suggzy

Part One

As one of my foolhardy but loyal fans pointed out the other day, my blog has gone quiet. This is the first of three pieces I need to get written up to get back on track with two of my resolutions (only one remains on schedule, right now.. at least it’s an exercise one).

A piece on my time in Malta (Around Malta, with Mother) is still in the pipeline; I got rather sidetracked by a run of applications and interviews before we departed for the wilds of Eastern Europe. The latter being fresher in the mind, off we go with Part One of Two.

I am addressing you, at least initially, from row 20, Seat B, of Tarom Air’s evening service from Iasi to Luton. A cheap and agreeable exercise, free checked bags and they’ve just plied us with a gratis packet of peanuts, a ham and cheese roll and a Snickers. Having drawn the driving straw, I have just sipped a coffee before picking up my ‘phone to write. Mrs K has seen off a glass of Romanian wine on which we respectfully disagree. Which is no bad thing; there’s not a lot of respectful disagreement going on at our final destination, after all, following The Vote. The news from Blighty is baaaaad. Anyway, not too much politics. She thought it a quite potable and freshening glass; from my micro-sip I detected notes of Multi-Storey car park Gents, and a cat that had been out in the rain too long. No matter, she is busying herself combining the view from the window and the plane’s Sat Nav, and I am in a playful frame of mind, before Real Life does its damnedest to set in again on the ‘morrow.

I realised as we had one for the road and bought my Dad some cheap ciggies at the airport that I had foolishly popped my earphones into my hold luggage. Amateur mistake. As we boarded, I espied a baby on the border of toddlerhood. His eyes locked with mine and flashed red, or so I thought. Grump though I can be, I carry no real objection to small ones on flights; just as the secret for them to fly happy is to sleep or be entertained, the secret for me is to be able to drown out their quailing should it threaten to perforate an ear drum or two.

Actually, the threat to a peaceful passage on this occasion comes from the Romanian lady in front. A ‘wriggler’ of Olympic class, with sunglasses and headphones the size of bin lids. Things have settled a bit now, because she has acceded to the attentions of a fleshy and tanned Romanian male who has plopped into the seat next to her (all a bit racy, ’round these parts, my wife and I have barely so much as allowed our knees to touch). However, on boarding she fired up her mobile and had a loud and showy-offy business conversation and had to be prised from her telephone by the flight crew as we headed up into the blue. As we levelled out, she delighted at a row of three free seats and lounged across them at a range of angles, her head occasionally popping up as if she were drowning. After a time she tired of that and instead tore her bag from the overhead locker and made for the back of the plane. After a time she returned, after a full costume change, and started refolding various items. I remarked to SWK that I was unsure what she might take on next.. a spot of laundry, a bit of piano practice?

Well, no. She blasted her bag aloft again (our hand-fired jug better be okay, or there will be Paddington Hard Stares in the queue for border control later), and returned to some lounging gymnastics, and then dined heartily on a glass of both red and white wine. Nothing like getting your money’s worth, eh?

Why do people have to be so blessedly hyperactive on relatively short European flights? Pick up an improving volume? Dabble at the crossword or a Sudoku to a popular beat combo? No, it seems even a short flight (and yes, I know, it’s a confined space to remain in, but you booked it, you clown) has to be undertaken in the most ‘Look At Meeee!’ fashion imaginable. Exhibitionism is the order of the day. When I was a child, the art of sitting still and indulging in polite conversation with “inside voices” marked one down for great things. It could add lustre to a School Report. These days the fact I choose to do it makes me feel pretty much Victorian.

None of which tells you very much about our recent trip to her homeland, does it?

Where to begin… well, perhaps the beginning. Ten nights ago we were sampling the local fayre in a Dunstable pub, near Luton airport. Earlier in the day, England had beaten Wales 2-1 at football. Young folk in the hostelry had been celebrating for some time with short haircuts, Carling Black Label, and salty language. A storm rolled in, and we headed to bed. I lay awake, for a while, wondering what we might be coming back to.

An ordinary enough Wizz Air flight out. Localised infant screaming brushed aside by a few tunes and a brief, headline study of our destinations to come. All was rather well. We sailed through Constanta airport, after a somewhat protracted once-over at passport control (more of that sort of thing later), and eventually got bundled into a cab. Waved the dossier about, some shrugging, some ‘phone calls in terse Romanian and then off towards the suburbs at what proved to be a far from atypical pace: one just under that registered at the sound barrier.

Dear Lord, the wriggler has just scored a *third* glass of wine. I feel sober and saintly, frankly.

So, we rolled down the highway in an air-conditioned bubble, and finally noodled into a new-ish, still-being-built collection of apartment blocks, with a couple of little shops. A left and a right and our man called out the *slightly* steep tab and ushered us out into the day, and to the foot of our lodgings. He pressed the buzzer, and after a time our landlady appeared. During that time, my skin had sprung a number of alarming leaks. The heat was *tremendous*, and I had not experienced the like of it since our honeymoon in Greece last year. Boy oh boy.

Still, we received our welcome, took notes, handed over more money, fired up the air-con and bade our lady and her friendly little daughter farewell. We then scooted ’round to the local emporium for a couple of cold ones (55p each) and some water. Waded back through the heat, hit the balcony to slake our thirsts, and plotted out a period of relaxation and then a first night down at the Old Port…

Which we promptly ballsed-up, of course. It transpired that there was no way of buying official tickets for buses in our locality, so we finished up sneaking aboard a minibus. Cheap though it was (35 pence each) it left us at a confusing location, when we dived off. Yet on we struggled, with Google Maps, and imagined ourselves to be en route to the location we sought. You know you’ve boned it all when you find yourself on a gentle and woody descent. The right way is never, ever downhill, is it? We pulled up at an industrial railway line, with no exit in sight, save for a bridge over to more of the same. Considering an alternative route, we were then suddenly hailed by our first two locals. Charming young women, both of them set for missionary works in the UK, bless them. The unfortunate news was that the alternative route involved ascending in reverse. Terrific. We arrived back at the summit in a boiling sweat and were set upon our way to the environs of the Old Port. Happily a further descent set us out on a cooler route and we enjoyed all manner of seaside prettiness before finally falling upon a platter of seafood and a bottle of awesome Romanian Chardonnay, before gathering ourselves into a taxi for maison nous.

And what a taxi. Oh my. I am the veteran of all manner of wild and inconsiderate driving, not least my own. SWK is smooth as silk behind the wheel, but has the mouth of a navvy when plying her right foot to matters. It was a crazed and varied journey. Either 60 mph or a slow crawl and nothing in between. Various terse exchanges at roundabouts and squeals of brakes. Christ alive. I shut my eyes for the worst of it, as my knuckles turned white from grabbing SWK’s seat. Finally we ran back into chez nous and dropped into our local shop for a couple of nerve-calmers before gaining sleep.

And so we must cut forward in time to my first Brush With Death, a couple of days into our sojourn.

A little while prior to my first BWD, we had gained from the view from our balcony an appreciation of how far we were from a Black Sea resort (and at that stage no appreciation whatsoever of how unbelievably cold said sea is). No bother, in fact, and as my Facebook feed will tell you, we took our first trip over there by a Cable Car. The Telegondola, as it is. Ace, it was, at £3 each to drift in to the land of white beaches and cold beer. As we flew overhead, we realised that, there below us, was a Water Park. A mighty one at that too.

“Have you been to a Water Park before?” SWK asked me.

Well, really, no. The greater majority of my adult life has been spent at the northernmost side of 17 stone. So, really, no. Not for me, schlepping my way around amongst the slim and the lithe. Happily I have enjoyed greater narrowness in recent years, although I could stand to drop a few pounds once again. But, y’know, no. Not at all.

“Let’s go on Monday!” I said. Why? I know not. I suppose I was trying to cheerily embrace new opportunities. I’m told that’s a good thing.

Monday arrived, and so did we, by the ubiquitous Speed Taxi.

We dropped our stuff into a locker, surrendered our bottles of water (in case they were full of Vodka, as if it that’s what you want to drink in 95 degrees) and settled in to our base by the circulating water. It was hot (surprise surprise), so away we went to the cool blue waters, alighting upon inflatables and doing a cooling circuit. 15 minutes drying off in the Sun, and SWK asks..

“Shall we hit the water slides?”

“Yeah.. ‘course.” I replied, through my grinding teeth.

Whoops. A. Daisy. This lark is just not me. I don’t seek to be dull, but when it comes to relaxation time, give me a terrace, a novel and a glass of red wine? I’m yours. Give me downwards at XXXX mph in a tiny tube in my smalls? Well.. no, not really.

However I am, in emerging middle age, not to be beaten. Let’s give it a go, I mused. With characteristic foolishness. And so we clambered up into the Gods. SWK slipped, with characteristic beauty and elegance, straight into the tube, and whooped cheerfully away. I was next. Except I was not next, because I was immediately questioned about my jewellery. The common view was that going down with a couple of bracelets on would likely lead to me having my arms ripped off. Ten minutes of wrenching followed, before the lad in charge finally deigned to help me out of said bits and pieces.

Time to go. Various bracelets and whatnot in my pockets. Ohshitohshitohshitohshit.

Aaaaaaaaaaaggggggghhhhhhh!!!!!!

The very speed you gain? Dear Lord above. It’s all very well at the start, but then the combination of bodily weight and downward velocity take over, in a tiny tube and, well, once again, aaaaaarrrggggghhhh! A left, and a left, and a left, and a left then a right and then up and WHAM! Down to the bottom you go, swallowing litres of water, not remotely prepared for the experience. You float up to the top, coughing it all out, only to look up to your wife merrily filming the whole experience. A film in which you look fat, defeated and tired. The video proves explosive in the extreme. Hurrah for all that then.

Off we went to the next choice, once my lungs cleared and hearing returned. SWK had the sense we should have a bash at this chap (captured from a couple of days earlier on the Cable Car):

Now here we have my first proper brush with death. On the face of it looked the most agreeable thing. Clamber up about 70 or 80 feet or so to an overhead station. Cross arms and legs, head into the tube and it whooshes you down into that ‘dish’ below, where you do a few circuits and drop into a plunge pool below. On the face of it, even I could see the potential for gay and giddy excitements. And in the event, excitements there were, but not strictly those as designed.

I’m just clumsy. Remember my tales of coming down a zip wire, that time? Just a pile of swearing, arms and legs? Much the same was to occur. It’s all so unfair, looking back. I watched others whizz down and around, happy of heart. I even saw SWK slip backwards into the bottom, all smiles, before I slotted into the tube and let go.

A shorter ride this time, but the steep elevation meant one went twice as fast as before. I am not ashamed to tell you that I just screamed. And not a manly cry of warlike determination, either. A shrill sequence of screams in, for me, a rather high register.  As I type this, SWK has Mozart’s ‘Magic Flute’ on the telly; you can think of me as somewhere in between the Queen of Night Aria…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqBwe9BCj4A

.. and a rambunctious four-year old girl, who’s just fallen off her tricycle and skinned her knees. As displays of visceral, vital and vainglorious butchness go, it was not one.

I hurtled into the dish at a speed even the taxi drivers would consider unwise. Rather than corkscrewing gently inwards to go ‘plop’ into the pool, if anything I seemed to gather momentum even further. To the outsider, it must have appeared as if I was attempting to ride the wall of death without a motorbike. The circuits seemed interminable.

However, even I have not yet perfected Perpetual Motion, and from somewhere I gathered some friction. My face, I think. My odyssey was coming to a close, and I slid out like an upside down Manatee, into the pool below.

It’s fair to say I was more than a little giddy. I felt like a particle that’s just done a few laps at CERN whilst smoking a joint. So I was not at my most aware, which led itself to a poor performance when I plunged into waters. In point of fact, I made a stinking great hash of the whole thing. I thrashed, choked and attempted to haul myself onto my back, there to stroke my way gently to the side, and the distant prospect of terra firma. Amidst the chaos, there came the sound of someone diving with elegance and confidence into the water.

Yep, the lifeguard had taken the decision I needed fishing out. How utterly depressing, and embarrassing. I mean, thanks very much and all that, old boy – clearly I wasn’t looking to check out, but I am inclined to think I might have come through it by myself in the end. Nevertheless, strong arms enfolded me, and directed me to a sodden tramp up the steps. To the sign of my good lady wife, well, how can I put this? Pissing herself laughing, in consort with the other thoroughly chiselled and white-toothed lifeguard. In a word? Bollocks.

Now, after two rather rollicking rides, you’d think old grumpy guts here would go rather into his malcontented shell and make for the bar and his sun lounger, wouldn’t you? No, damnit, I thought. Other people are doing this, therefore so can I. Third time lucky, and all that. I could almost hear the celestial hollow laughter ringing out from above, as they switched the bright lights on, and readied my wings. God himself relighting his pipe and musing on how very determined young Cox appeared to be to cash in his chips, this sunny afternoon.

On balance, I thought I might do rather better on a traditional and open slide. Straight down, plenty of wind resistance, so a smoother ride and splash. Yes, of course it would be. I would master all of this yet. Yeah.

Once more, I assumed the position, and pushed myself away. And yet again I attained a horrifying velocity. As the thing flattened out, near to the water, I foolishly attempted to predict the moment the slide ended and pool began. Which went drastically wrong, of course. I broke from the accepted and safe pose, which led to my being thrown into the air off the bottom. I entered the water head-first, with my legs otherwhere above. Momentum sent me straight down to the bottom, and I smacked my bonce into the bottom of the pool, just on the bit where my bald patch is.

It hurt. A lot. Tears in my eyes, and a feeling of not inconsiderable nausea. I rubbed my head, faintly wished my Mummy was somewhere nearby, and worried about getting in trouble lest my blood or vomit should find itself intermingled with the chlorinated H2O.

Reunited with a beaming SWK, I declared myself retired from the more high-octane chutes and slides and other devilments. I had given it a solid go, and had escaped with my life. I spent the next hour or so faintly concussed. Eventually I was led into the shade, and plied with a little rejuvenating lager by my loved one. Some semblance of a non-aquatic reality started to find its way into my bruised noggin.

But as we shall see, some 500km away, another dangerous episode was to come. Travel with us next time to the wilds of Iasi, via a small oven, there to meet the fruity disaster area that is Ovidiu The Rogue…