 'Hendy men' can do anything. They're always reliable and so my mind was put at ease by this comforting sight.

And so the time came for the bus to roll out toward its destination. Final hugs and kisses ensued until even the potential bed wetters were crammed in and the doors were closed on a bus full of over excited youths destined for a foreign land.

This is the last view of it disappearing.

And from that moment until four and a half days later, my house was quiet. And I came home to write a poem which you can look back to if you want. (Leavings, Dec 10th 2007)