Part One
Welcome back – didn’t take long, eh?
I’ve a bit of time this week before the next interview is to be attended and next lot of applications is to be written. So, August will see me make good on one of my promises – and get up to schedule with 12 tales of silliness in a year, including this two-parter. The running’s coming on… I just need to lose some weight and it’ll all be coming together splendidly. Well, provided I get a job, too!
So, let’s turn to our attentions to my last holiday with my Mother.
2013 was the year my life changed utterly. And wonderfully. And in some respects permanently.
By July, I was a non-smoker, 100lb lighter than was once the case, and I had just over a year of total abstinence behind me. And I was five months into my running career.
Running came to me after quite some time. And features rather later on in this particular tale, where I learned rather a lot. In February, whilst still smoking and losing weight, I decided to go out for a walk, just four days ahead of my 39th birthday. Before doing so, I downloaded the RunKeeper App onto my iPhone. A bit of messing about with the specifics of it, and I made for the countryside, to go for what is an old fave of a route, through a couple of attractive local villages. It was a cold Winter day, so on went the coat and a pair of boots.
As much as I have always liked walking, I have never taken a competitive attitude to it. Just, you know, a chance for some steady locomotion and the opportunity to look at some nice stuff and take a few pictures here and there. However, on this occasion I said to myself “I’m going to get on with this”. There was the distant prospect of an output from the App in terms of distance, pace, and, importantly for one still dieting; calories.
And so it was, 35 minutes later, I found myself clambering up the hill from Papplewick to Linby. I was gasping for breath, my feet were becoming of roughly the consistency of a steak tartare, and cold sweat rolled like waves down my back. I felt like crap. But, just for once, I persisted. I was going to do this, and, in the end, I did. The ‘phone read five miles, 77 minutes and 3 seconds, and 485 calories. I had climbed 180 feet, and walked a mile in under 15 minutes. Actually, now I look at it, two of them. I lay on the sofa with a ciggie and cooled down. And started to feel rather jolly. This activity was free, and could be repeated, and would generate equally ‘free’ weight loss.
And repeated it was. I walked the last three tram stops home twice a week, and got up just after dawn on Saturday and Sunday morning to do the 5-miler before breakfast. The improvements that came under this regime were astonishing. They were helped by me actually wearing rather more sensible clothing, and popping on a pair of trainers, but the miles had to be done, and done they were.
And then came that day. A bit warmer, probably end of March, beginning of April when I thought, dressed in a pair of tracksuit bottoms (£8 from Tesco – still got ‘em, albeit they are now covered in paint) that, there being no one around, I would jog 100 yards downhill. And I did. A few minutes later, I did it again. And then a third time. On the final occasion I was slightly put off when a solidly-built lady in her mid-fifties flew by me like I was standing still.. but I had started running. All memories of asthmatic childhood wheezing through Cross Country and the like had been banished in the dawning of a morning. My lungs forgot to burn, my breath returned in no time. I was actually getting fitter.
And I never looked back. By the time we reached August 6th, I was as fit as I have ever been. I weighed what I did when I was 17. My dating profile mentioned I liked running! I even had thoughts of doing some in Malta.
August 6th 2013, which has just passed us for the third time since, was the day when I met the beautiful, humorous, tolerant and talented SWK. As our wedding guests last Summer learned, I made a nervous arse of myself on the first occasion of meeting. Utterly hopeless, struck by the presence of a pretty girl like I was still 14 or something. But, for all that, once I’d had a couple of glasses of wine I loosened up and managed to talk to her.. even make her laugh. By midnight she joined me in a smiling cuddle by some nearby bins, and we agreed to meet again on Friday of that week. The evening after my last day of work that Summer, and the night before I was due to jet to Ramsgate, via Cambridge, to meet my partner in crime for the Malta venture.
A fine evening it was, too. I had the total fanboy experience of picking up the object of my affections from Stage Door. Like an autograph hunter. She took my arm and we wandered into town for a couple of glasses of wine. In serious mode, she asked me a few pertinent quiz questions about my coming divorce proceedings, my friendship with Sarah the First, etc. etc. It was much like being grilled as to one’s prospects over a fireside whisky by a prospective Father-in-Law. It seems I passed, and before long we had moved pubs and were sat shoulder to shoulder and thigh to thigh and the questions became lighter, but a bit more personal. I think I probably said to myself, quietly “I might be in here” but dared not quite to dream.
I need not have worried. An hour later I was being dragged to a late bar, via a cashpoint where SWK appeared to withdraw about £2000. I was bought a whisky which I did not ask for, and then nervily dropped, and then she kissed me. I have never looked back since.
The night drew on. We became closer. Eventually we walked (alright, wobbled) hand in hand back to her digs, in those foothills of a great affection that are so tremendously exciting. I was placed in the kitchen with a glass of water whilst the lady went off to spend a suspicious amount of time in the bathroom, having drunk a number of glasses of wine following little or no dinner. People came and went, asked me what I was ‘in’ that week (mistaking the all-new slimline me for an actor), and I sipped my water until the lady reappeared. Toothpaste fresh. We passed some more time outside on the steps, agreed that it would be best not to spend the night together, given it was 3am and she had rehearsals at 9am and I had, as we know, a drive ahead of me. She walked me, barefoot, to a taxi. On this walk, I became that combination of bold and idiotic that characterises so much of my existence.
“I’m going away for a couple of weeks” I said.
“Oh?” she replied.
“Yes. Don’t get the wrong idea or anything, but I’m taking Mother on holiday to Malta.”
Not a flicker.
“But if you could bear not to see anyone else whilst I am away, I can’t wait to see you again”
Bit better.
“Fine” she said. And into a taxi I went.
Such exchanges are not uncommon. I guess it was about a month or so later when I stayed the night at her flat for the first time. On waking, during a tender discussion over Sunday morning coffee, we managed to head-butt one another really quite hard. I was mortified – this is not, I believe, the behaviour designed to seal the deal with a new lover? She, of course, giggled, lay back on the bed rubbing her forehead and asked me:
“So… am I in some sort of relationship now?”
Soaked in romance, huh?
“I do hope so” I replied. And promptly asked her, hurriedly, if she would come to my friend’s wedding with me. Always with the dim-witted and panicky response. Still, she said yes, and one way or another we’ve been following one-another through life ever since, and always will. I am the luckiest of men; I really am.
I woke that Saturday morning back in July in a slightly tender, but most excited state. Couple of nervy texts exchanged with my new belle (just wanted to check it wasn’t all some highly unfair dream), and I scraped myself together bit by bit and drove steadily down to Cambridge. There, I picked up the one and only bespoke suit I have ever had made. Wonderful item it is, too. Give me three months and I’ll be able to wear it again.
Realising the time, I called Mother and through a cheesy grin gave her a bit of a precis of why I was going to be a bit late. No problem – off I went.
There followed a nice couple of days catching up. We gradually got to the stage where Mother and I were convinced we could safely leave the Old Man alone for five nights. Essentially made the place safe, cleaned and ironed his clothes, handed over a few quid and ensured there was a spare corkscrew within reach. Crossing fingers, we whizzed up to Luton, to a nearby hotel where we were staying the night before our dawn flight to the island. One way or another, after a 27-point turn, I parked the car and we headed through various subterranean corridors then up to Reception to check in. This was a process that gathered us a couple of slightly long and quizzical looks.
I realised why, on opening the door to our room, and espying a double bed rather than two singles. We thought this was hilarious, particularly when one of us pointed out I probably hadn’t ‘slept in Mummy’s bed’ since I had measles as a boy of 7, just over three decades before. Nonetheless it was not a conventional arrangement, let’s face it. Still, we had a picnic and went down to the bar and shared a bottle of wine, discussed holiday plans, and listened to the strains of a very noisy and very boozy group of Chinese businessmen, laying waste to most of the blended whisky that Bedfordshire could make available.
Eventually we rattled off to bed, making ready for sleep, a comic distance apart. I lay awake, texting SWK about the silliness of it all, as Mother began to cut the night with her snores. Some small time later I must have fallen asleep. The next thing I knew the alarm was blaring the arrival of 4.00am and I was trying to get the hotel kettle under the tap in the standard issue tiny sink, and switching on the shower to warm it up, for I am a Good Son. For the most part, anyway.
We got ourselves together and headed for checkout. Rather alarmingly, our visitors from the Far East were still living it up, which added a certain amount of colour to the procedure. I prised the car from its spot, collect Mother and her baggage and we made for the airport and the plane.
The first major trial of the holiday, for once, did not present itself until we were actually in Malta.
We embarked on the standard issue 1,000 miles per hour taxi ride towards Slima – a town across the harbour from the capital, Valletta. Mother had asked me to book there, specifically, as it was a part of the island she knew well from two previous visits with the Old Man. Given that up until the end of the previous year she had been really very unwell indeed, I was determined that she should get what she wanted and feel comfortable at all times, whilst enjoying feeling fit enough to travel overseas again. With a screech of brakes, we pulled up outside a place that felt really rather grand. I remember thinking, at the time, that we had done rather well for ourselves (I had cashed in a few Airmiles to get us a decent set of lodgings), as we entered from the early heat of the day into a cool and open lobby, with a double-staircase ahead of us and a Reception desk on the right. Top notch stuff. Armed with passports and paperwork I approached the desk to get us booked in, whereupon a pretty hard-nosed lady basically said “no”. I enquired what “no” actually meant and she informed me that they had had a block booking from a Language School and our booking had been bumped to another hotel.
Had it been less hot, and had I not been up for several hours, I might have got rather angry at this point, but it seemed no way to start a holiday. Instead, one opted for a smile and a determination to negotiate. I registered my surprise that something I had booked six months ago should suddenly be bounced out in this way, and enquired as to what the alternative option on the table was, inwardly wondering about travel insurance, and the fluidity of my credit card.
“Don’t worry at all, Sir, we have a lovely Sister hotel for you and your Mother”, I was told. “If you wait there we will call a cab for you to take you there.”
There followed a familial conference. My Mother was very keen to know the hotel was in Slima, for reasons I have already outlined.
“Yes, of course” said the stone-beaked one, a little dismissively for my liking. I was starting to bristle, but managed to score us a cuppa whilst we waited. And waited and waited.
I shot the odd look at the desk, as we poured a second drink, and got assurances that the cab was on its way. We did wonder, at the time, why a cab was necessary. Could we not walk ‘round the corner? Still, when you’re being mucked about you are inclined to cost those doing it a few quid (well, I am). Eventually a taxi arrived. I offered the most unctuous “thank-you so much” to the staff that my energies would allow, and the world’s most talkative and speedy taxi driver burned rubber in a northerly direction.
In only five minutes we were, quite clearly, on some sort of highway, heading away from both Slima and Valletta. Reasoning that the driver was only following orders, we bit down and waited. I asked him, in between tales of the achievements of his children, what the hotel was like and where it was. “Pretty different”, he offered. “Twenty minutes?” he followed up. I started to compose my letter of complaint. My Mother remained stoic behind dark glasses. I felt like a right ineffective git.
What felt like several days later, we drove around the edge of a bay to the front of an enormous hotel. We were in something they call a ‘resort’, I gather. Miles from where we should be. Around us the air thumped, gently, with distant drum and bass. I was dazzled by the number of signs advertising lager. Children screamed from nearby swimming pools and I could feel small shards coming off my teeth as I ground them.
There was more by way of delights to come, however. I presented myself to the second front desk of the morning, leaving Mother, seated, with the luggage. I explained who we were and handed over a hand-written note from Hotel #1. A nice enough young fellow told me he did not know we were coming, but perhaps one of his colleagues would have more information. A conflab followed ‘round the back’ and eventually a woman came forward to explain to this now rather puce Englishman that his room was not ready yet. Not one room in the enormous hotel, it seemed. Could we come back at 3.00pm?
I look back now and wonder where I got my patience from, frankly, given at the best of times I have near enough none of it in stock. I suppose I thought, as it turned out to be the case, that this place had nothing to do with the first place whatsoever, and as such the staff were blameless – clearly an arrangement had been made ‘behind the scenes’. I pointed out that my fellow traveller and I had now been awake for ten hours, had not eaten and were as yet to actually be able to put our belongings into a hotel room. And that I was not really enjoying my holiday as yet. By way of restitution, we were given a voucher for lunch at the cavernous restaurant across the street and they took our bags into safe keeping.
We crossed the street in the midday heat, and did hungry justice to a not bad pair of pizzas and a bottle of emperkening beer and water each. Finally, the appointed hour came and my latest negotiation with the Maltese hotel industry started. Mercifully it was to prove the last one of the day. A room key, some vague instructions about breakfasting, and information about where to catch the bus.
“How long does it take to get to Slima harbour?” I enquired.
“Only about 40 minutes” the lady said.
I felt another tooth go, and hauled bags to the room, working on some particularly piquant phrases for the second paragraph of my letter. Showers were taken, bags unpacked and, fighting the tiredness, we headed out for our first foray onto the Maltese bus service. By which hang any number of tales of accidents, paedophilia, Angry Maternal Swearing and immodestly dressed Italians.
Of which more, next week.
suggzy 