suggzy

Time to bring us a bit more up to date, with my take on events from September of this year.

For accuracy, Saturday 20^th September, as I was reminded the other night, when SWK remarked how it was already two months and more since we got back from our delightful Summer holiday in Dubrovnik (Croatia) and Kotor (Montenegro). It was indeed delightful, despite me being there for the entire time..

As ever with me, and particularly with tales of misadventure and misbehaviour, there is something of a back-story that needs filling-in, for context.

To go a bit further back in time, SWK had moved in with me back in the late Spring/early Summer. A delightful and exciting time for both of us. Emotionally very stirring, as we went about the practical business of getting her and the dog settled into new full-time quarters. Except they were not to be full-time right away, as she had managed to arrive at five weeks’ work down in Windsor, beginning almost at the moment the last box was unpacked. All very posh and very good for her indeed.

With a couple of visitations planned, including a quick whizz down to the Kent to visit my parents and the dog (who was Summering by the Sea; he always gets the best deal), I assumed the time would pass quickly and cheerfully enough. But, if ever I assume something, it’s a pretty safe bet to assume the opposite, frankly. As was the case here. I was, within three days of solo living, reduced to the state of a morose, lovelorn 14-year-old, only with less charisma, but better clothes. I was grumpy by text message, and even worse over the telephone, as it turns out that Windsor is some manner of blackout zone for modern mobile technology. I imagine that communications were, at least at times, probably clearer between the trenches and HQs of World War I. With every staccato conversation concluding in that beep-beep-beep-beep sound that went by, I grew more miserable and determined to visit whenever I could, to make up for it.

And so it was that I came to visit a sunny and delightful Windsor on each and every weekend. Lord alone knows what SWK must have thought about the prospect of my returning presence, as my morale and self- possession gradually nosedived through the working weeks, bereft of my lover and our dog (as I have pointed out before, I am a bit of a tit when it comes to not seeing the bigger picture). Anyway, she always greeted me with open arms, so despite everything I must have been doing something right, even if it was just getting a round in for her and other assorted thespian types on a Friday night. When lacking charm, apply a little money. Hmmm.

I think I reached a whole new nadir in our time together when we decided to take to the water, one bright and lovely Sunday afternoon. A little trip out on the river, before a spot of lunch. What could be better? Almost anything, it turned out.

The first error made was to save money by not hiring a little rowing boat with an outboard motor on the back, in favour instead of the gentle breezes, panama hats, blazers and floaty-dressed romance of rowing one another gently up and down the river for a while. Pah. Needless to say the first half of the trip was carried out with beautiful, smiling serenity by my all-time-favourite oarswoman, SWK. She had studied some manner of Nautical Higher, up in the wilds of Scotland, as a girl, and took to the whole thing with a natural confidence, and a smooth rhythm, even finding time to point out pretty things and elements of the flora and fauna, which I duly snapped with the ever-present camera.

Then it was my turn. The sun popped behind the clouds. A few water-fowl eyeballed one another and took off, and in the distance a church bell chimed a single warning. Even the ever-optimistic SWK decided it would be she who would “just get us back over the other side”, neatly negotiating the oncoming traffic, clearly having seen something in my shifting gait and wary eye as I prepared to reach for the controls.

And, yes, predictable enough, I was horrible at it. And didn’t everyone get to find out? When I wasn’t carving a zig-zag path into pontoons and passing boats, I was either gouging three feet down into the Thames with my oars in a frustrated attempt to gather speed and traction, or I was grazing the water lightly like one attempting a parmesan shaving. Soon the effort made me sweaty, and then shortly afterwards, as the hour for the return of the boat grew nigh, my childish propensity to anger with myself boiled over quite horridly. From the other end of the boat came sweet messages of loving support, dotted with advice, with the most helpfully gentle  and understanding delivery, about what we might be about to hit. I heard none of this. All I could do was gather up every negative moment of personal reflection I had ever had, and channel it into an attempt to somehow get the bloody boat back.

I’m afraid to say my language became quite colourful, as my resentment of myself and our predicament bubbled over. Alas, video survives, too. Ask SWK and she might show it to you. It isn’t, in truth, one for the kids. At one point in the piece, where SWK tries to assure me that there are other folk behind me presenting an even greater threat to shipping, I respond by telling her that they are NOT. That they are all rowing PERFECTLY, and that I am sat there “in a boat, in a hat, looking like a c*nt who writes letters for a living”. Charm personified, me.

It would have been much the better thing for everyone, and no court in the land would have convicted her of any crime, if SWK had simply pushed me in and left me to drown in my own resentment, there amongst the pretty reeds. But no, as she does every day, she stuck with it until land was sighted and the anchor weighed. The walk to the restaurant afterwards was marked with ever more elaborate forms of apology from me, at recurring intervals of about 15 seconds or so.  I felt like, and had been, an utter arse.

And so, we have established I am not terribly handy when it comes to the manipulation of water-borne craft.

Back to the Dalmatian coast, then? Exactly 73 days, to the delightful evening at Restaurant Dubrovnik, the terrace of which I would recommend to anyone, anytime. It was lovely. And made more so by the fact that that was the night where I asked SWK to marry me, and she (quite inexplicably) responded in the affirmative. She’ll be a long old time regretting that one…

It really was a fabulous night, I have to say. I’d done an amount of the spadework through the good offices of Trip Advisor, where one weeded out the greater displays of restaurateur madness. E-mails had followed to my finalised choice. Fizz and a corner table were secured, and on the evening itself the staff were just super-duper kind. In fact the manager accosted me when I went for a pee (this was in the Gents, for clarity – not a hostile arresting gesture because I was piddling in a plant pot, struck by nerves) to tell me he would “stop the terrace” if I wanted to go down on one knee in the middle of the whole place. I declined, and explained that I wanted to go for something ‘partially public’ and that this was part of classic British Reserve. In truth I don’t think he was that interested in my nervous commentary, and I might have been better to just shut up, but he gave us our desserts and coffees for free and took a nice picture of us on our way out, so no complaints there!

I nearly stuffed it up, by the way (just before we get to the actual kayaking bit). I’d mentally prepared what I wanted to say, and knew where the ring was, etc. It’s just there was always something going on with wine glasses or bread, or candles being lit, or SWK would launch into some extended anecdote so it would have been impolite to interrupt. We were debating dessert and I needed a wee again by the time I made a predatory leap around the edge of the table to whip out the sparkler and gush out the various sentiments in my heart. Needless to say this was just as a party of 23405676 Dubrovnikers were being seated behind me, largely female, and to a woman they all spotted what was going on, and there was a resultant soundtrack of excited squealing to my entire proposal.

Still, job done and all that. We weaved out to a bar for a couple of rather more lowbrow pints and some more photographs (once of which I took on my phone, and will add here, if the missus allows it) and then settled down for the night, looking forward to the kayaking trip we had booked for the following morning.

And the following morning dawned, and blow me, we still had to go kayaking. Nerves worried at my gut. The beautiful sunshine had, naturally, evaporated to be replaced by a slate grey sky, the like of which sits outside my window just now, during a late Autumn, East Midlands style. There was rain in the air. However, we had paid our deposit, we had gone to bed at really quite sensible o’clock, really quite sober(ish) and we were going.

I affected a light-hearted confidence. I had been told it was “easy” and “only” 10k – a distance I could run (alright, perhaps not on water), and what a wonderful way to start pre-marital life, in a tandem kayak, sliding around the beautiful coast as a loving unit. Yeah, it was going to be fine.

We got there on time. Our stuff all fitted in the waterproof barrel on the back of our sturdy-looking craft. The lifejackets fitted (I was nervous about that – in my head I am still about 18 stone, despite appearances being to the contrary). I could follow the instructions, and swing the paddle about in the way you were supposed to. We boarded the thing okay, and managed to manoeuvre our way across the rocky harbour with not a little elegance, featuring some steering the right way, with my beloved at the helm.

We were to be guided and to receive explanations as to what we were gawping at, in ‘rest’ periods (every  1000m or so, I suppose?) from a nice young fellow, with another chappie following up at the rear. They appeared agreeable enough, although they did observe that the weather “is not great, but okay”. 2/3 of the way round we would be stopping in a cave for lunch, swimming and photos etc.

Off we went, and things went, very rapidly, downhill. Within the first 150 metres we were dead last, dropping into a morning-long contest with a pair of Italian girls for Crappest At Kayaking In Europe. I attempted to ape SWK’s movements, as per instructions. All appeared, mechanically, just as smooth as it had been in the harbour, but progress was just soooo sloooow. The reason for this was not just the drag factor of the leaden buffoon in the bow (although I think we all have to concede that’s got to have been part of it), but the fact that the rain had started to sheet down, and we were now on the open sea, which had started to boil, roil and roll in a manner designed to capsize anything it could. Including us. At one point I looked up through my useless glasses to see, there in the distance, Noah, flicking the Vs at me, the bastard.

In fairness, we stuck with it like the rock solid couple we are. Not a hint of a cross word, although my familiar self-doubting self was just clearing his throat in the wings. The kayaks of our fellow tourists (they paid for under-boat motors – must have) were just starting to mass in the distance around our young guide. After a time, muscles aching, we pulled in alongside, only to hear something like “.. which is a really cool story! Okay, guys, on to the next stop then? Yeah? Cool.”

And they all just fucked off again. And, after a nice rest of their bronzed and supple limbs, at a greater pace than before. Gaaah. It wasn’t so much the prospect of the effort to be expended to close the gap that bothered me, it was the fact I was not learning a bloody thing about where we were or what there was to see. I started to verbalise these concerns, as only I will do at times like this, to my beloved. Lucky her – trying to steer an underpowered piece of plastic into a nautical gale, with the most crosspatch man in the world just out of reach of the paddle-slap he so very richly deserved, all the while ruefully eyeing her engagement ring, no doubt, as the future began to slowly unfurl itself to her.

The pattern continued to repeat itself. Paddle like your life depended on it for 20 minutes, arrive in a state of near-vomiting exhaustion, listen to 15 seconds of back slapping delightedness, cast a suspicious eye at the Italian girls and the back-marker flirting with them whilst smoking and jabbering on his mobile, and then set off again back into the maelstrom.

After at least 300 hours of this, we pulled up on the edge of the cave. Which was surrounded by a wall of foaming water, at which we had to hurl ourselves at full whack to give the chaps in there the remotest chance of pulling us onto the beach. Somehow this move was pulled off. Lord alone knows how, judging by the state of us when we emerged from the bloody kayak. Not one limb worked properly. Both of us wobbled and hobbled our way further into the safety of the cave, away from the rain and the swell.  I placed the possessions barrel on the cave floor, determined to try and take some photographs and salvage something from the experience.

I rose up from the barrel, turned, and tripped over a rock directly behind my feet, and fell face first into the sand. I was, as I had been back in the earlier Summer on the rather more placid Thames, rather less than a ray of sunshine about this. I lay there with a mouthful of sand and a quartet of burning arms and legs, freshly battered from the fall. I then launched forth a volley of adjectives to lend some colour to my experiences of kayaking to date. No one within earshot  would have been in any doubt as to the overall conclusions I had reached about the place of this sport in my life.

My guardian angel came to the rescue once again. I must do something for her, some day. She pulled me to my feet, gave me a little cuddle, promised we would never go kayaking again, and went off to source a sandwich and a glass of (oddly good, I remember, despite the suspiciously-large catering-sized bottle) white wine for us, from our tour ‘guide’. She even had him recount some of the information previously lost to us on the howling winds over the open water. Like a child, after a tantrum, my mood softened again. Inside, the kernel of guilt about how I lose my self-possession at times like this hardened just a little more. It’ll be tougher than a diamond, by the time I am an old man.

The fact remained, of course, that we still had roughly one third of this little jaunt to go. The clouds had certainly not parted, and the weather remained quite awful. Two things helped, though: 1) we were, inch by inch, going back to dry land, where I could gradually spend the rest of my life un-learning what I had experienced on the water this year and 2) we swapped seats. Initially, at least, we kept pace, although things got a little tense when a German lady lost control of her paddle (are they called paddles, by the way? I have already forgotten, which is probably a sign that 1), above, is working) and almost gouged out my right eye – missing me by a whisker. I felt SWK go quiet behind me, at that moment, probably featuring some sort of dreadful diplomatic incident. The fact that I kept my quite frayed temper in check at that point is one of the few positive testimonies to myself and my character that morning that I can give.

We were soon knackered again, and back into near last. However we both found something to celebrate in that TWO couples had brief periods of being towed by some speedboat (driven by yet another young chap who was all white teeth and rippling muscles), having become rather tired. A service we outright REFUSED to countenance. I’d sooner have swum for it, frankly. A victory for our faith in one another, and sheer determination not to be bested by the appalling conditions.

We returned, battered and bruised. SWK delighted, me mortified by poverty of mental resources, but happy enough still to be engaged to be married. Conversations about kayaking have been relatively few in number, since our return. A watered-down version will be replayed with friends, as a pre-dinner anecdote, but I think we both know we don’t want to relive it. Or more precisely to relive me reliving it. It was less than pretty. I am not a water baby. The holiday taught me I have almost forgotten how to swim, as well. Still, on we go, with adventures in Austria, Bulgaria, Greece and Turkey yet to be written.

For now, next time, I’d like to return to a couple of recent forays to Austria and Norway, made famous in my mind for not dissimilar turns of events..

Being Frightened By Hookers: A Two Parter (the joys of being British and Running Away)