suggzy

Keeping up with my promise to write something once a month, as I continue to be at leisure. Decided to drift away from travel for a while, to tell you the story of my life with dogs, for it has been more than a mixed bag. I’ll hit the travel trail again soon, most likely a little piece on my adventures in Malta with my Mother. Stay tuned.

Meantime? Let us step back to, I think, 1984. Easter holidays, and my Dad (yep, here we go again) decided I should join him and a couple of his chums as they went for a ’round of golf, at the public course near Canterbury. I was cast in the role of junior caddy, and before long I found myself dragging the old man’s clubs up hill and down dale. I certainly recall what I think was the third hole, which featured the most extraordinary incline up to an elevated tee. From there one was tasked with crashing one’s ball downhill and ’round a long right-hander of a dogleg.

The rain started to fall, and my progenitor thundered his drive a mile to the right, way, way over the adjacent trees.

I’d have the pleasure, some years down the line, of playing golf alongside the old boy. Instances such as that one off the third tee were really quite common. For instance, in my late teens I watched him once lash two consecutive drives directly down a railway line at the Westgate course. Thank the good Lord there wasn’t a service heading our way. ‘Amateur Golfer Derails 9.23 from Victoria’, the Thanet Times headline would have read.

We’ll get onto dogs, but I need to conclude this discussion of my Father’s golfing prowess first. He told me once about a game he was playing with a mate of his, when aged about 17 or so. They were queued up on a tee behind an elderly pair. One of these old boys unleashed a vast fade off into the undergrowth. Clearly a three-off-the-tee situation, but the fellow was determined to retrieve his ball. “You play through” he told the younger men, and stalked off at a near right-angle, to grumpily search the thicket.

Most men would feel the pressure coming off them at times like this, but Father and I share a similar sense of our fate, and the inevitable. He popped his ball down, and arrowed a five iron out into the blue. Within fractions of a second it deviated wildly to the right, and disappeared out of view. The first clue anyone had as to how the shot and concluded and where the ball was came with a blood-curdling distant scream. Yep, you guessed it. My teenaged Father had managed to pick out a pensioner in the small of the back from 80 yards, with his target invisible to him.

An uneasy silence followed. Thoughts of the law courts. How to disguise an accidental manslaughter? Whether or not to simply just run away? Light relief came when the injured party staggered back out onto the faraway. Rubbing his spine with one hand and cradling a golf ball in the other. My Father, being a good sort, made his way down the course and talked his way out of the whole business. Happily he remained at liberty (although his golf game never improved) to then sire a Son 11 years later, who would one day become his child caddy.

Back to 1984. The ball was lost, but, frankly, it was only a matter of moments before the rain gave way to a frankly epic deluge. This was the good old days. No waterproofs or brollies, just a case of giving it a few minutes and then agreeing it was every man and boy from himself. We arrived back at the cars at closing on lunchtime, and sat inside them drying off. The men agreed that the only possible solution was to go to the pub to get over the disappointment of missing out on the golf. We repaired to Margate, to a pub owned by one of their former teaching colleagues.

On arrival, my ten-year-old self was mortified to be met with a Big Black Dog. Through infancy and the first half of childhood, I had been terrified of dogs. I found their reactions to me unreliable. I sensed they sensed my fear. I mistook doggie exuberance for aggression, particularly after a nasty scrape or two with a Great Dane as a toddler. Our neighbours had two of them, and they patrolled their ploughed back garden with unexercised menace and they towered over me whenever they got near. Used to scare the absolute bejaysus out of me.

I attempted to hide myself, but animals have always been fascinated by me. The dog I own now is eyeing me even at this moment, up as I sit at the dining room table, typing this. I took my crisps and lemonade and attempted to keep the pool table between me and BBD, as my Dad and the others played a couple of racks of pool. However, a game of ‘chase’ inevitably resulted. Of course, now, I realise it was after my crisps. One does not leave crisps or peanuts unattended near our dog, as he is forever on the make.

A swift walk became a jog, which became a full pelt series of laps of the table, oblivious to anything else. To everyone in the pub but me, this was, of course, utterly hilarious. I must have done the 6’ x 4’ lap ten times before someone took pity on me and collared my loopy stalker. I was many many years in coming through the experience. In some ways it became worse, as I went through puberty and into adulthood, and discovered not only that I was afraid of dogs, but also really badly allergic to them. Prick tests (fnaar), steroids, all sorts of treatments.

If I was ten that day, I suppose it was the small matter of 29 years until I took up running in such earnest again. This was, of course, the year of the great weight loss, gathering of fitness, no booze, etc. etc. And, as we know, after a couple of online dating false starts, I was to meet the lovely SWK, who now sits to my left on the sofa, quietly contemplating her decision to have married me last Summer.

Our first two dates set the tone for what has become our inseparability. I was sold on her within minutes, and told the story of how utterly useless I was on our first date last Summer to our wedding guests. Happily she was able to excuse my nitwit scaredy-cat behaviour and soon proved to be feeling about me as I did about her. However, following that second date we were to be parted for nearly three weeks, as I was promised to a Maltese holiday with Ma, and a bit of a tour around the UK seeing chums.

Eventually, we made arrangements to meet for a third time. Naturally, SWK tentatively suggested that she might bring her and now our dog out to lunch? Naturally, I said yes. I knew she had a dog and could not ignore the fact. Plus, I was falling very much in love with her, so we’d have to see how it went.. I had visions of ending lunch having turned blue, and having to ask her and the dog for a lift to A&E.

I drove to Chesterfield from Manchester in the most glorious sunshine, dressed up proper smart, small pressie in my pocket. All the while fearing doggie disaster. I arrived, and tentatively made my way over to the churchyard under The Spire. On the bench sat my beautiful girl in a Summer dress, with this little fellow. What a gorgeous pair, eh?

Tentative peck. Nervous reintroductions, and then we set off and, within ten yards, young Milo (MTWD – Milo The Wonder Dog) looked earnestly up at me and dropped his canine guts all over the base of the nearest gravestone.

MTWD has something of a habit of crapping on consecrated ground. I have been through the experience many times since, of course. However, on that first afternoon, looking back, the ‘test’ period had begun. Cute three-year-old dog versus 39-year-old grumpy suitor for the attentions of the female.

The great success that Saturday afternoon (beyond SWK grounding her sports car on the way up to the reservoir to exercise MTWD, only to issue forth such language as I had never heard before), came when we got back to the lady’s flat. Now in an enclosed space, I feared it was only a matter of time before the very affectionate and cuddly animal did for me. But, you know what? The sneezes never came. My breath stayed clear. My skin stayed intact. I left, hours later, and the future was set fair.

Alright, yes, I had a few days when I felt a little off colour, and puffed and blowed a bit, but essentially the whole thing was written in the stars, and I stayed healthy, happy, and came to love them both as much as I do now.

But my transportation to loving dog owner was not without its tests. MTWD can be a wilful little fellow, for a dog that weighs a stone and is ten inches high. Frequently, when we were alone together, further challenges would come. One rather rainy October afternoon, with SWK out at work, I decreed he had to go out for a little bit of exercise, having lay on me in bed for the first half of the day. MTWD took a different view, and anchored himself to the ground when we got out in the wet. I implored the little chap to be reasonable, that we were only going ‘round the block and it would do him good. Nope, not budging, bugger you, forcing me out in the rain. In the end I had no choice but to commence a dragging move, at which point he responded by launching from the back end, once again, leaving a frightful streak across the pavement, which I then had to clear up. 1-0 MTWD.

A week or two later, and we were over at my place in Hucknall. Out for an evening stroll whilst SWK finished up at work. As we ambled in the dark up to the Leisure Centre, the hound dived off into the undergrowth with alarming power. Caught off guard, it was a few crucial seconds before I realised he’d got a discarded chicken bone in his craw. I attempted to grasp one end of it and haul it back into open air, but with a growl and a memorable ‘crack’, he broke up and yummied down the item. Blast! Still early days with SWK, and I feared the mutt would inevitable have pierced himself, and would expire within the hour. But no, he trotted on thoroughly pleased with himself, and home we went. And of course, wanting to prove himself terribly mistreated, he waited for ‘Mum to get back through the front door and for me to begin my cautionary tale, to vomit the blasted bone all over the place. 2-0 MTWD.

More was to follow. The time when he rewarded me for a six-mile walk by piddling up the leg of my almost new 501s when he decreed we had had to wait too long at a traffic signal. That was nice. Then the time we were visiting SWK’s Granny over in Wyre, and, to be helpful, I walked him over to Evesham to do some shopping at ASDA. Tied him up for a few minutes (this had worked fine before), popped into the store and then, a few minutes later, found myself the subject of a Customer Announcement, as the dog had gone utterly BANANAS outside. Ditched my shopping, went out in the rain (why was it always raining at times like this?) to find him being tended to by the Manager and Deputy Manager. Needless to say, as soon as he saw me he acted like nothing had happened and ‘went all cute’.

He was, let’s face it, massively ahead on points by the time when, one Sunday morning, SWK told him that I was his ‘Dad’ now. I still feel a bit misty about that, a couple of years and more later.

And he went on to become my absolute wonderful buddy. He leaps onto the bed at night and sleeps on our feet until morning. He’s laid by my side for a few days at a time when I’ve gone down with a grim cold. I’ve taught him new words, and he’s been wonderful to me so many times. He’s never off duty, and is a pleasure to be with. He cracks me in the knees whenever I’ve been out for more than 20 minutes, and demonstrated love every day of his life. I can’t remember a time when he wasn’t our lovely dog, and hate being without him.

So, there you are. Quite unexpectedly I am now a dog lover. And it only took a shade under 30 years to become such. The best things in life are worth waiting for.

Love you, doggo.

Recently, I found myself at my local Jobcentre Plus, signing-on. Not something I had done in the better part of 20 years, but that’s where we are just now, with me having accepted a severance agreement from my former employers at the tail end of last year. Whilst it’s been a big adjustment, I do at least have a little time and some resources to rebuild a bit and see what I should do next. One thing I promised myself on New Year’s Eve 2015 was that I would at the very least try and write something entertaining for this blog on a monthly basis. So, here we are again.

The Jobcentre has changed somewhat in the last two decades, and not just through the addition of the very positive ‘Plus’ word in the title. As I have commented to others, the feel of the place was like something between the modern bank, and its lounging areas and espresso machines, and a slightly quiet Costa/Nero’s/Starbucks. Chaps wore ties, and I was called ‘Sir’ on several occasions. Lord alone knows why. My new ‘coach’, who is polite enough, shook my hand most effusively. I don’t think he really knows what I am for (he suggested I should apply for a Head of Architecture post when last we met), but his manners are impeccable. I have to go back there this week (that nice Mr Duncan Smith is always watching) for a group workshop called ‘Futures’, which might promise to take the edge off these uncharacteristically bright feelings of mine. Time will tell. I shall report.

Anyway, the last time I found myself ‘resting’, the business of signing on was not so convivial. Even in Cambridge, where one never met the same person twice, and alcohol and cigarette smoke hung thick in the air. At 8.30am. But it was vastly worse in Queen’s House, Queen Street, Ramsgate, where I had to sign on as a UB40 tourist one week by dint of visiting my parents. Here I met with actual violence, on the top floor.

Anyone who knows me will be aware that whilst I am at turns grumpy and irritable, that’s really only ever something directed inwards. I am certainly not a violent man. I’m a lover not a fighter, and am more likely to be wielding a bunch of flowers rather than a bunch of fives. Therefore, as a blameless fellow, I was surprised to find myself on the end of an angry right hander from a departing client. A Scotsman who was puce in the face, and not minded to suffer his fellow man after he left the building after what had evidently been a rather unsatisfactory tete a tete with his advisor. I was really too stunned to register how much it hurt, as I staggered into the job noticeboards. Just unlucky, I suppose. But still, an injustice had been served. I won’t do that line about rays of sunshine and Scotsmen with grievances. Oh, whoops, I have.

All this is not without irony, for only three years earlier I had been the deliverer of a violent miscarriage of justice myself. Curiously, this then led on to two of the great friendships of my life, that still endure to this day. Indeed the other parties involved may very well come to read this. Hope so.

I was just into my third year at College, and now firmly established as one of the resident bar flies. And what a wonderful, battered old youth club of a bar it was. Grubby, noisy, full of silliness, and with puddles of beer sticking to one’s trainers.  Jukebox blaring out Another Brick In The Wall; always a source of amusement to a juicer-full of trainee teachers. Out the back, a unisex toilet, where a range of activities happened, frankly.

At my elbow that evening, my dear little chum Andy, who I came to dub ‘The Pocket Genius’ when, after what one can only be described as an up and down career as an undergraduate, he popped off to the library for a couple of weeks just before Finals and somehow emerged with a First class degree. I can’t say the same, but then I never really went to the University Library much. It was a dreadfully confusing place, where I often got lost. The dust played havoc with my asthma and the reading matter was most dreadfully dull. The odds were against me from the start, frankly. ‘TPG’ was and is a man of unlimited intelligence and wit, but, like me, struggled to apply himself.  And so there we sat, sluicing down £1 pints of lager, talking utter nonsense and generally making merry.  Joining us for the evening was an ‘up and comer’ first year, our friend Nicholas. Now a bald, teetotal vegan, he was at that stage a beefy 19-year-old with a mop of curly ginger hair and a line in baseball caps, good humour and a prodigious capacity for sinking beer. You’ll perhaps remember from my earlier meanderings that he and I visited Prague and Warsaw together? Everything was going increasingly swimmingly, but the atmosphere was to change in mere minutes.

I excused myself for a time, and veered off to the loo to siphon off some of the evening’s complement of Fosters (yes, I know, I know). I was having a nice time.  As I opened the door and ducked ‘round the cigarette machine towards my seat, I saw a most unexpected sight. This appalling young upstart cracking TPG under his chin, and rocking him back on his bar stool.

To my shame, I did not wait for explanations, and waded in without ceremony. I made for the blighter, and clocked him with a good one. Cheeky young bastard, hitting my little chum like that! Devil was he thinking of? Perhaps, in retrospect, I suppose I might have bothered to ask him. Instead, I stood there, beerily enraged at the ruins of the evening, with my future great friends staggering around rubbing their bruised faces. At which point, the contretemps came to an abrupt end, through the good citizenry of our friend Tall James. Something of a warm-spirited giant of a man, he, like a number of patrons, had cut short his conversation as the brief flurry of right handers played out. He then ‘stepped in’, and deposited each of us to different parts of the bar with an instruction to generally “calm down lads” a bit. To our credit, we did.

After a time, ever the instinctive peacemaker, I recharged our glasses, offered a few handshakes, and asked of my quarry precisely what the fuck he thought he was doing clobbering a fellow who must have weighed nine stone dripping wet? I asked him this, just as he had asked me why it was that I had struck him. Of course, because my friends were at that stage on the lunatic fringe, they had, it transpired, decided to embark upon an impromptu ‘punching in the face competition’ whilst I had been busy at the porcelain. As polite young men do, right? The rest of the evening passed in a not disagreeable but slightly wary fashion, it being impossible to ‘un-punch’ someone. Time passed, bruises went down, and a less pugilistic triumvirate we became. Frankly how we ever emerged into any of the positions of considerable responsibility we have each held, I have no idea. Many unwise incidents of japery and misadventure were to follow, down the years. I’d like to stress, though, that I am not currently ‘at leisure’ because I ever hit anyone at work. I’ve certainly had to mull over some murderous thoughts in the last year or so, but as my fifth decade goes on, I find myself ever more drawn to pacifism as a credo for my existence.

Let us then cycle forward to, I think, 2006. Closing in on married life the first time ‘round, I was living a cosy existence in a West Norfolk cottage, and generally enjoying life with Sarah the First. A slight curiosity of our domestic life was that the local Council did not seem to really believe in the recycling of bottles. So it was that we found ourselves loading up the motor every few weeks and driving the empties up to our local bottle bank, in the Morrisons car park. This was a duty we both took to with great gusto. The joy of slam-dunking the plentiful number of empties was most cathartic.

So we were on just such a mission, early one cold morning. One box each, one bin each, and off we go. Glass shattered pleasingly, and all was going well, for a time. And then my fiancée let one go from a greater height and with more gusto than usual. And, alas, it rather ‘lipped out’, to use a golfing term. She caught the edge of the opening, and the bottle bounced back out, arcing through the air, only to catch me squarely on the chin at a rate of knots. I was not a little stunned, and the pain was memorable. Very much in love, and great friends as we are, we found it only to be moments before we were bawling with laughter at the accident. Slapstick at its best, of course. But still, I looked at her in good humour and said “I owe you one for that..”

Which would have been funny, if I had not just a few months later repaid her debt in a most unfortunate way. It was highly memorable, and indeed it was that lady who encouraged me to write about the incident.

So, let us cycle forward to that Summer. Off we did go to the family seat, in Ramsgate, for a couple of nights before taking the early Eurostar to Brussels. Initially, a quiet time was had by all, but then, as ever in my experience, on the night before a quite early start towards horizons new, there was chaos.

We took the parentals down to their local, for a couple of sharpeners. All jolly good and well, before returning to the homestead for a two-course meal. Lovely. Trouble is, my Father and I have never been much out of mutual love for the good services of a corkscrew. So it followed that, much in the manner of an episode of Downtown Abbey, the ladies parted the scene in favour of a good night under the duvet, and the gentlemen (using that term advisedly) chose to fight on.

I have a dim recollection of the hour chiming midnight, and a firm mutual commitment on both sides that we should finish the bottle and head to bed, for the waking hour was c.6.00am. No, no such luck. A brace of Bordeaux onwards, closing in on 3.00am, we were struck by the unmistakeably angry tones of Mother dearest, asking us quite what the fuck we thought we were doing? We had no real answer to that, beyond extinguishing cigs and hurriedly tidying the scene of the crime. The good lady popped down to lead the head of the family to the WC, pausing only to give me a rather long look. I woozily thought at that point that her holiday gift really should be a good one, after all those years of hard labour. I returned to the bedroom of my childhood and collapsed, very drunkenly, into the environs of my then partner. I can lack charm when drunk, and drunk I assuredly was.

Next thing I knew? The hour chimed six, and there came a none-too-gentle prod in the eye from my bedmate. All was not so well in pre-marital land, but I had no real sense of that, through the gift of still being really quite memorably drunk. Indeed, I was full of beans!  There was coffee, the finalisation of packing, and off we went to Ashford as my partner in crime slept on, the bastard. Except, and this is where the whole scheme fell to the ground, the very same old bastard had the indecency to come to, suddenly feel lonely and, for the first time ever in his life, thumbed away at his mobile, to contact his wife of 39 years, to demand she returned to pick him up, to see us off.

Back we went. The game was up. He struggled into some clothes and then, as Mother of mine drove to Ashford International at only just under the speed of light (we were now running late, but no one was going to question her style at the wheel), he stumbled upon the story of Adolphe Sax, and his accidental invention of, well, the saxophone (there is a Sax Museum in Brussels, we failed to attend it). He also tells me that he also told us a very rude joke about Andrew Lloyd Webber. I can’t recall that, and he won’t allow me to repeat it on my blog, so his e-mail address is lordpegwell@aol.com. Good luck.

Onwards to our point of departure, and the last memorable act of violence of my life.

Freed of my emboozed co-conspirator, we dragged our bags over to the station. There was coffee and bacon, at non-bargainacious rates, and then we whipped up through passport control and onto our platform.

And then we waited. And quite how wobbly I still was became clear to both of us. We were now oddly early but, after a while, our steed rolled in. Taking sympathy on me as she swung the door open, my then fiancée asked if I’d like help getting aboard? “Ho ho” I (jokingly) responded, and swung a fake punch at her.

And time slowed down, as it does, on the advent of something singularly appalling.

The punch impacted with a level of force one could never imagine. Bless her, we were to marry only a few months later, but the good lady’s head went back as if she had been hit by a train. Once I gathered her to the vertical, I was most effusive in my apologies. One my lower moments.

We found seats. All was quiet save for Sarah I periodically pointing out that I had “just hit her in the face”. I could not stop for apologising, of course, but, amidst it all, the terrible hell of it all, my hangover started to emerge… and as it did she actually laughed.. but one had the clear impression that reparations would need to be made.

Now, if I might be allowed to make a customary digression?

Mine have not been the most awful punches thrown in the history of humanity. They belong to a man who very briefly went to prison. His nom de plume is ‘Andy Stoke’ (AS hereafter). I met him only once, in my nineteenth year, in Crewe, where he was studying with a once friend of mine.  Tall fellow, at least 6’2”, he ate once a day, and a ‘meat’ Vindaloo on each occasion. He was, with the associated bowel movements we can only begin to imagine, a scrap of a fellow. Fortnightly, he would fold himself into his elderly mini and pop back home to watch Stoke FC play at home, after a customary pint or 8. Ordinarily to only rarely bad effect, but, at that point in time, to set himself up for the once-a-season face-up to Port Vale in ‘the derby’. Where most home fixtures would only get our new chum outside of only 8 pints between 12-3 pm, he most especially threw down 10 when it was ‘The Vale’. Derby. Etc. You understand.

And so he and colleagues weaved towards the ground. As described, all was well in the procession before he suddenly received a violent strike to the shoulder. Assuming that this was an interloper from the opposition Vale fans, our man turned and chucked a double hander. Into the forward  flanks of a police horse, alas. The horse, nonplussed, and uninjured, laid no charge. The Peelers popped him away for the night. Final score? Unknown. See? I’m not that bad.

And so we got to Brussels. Eventually. I left the equine brethren unmolested, but I was most indecorous in order. Having assured the good lady that I was in suitable order to direct us to our lodgings, I was found sorely wanting, I’m afraid. We wandered endlessly through the Eurostar station, found ourselves at the Metro, and back out again, and, ultimately, on the street again, where an incensed Sarah I took charge of the map and silently forged onwards in the right direction. Had my brains not have been leaking out of my ears for the duration of the train journey, I might have made a better study of the map.

Finally we arrived, and I was forced to taking to my bed for a while, apologising all the while, but chancing my life with a back-reference to the incident when I had been ‘bottled’. This lightened the mood, and on waking, I found the mood had warmed and we struck out for a few days of good fun.

And good fun we most certainly had. It’s true that we began most days with a certain amount of tut-tutting at the youthful co-residents from the USA, and their habit of grabbing every single bread roll to make sarnies to keep them in sustenance for the day. However, we ourselves were in good funds sufficient to keep ourselves going. The hotel also had a really quite frightening lift, sort of open on three sides, such that one observed what appeared to be the walls going downwards.. I found I had to take the journey with my eyes closed.

Brussels was rather nice. Idling in Grand Place, eyeing  up impossibly expensive artisan chocolates. Marvelling at the impossibly small and pointless Mannaken Pis (which one read had been stolen and returned many many times; it took a good ten minutes for an unenthralled crowd to part so one could take lewd photographs of it. A gentle reintroduction to alcohol in the form of delicious Belgian beer, and the discovery of a new food favourite in the form of Stoemp, a rural mashed veg. Creamy, tasty, bloody marvellous. I’ve made it myself since, but it’s not the same.

We had a couple of lovely evenings comparatively shopping for restaurant meals on Rue De Bouchers (a sort of Brick Lane of Euro-nosh, where endless waiters attempted to usher one in by making magician-like sweeps of their arms over caskets of fresh meat and fish). We went all out on the penultimate evening in a place that had an amazing double winding staircase at the back. Fizz, oysters, steaks wrapped in bacon. A little wearied by the excitements of it all, we insisted on a photo with some of the staff. This being before the era of the selfie, the photo has the look of an oddly-conceived five-a-side football team.

We visited all the EU complex, didn’t make it to that odd structure that looks a bit like a section of the Watson and Crick double helix DNA design, and eventually rolled home, without further incident. I forget what I bought my Mother. I bet it was good though, cos’ boy was she cross that morning. Father had recovered, and I gifted him a small Manneken Pis bottle opener, which still sits on a shelf in their downstairs WC, oddly appropriately.

Back next month, then? Not sure what the subject matter will be. I shall ponder. Nice to be back and writing again though.

Let’s go back a long long way, to the early years of the current century; and I think, in fact, to the year 2001. This was early on in my project to start the process of claiming as many countries as I can. As I type this, I have just hit 46, with SWK and ‘self having popped over to Turkey from the beautiful Greek island of Rhodes, for a spot of lunch and to break new territory. Our honeymoon was most splendid indeed; there are a few tales to tell at some point, but it’s more fun for me as author to jump around a bit and pull some stories out of the fading ether. Here are some more..

2001 was one of those ‘double country’ holidays which are so useful for upping one’s overall score. Discussion in our household of late has been to do another one, next year, taking in Romania and Moldova – the magic number 50 draws ever closer..

So my good friend Nicholas and I made out for the Czech Republic and for Poland. The two halves of these eight days of joy would be sewn together with an overnight sleeper train between the two capitals, Prague and Warsaw.

We flew out from Manchester on a Sunday morning, and at that stage he was still residing in Blackpool, so I trickled up the M6 at the end of the working week, and we made some merry for a day or two. As one does, in the ‘pool, which is a place I have come to love very much. Probably too much merry, in all honesty. As I look back on my life over the years during which I have travelled extensively, there have been a number of instances where the pre-holiday excitement has rather got the better of us. Alright, of me, then. I can still recall my last holiday with Sarah I (Copenhagen, another place where they pretty much charge you to breathe – just with more Lego than usual), where we rather overcooked it on a cold January night, woke in utter horror at the time the following morning, packed in the ohfuckitcramitin style and drove over the Peaks at just this side of the speed of light. Our little Citroen was visibly sweating as we pulled into the Jet Park.

Anyway, yes. Back to the Blackpool to Manchester Airport journey. In fact we were up in time, but one was a little on the bleary side. Coffee (well, his version of coffee) cut through the mist a bit, but there was still a rather nerve-jangling moment when in a slightly complacent manoeuvre I briefly piloted us up the wrong carriageway of the M55. Happily it was ridiculous o’clock, so in between m’colleague’s screams I found myself able to correct the misplacement of the motor car unhindered by (that much) traffic.

And yes, off we went to my first experience of the Czech Republic, and, to date, my only experience of Prague. Stayed in an enormous corridor of a bedroom, attempting to kill one another with Pilsnery-farts and the fumes from local ciggies of doom. Managed to actually take in some culture, here and there, in-between stopping every five bloody minutes so my dear friend could secretively count the contents of his purchased-for-the-purpose old man’s money-belt. He had the aspect of a man who felt we would come upon some dreadful footpads at any moment. But we did not, and in fact we had a high old time in a friendly place.

As the years went by, we were to holiday again. And in fairness he grew a less troubled traveller. Our last foray abroad came in 2010, to the city of Marrakech. In July, because we are idiots. Just about everything was on the point of melting, it was so hot. But still, a sign of the new jet-setting pal of mine being more at ease, and the witty raconteur we know and love being returned to us, came during a Sunday morning stroll through a shady avenue of trees in the park in the French Quarter.

I was recalling to him how my in-laws had a large brood (if that is the collective noun I am stumbling for) of pigeons, which they raced, quite regularly.

“Yep, more than a hundred racing pigeons”, I told him.

“A hundred racist pigeons?” he responded, enquiringly. I opened my mouth to speak but he continued..

“What do they do? Sit on the perch all day softly repeating Coooooon.. Coooooon.. Coooooon?”

Collapse of stout parties followed.

Where was I?

Oh yes, Prague.

We behaved alright, I suppose. Nicholas fought off that prostitute I mentioned some way back, I drank Czech red wine, which was dry and delicious. And on the Sunday afternoon of our trip we went in search of a fabled Russian Restaurant, rumoured by my guide book to serve Bear.

I quite like eating my way through the animal kingdom. Bit by bit. Like a sort of dense Darwin. At this stage we were both affirmed carnivores, so eventually we found the place, after not a little searching. It had the feel of a recently-abandoned cinema foyer, with a really weirdly low ceiling, but we were keen for our ursine consumption debut. In we strolled, to be met at the door by a diminutive Russian waitress. And, by shamefully objective standards, a very beautiful Russian waitress. But alas not one evincing much by way of a humorous take on events. Any events. Her career as a waitress, the fact it was Sunday, the sunshine. She frowned; however prettily. And without a language in which we also shared she found herself about to have a tricky time of it with two dozy Englishmen in search a spot of fricasseed bear.

We walked off together in the general direction of the toilets, and she stationed us together directly outside them. And disappeared. Some time later she strode towards us and laid out cutlery and gave us some menus. And disappeared again. My fellow traveller was now hopelessly in love with her, of course, and his talk had become rather bawdy and vulgar. Discussion of the dining options was not going to divert the conversation away from statements like “I reckon she’s a KGB spy, and could kill you by having sex with you”. Mostly because the menu was written wholly in the Cyrillic alphabet, so that was us boned.

The object of Nicholas’ affection returned. Sign language ensued (the mime for ‘drinkies’) and some time later a couple of bottles of lovely tepid Baltika appeared. And then, a moment that will live long in my memory. The time had clearly come to consider some solids, judging by the interrogative stare we found ourselves on the end of. M’colleague waded straight in:

“Do you do bear”? he asked.

Knitted eyebrows. Confusion. Something muttered in Russian.

“Oh come on, y’know, BEAR!?” he followed up, placing his hands above his head to make them look like a pair of ears, and giving a creditable if over-loud growl through bared teeth. International mime for bear, apparently.

From that moment, the wedding was off. Our girl leapt upwards and backwards about six feet in shock. Stumbling rather, I thought for a moment she might be about to pop out a small pistol and simply plug the clown there and then. Looking back it might have been a mercy. After a few moments, she regained her composure, and rather took charge of the situation. Someone needed to.

“Borscht?” she enquired.

“Borscht?” We responded.

“Borscht” she declared.

Things went quiet. A few minutes passed, until a rather insipid pair of bowls of watery Russian soup appeared. We ate in silence, paid handsomely, and left.

And then I started to feel rather ill. Not immediately, but a background tickly cough followed me around, and began to grow in intensity and soreness all the way through the rest of the day and then the following day, when were due to make our way a few hundred miles over the border, overnight, to Warsaw. By the time we holed-up at Prague train station I was in pretty ropey order. Nicholas enquired as to why I “had a face like a slapped arse” and I conceded I was struggling. Wizard that he is, he prescribed a litre of cold, soothing pilsner and a small handful of paracetamol.

Did the trick for a while, but by the time we were lay down on our bunks in what was a matchbox of a cabin, it returned with a vengeance, incubating all the while through the gift of a warm, damp bedroom and suspiciously yellowing bedding. I coughed and coughed and coughed and coughed and coughed and coughed. We attempted to cool the place by opening the window for a bit, but the amazing cacophonous noise that brought made the chances of restorative sleep almost zero.

Onwards through the night we rattled. Things were worsening, but, as I alluded to some time ago, there was a moment of drama or two.

There was a small fellow aboard with a very fulsome and neatly trimmed moustache. He and we shared, once again, no language, but by his epaulettes it became clear to us both he was some sort of train manager, as we would have it these days. As borders were crossed at various stations of the night, he would burst unbidden into the cabin, and shout POLICE! Alright, we got used to this after a while, but the first such utterance gave us a bit of a start. It had rather an accusatory ring to it – suggesting somehow they had been called to deal with the bald man and the coughing man. In fact it was just a rather laborious and entirely routine passport check, conducted by yet another trench-coated man with a gun and a dog (I like to be consistent as I whizz through Eastern Europe). Not made any easier by my ill temper, I have to confess. I’m never so chipper when I am sickening for something. A few words got bandied around, but no one left in irons, so we’ll leave it there.

There was another casualty, too. Poor old Igor the train manager, in fact. In between bursting into our cabin to scare us, he had some manner of cubby-hole of his own to skulk in. One of us got up to go for a pee, and popped the light on to get out. On returning, clicking the switch did not extinguish the naked glaring bulb in the ceiling. Had a couple more goes, and no, nothing. With sleep elusive, this was not going to make matters anything easier. We summoned our man, and mimed, somehow, our predicament. He looked at us like utter idiots, and clicked the switch. Same result, and a bulb of his own went on, as he fingered his moustache thoughtfully.

In a flash he withdrew a substantial handkerchief and threw it across his hand and reached up for the bulb. My buttocks clenched, as the room plunged into a darkness that echoed with the man’s screams as the bulb burned his wrist. Moments later came the trickle of water from our miniature sink, as he whimpered a little as the water cooled the burn. Some time later, he exited. I coughed a lot more, and eventually after what felt like weeks we arrived in Warsaw.

Straight to the hotel we went; I don’t recall how we swung it, but they saw I was unwell and allowed us in at something ridiculous like 7.00am. We both slept for a couple of hours, but then on waking we both realised something had to be done about my acute ague.

Through the mists, I remembered I had bought insurance with medical cover. There was a number one could call where folk speaking English would take your location, policy number and whatnot and would dispatch a medic to come and give you a once-over. More sympathetic now, Nicholas went off to do the necessary.

It must have been an hour later when he returned, joined by a teeny tiny Polish lady of about 50, with jet black hair and, splendidly, a long white medic’s coat and a stethoscope. A cartoon Doctor!

However, she was not for joking. Oh no. She spoke in a faintly accusing monotone, and periodically opened up her lungs to bark and order at me. I was ordered up from my sick bed, told to open my shirt so she could have a bit of a listen to the internal wiring. However she tired of that, and impolitely bade me undress down to my boxers. I baulked a bit at this, and sort of coughed a bit to indicate what I thought might be the locus of the problem she was summoned to attend to. But no, she prodded my gut a bit (thanks, lady) and it was only after a fairly extended period of standing there in my trolleys that I was told to sit down and open my mouth.

I did so, and she swooped in with some enormous manner of tongue depressing device. I began to gag, rather, and she managed just a grimace at the sight of the back of my cakehole, and if I remember rightly, gave something of a squeak of terror of my breath which, by then, would have made an efficient paint stripped.

She bounced away from me, and announced:

“You have Tonsilitis, it’s really quite serious”.

I had no opportunity to thank her for her attentions. She scribbled something on a pretty non-descript piece of official paper and directed my chum to a nearby pharmacy, and left as quickly as she had arrived. Presumably to look closely into the ear of a man with a broken leg? Dunno.

Drugs always work better overseas. I think they must just cut everything with a little bit of heroin, or something. I drank water and took my pills for two days, and emerged bright and sparkling from the whole thing for an assault on Warsaw’s hospitality. I clapped in the wrong places at a jazz concert, ate a tremendous rabbit stew, and generally had a jolly good time. Nicholas went rather downhill, having gone a two-day bender the moment I had to retire to our infirmary. He crashed through the door pissed at 3.00am on one of the nights, announcing how he had just fled from a likely fight in the hotel’s casino. Something about Blackjack, I think? Never been good on card games.

We returned to the UK with little money, but some fine memories. He wants us to go to Iceland together, next. I am concerned, because there are volcanoes there, but watch this space, eh?

One thing (of many) that makes life worthwhile is suddenly getting the opportunity to do something totally and utterly unexpected. Doesn’t happen that frequently, and, often when it’s with work, it’ll be something grim, which actually makes life rather worse. Such was the case, for example, when my employer required me to gather together 28 postgraduate students, squire them onto a coach at 4.30am and then take them to two different locations in London to procure visas for study in Europe.

Truly, it was a quite beautiful intersection of the indivisible: coach driver’s hours of work rules; traffic into Central London; intransigence of quasi-consular staff; the total absence of an internet café where I could print off 135612370 additional documents that were suddenly a necessity; and the fundamental and unavoidable duty of getting everyone back in one piece, or else. We actually got down there alright, but at the point we divided, things went rather awry. The first band, dealing with a proper Embassy, had their stuff sorted by midday and tripped lightly off into the sunshine to have fun. We, the second group, were still doing head-shaking battle with the Visa Processing Centre at 5 to 5, to the strain of the cleaners’ hoovers. At some stage of a hot and harried afternoon, I had taken the ‘tough decision’ (I think this is the terminology used now?) for the coach to depart with the lucky punters in the first group, whilst I gave contemplation as to how the remaining twelve of us (counting self, developing a nice case of gout, these being the pre-fitness years) would successfully hitch-hike back to South Yorkshire.

Now, in the event, it did not come to that. Mostly because I was so fumingly angry about how the whole thing had so unfairly gone, and how badly we had been treated. Reasoning that it was Friday, and that Monday was far, far away, I wielded the WORK CREDIT CARD in ‘fuck it’ mode, and we made out for St. Pancras and the ticket office. An eye-watering £972 later, we were on the next train out of there. I remember sending one of the lads off to M&S for supplies, and then spent the next two hours of clickety-clack, sipping my way down a bottle of red wine he had returned with, staring into space, a shattered man, and periodically thumbing the receipt for the largesse.

Of course, eventually Monday did come, and a certain amount of fast talking was required. In my defence, I argued that seeing as my employers never paid for anything up front, and as a consequence I was generally in debt on my own credit card to the tune of several hundred pounds, upon which I was charged interest, and yet I continued to carry out all of these extra-curricular activities, working like a dog for the good of us all, I should be left well alone before I started killing people. I think, in those 3.5 years, that was just about the one argument I managed to win.

Quite a day.

But sometimes it can be more fun than that, as I shall describe. Let us cycle forward to early September 2012. A couple of months into my most memorable year of abstinence from alcohol and carbohydrate. The year I gave up smoking, and took up walking, and then running. The year that led up to me meeting the wonderful SWK, in fact. Can’t be a coincidence, looking back.

One of the things we have to handle, here, is arrangements for graduation ceremonies outside of the UK, of which there are a few, each year. For the most part, that simply means the creation of a number of nice certificates, safely parcelled off to parts foreign. However, now and again we have to send over a bigwig of some ilk to do a bit of glad-handing, throw a few certificates around and generally make a speech and play nicely. Obviously, this requires a big hitter, as it’s such vital and hard work. My arse. However it was generally snapped up by Prof. X or Dr. Y.

Except this year, when it was not. My boss was due to be elsewhere, and quite apropos of nothing whatsoever he declared that I was to do it. I didn’t quail, because life is short, but I did have a few misgivings at the point at which it became time to be fitted for the gown. The one I used that year is the most hideous monstrosity; the rough offspring of the advert-splattered surface of a rally car, Joseph’s Technicolour Dreamcoat, and a charity-shop ball gown. Pressed into it, with a drooping cake-like hat plastered over my long and bedraggled hair, I looked like an exhausted (but well-meaning) Poundshop Gandalf. Happily, I think no pictures survive. Or maybe I just hope they don’t.

Next gig was to knock out a speech. More my sort of pace that. I was handed earlier efforts by previous wearers of this most ghastly garb. And promptly binned them, for they were the most high-handed and disinterested one-pagers of sentiment-free bilge. Couple of hours later and the volume had quadrupled and I reckoned on there not being a dry eye in the place, assuming that the audience would not be exclusively Czech speaking (for I was bound for the city of Brno, in the Czech Republic – I had been but once before, for a few thorny days back in the Spring – this trip promised to be rather more fun).

Flights booked, everything wedged into bags, I popped into the office for a couple of hours and then made my way down to Stansted and off into the blue.

Bags. Hmm. Here we reach the crux of the matter I mentioned in the title.

Now and again, the Tesco two doors down from us will knock out a deal whereby you get vouchers for every £10 or £20 you spend that count towards a reduction on some manner of higher quality products. I’d just benefitted from much the same deal that had got me a cabin and a hold bag for airline travel at a mighty reduction. So, nicely set for my debut on the graduation stage.

I benefitted further from the Priority Boarding facility that work had booked for me, so I was through passport control and waiting eagerly at the luggage carousel in little more than a breath. And so there appeared my bag. I hauled her away, and headed for the exit. I could see my driver the other side of the divide, slightly unfortunately bearing a mighty sign bearing my (long) full name and full degree title. May as well have written “Some Up-Himself Wanker” on it, but there we go. I was on the verge of addressing him when I had one of those moments of clarity for which you are eternally happy thereafter.

There was something odd about my bag.

Aside: I’m sat here typing, remembering that the bag I check most commonly still, almost three years on, does not have some manner of ribbon or other identifying piece of ‘flare’ upon it. I have learned nothing. Of course, SWK has some nice little glittery, mirror-like hair-scrunchy thing on hers, which is a) pleasing and b) identifiable from a country mile away. I must rectify this. Not cut hers off; add something to mine.

I looked down. It was a bit ‘pressed in’ on one side and, now I thought of it, a little light? And perhaps just a little too old, to be mine, although identifiably the same design. I pulled back the zip, and ventured in. I don’t know how much shock I exhibited to the rest of my fellow travellers when all I brought forth (much like the magician and the never-ending trail of knotted handkerchiefs) was a bizarre, baggage-handler-created spaghetti of ladies’ underwear, cosmetics and sundry unguents. Oh dear. In fact, bugger. Two years on from offing a grand of company money on rail tickets and M&S restorative wine, I was about to submit a garment of not dissimilar value into the unwitting hands of a heavily greased, made-up and upholstered Czech woman of indeterminate age.

I crammed the expanding matter back into the case and flew back into the luggage hall, depositing the bag onto the carousel with no little speed.

A few minutes of quiet prayer and meditation followed. Then a few more, as I composed letters of apology and/or resignation. Until there my bag stood, and I tore it open to reveal the familiar gaudy hideousness of my party outfit. Composure re-gathered, I made for car, hotel, and spot of dinner. Phew.

On which subject. If you ever go to Brno, please go to Steakovny a Pivny Bar, and have a half litre of Pilsner and their Steak Tartare. You’ll walk out full and happy for £5 and have spent 40 minutes in one of my favourite bars of all time. Oh, and make sure you take a photograph of the motorbike on the ceiling:

Let’s finish this tale with a little local colour from that which I was there to do.

Next day was graduation day. My lovely lovely Czech colleagues fed me dumplings and the like on what was a hot lunchtime until I could barely walk unaided, and then wheeled me ‘round to the conference centre where the ceremonies (three of ‘em) were to be held. I was introduced to most of the city, forgetting, immediately, who anyone was. I patted my pocket every 15 seconds to reassure myself I still had my speech (two copies thereof). I hauled myself into the sweaty silken vestments, donned the cake, and straightened my tie. We went through the order of service one last time, and set out in a gentle crocodile for the rotunda building. A regular donnish Village People, we were, too.

As we crested the steps up, the brass band started to play a fanfare. All very jolly. 600-odd guests leapt to their feet, and in we swanned. I attempted solemn, but I think I might have been grinning my face off, in honesty. We arrived at our chairs, the band farted to a halt and I started to make moves to lever my chair out from the desk to take a load off and have a bit of a think. However, my friend MB caught my eye and gave a little shake of the head. I stood firm, and back came the band with a vengeance. All ‘around me, young and old, male and female, Czechs of all types pressed hands to hearts and struck up what I soon gathered was the National Anthem. Stirring stuff it was too. Behind me the State flag unfurled, and I felt a real sense of privilege at what I was involved in.

Silence fell, emotions settled, and again I was just reaching for the old recliner when there was the unmistakeable parp of the opening to our own little Signature Tune, back home. The unremitting (if pleasingly harmonic, SWK would want me to say) plodding dirge of God Save The Queen. 1,200 eyes settled upon poor old Gandalf as, this time fuelled by no more than water, he fell to shyness, and attempted to look sombre and stately whilst eyeing his toe caps. My pipes stayed shut on this occasion.

The ceremony went well. All three did, and by the last, my speech was real slap-a-my-thigh stuff. I certainly made out a few titters, anyway. Otherwise the duties were light. Come when called for, stand in line, grasp certificate, shake hands with candidate offering positive sentiments as to their achievements to date and future prospects, pose for photo, rinse and repeat. It got a bit lively during the late afternoon when a thunderstorm rolled in of quite epic proportions. Had our dog been there he’d have nipped under my blessed gown. Actually it was quite an appropriate score to the whole process, as shaking hands with excited 21-year-old Czechs can be, I have learned, something of a Russian roulette routine. Trouble is the whole the whole thing rattles by in something of a blur. Names of the next punters to get called up for a congratulation session do get called out, yes, but their sex is never really quite clear until they are upon you. Now, not to label folk, but 80% of the Czech youth appear to come into two categories. They are either six stone females on 15inch heels skittering around like the young Bambi, with handshakes of only one atom’s width. Or, they are horny handed sons of the soil, at least 8 feet high in their stockings, and amateur javelin throwers. With the former, there is the risk that a firm handshake will disfigure them or dismember them quite dramatically. With the latter, one breathes in and simply has to manfully meet their gaze as, cheerfully and unknowingly, they set your knuckles afloat, as they pump merrily away at your palm. When one of those boys hoves into view, and the thunder crashes behind him, you know what pain is.

Finally, our ceremonial duties done, we peeled off in a long slow arc to the reprise of the fanfare. I peeled away the layers of gown, delighted to find the ink had not run and tattooed my short-sleeved arms. I cursed the thing (I never took it again, and I have been three times since), bagged it, and headed out for another pint of Pilsner. Truly, a marvellous experience I never could have thought I would have. Bravo Brno.

Having knocked out a couple of pieces in a week, I find myself a little confused as to what my next piece will be. So, come back soon for a spot of pot luck, eh?

Love to all.