Feeling Pissy

was actually having rather a good day – comparatively. until realized why no one else had taken the seat was lucky enough to find on train back from Småland.

Falling Down

It has been a week of daylight hours spent in disfigured tripping over self whilst strapped into combinations of unbalanced metal footwear, wielding sticks, banging knees on number of different slick as ice and cold as ice types of ice.

It has been a week of pitch black afternoons, creaking the hours away in a rocking chair, poking smoky sparkly logs, and evenings, pitcher blacker, creaking the hours away in a rocking chair, poking smoky hissing logs,

It has been a week. Now I feel the tug of high pressure showers, loosing a layer or two of clothing, and wearing shoes the shape of feet on non-glide surfaces. Also, a serious size gintonic, served by someone perhaps pierced, sullen, who’s considering a career as an art director but spends the intermission doing coke and sleeping with inappropriate, non-gender-specific models, would aid recovery.

Not that it hasn’t been thrilling. Skating, The Better Man has been teaching me, is in itself one of the most naturally diverse sports as regards falling. We have ye olde classic side fall, tree trunk crashing style. There is a hands free move that may be performed in front of all sizes of audience. There is falling on you bum, and falling on your hip (left or right as per personal preference). You may fall backwards, ending with a zingy crack of skull, and you may fall just plain down. For those in the know, a sideways fall turning midair into a forward bend, and ending in a refined twist of ankle gives spectacular finish to any routine. It should not be attempted however, till fall no 20/25, by which you will have perfected the necessary simultaneous loosing of woolly hat and glasses.

Skiing, while marginally less slippery a sport, also provides ample opportunity of being close to ground, wet and cold. It is the landscape, you see, which modestly covered in a coat of white, does not reveals its gullies, ditches, largeish rocks or tree roots until you are actually intertwined with them. On closer acquaintance however, each uncomfortable and/or potentially lethal geotopical detail shows a passionate will to caress, to penetrate. Speaking with Garfunkel: it loves me like a rock.

Then there was the much dreaded lost-boys party on Saturday night: at which, to my everlasting fright, I was to meet the Old Gang. Not a naturally shy, reserved kind of girl, much of my fear stemmed from the number of physical scars on the Better Man, scars of which he tells grueling stories. While no supermodel, I do pride myself on having all teeth, no burn marks, and use of both eyes (to a degree). To meet finally the men who were present at the crushing of the chin, the maiming of the hand and the stabbing of the side – the list could go on – made me, quite reasonably I think, fear for my own hide.

Rightly so. As you may notice, I did no posting Sunday. Part was suffering the sort of hangover one earns though nothing but diligent work downing a number of glasses of Beaujolaise with moonshine chasers. Part was coming down of the adrenalin rush of meeting the man who strangled his best friends cat, the father who payed to have his boys cat strangled, a woman baptized Harriet-the-Whore, and hearing stories of what happened last time on the basement stairs, who shot the big rat up at the junkyard, and what Zonko did to the man who slayed his brother. Not to put too fine a point on it: these people are on a first name basis with the infamous Gladiator Gang, known for a number of armed, military style robberies, and for shooting up a bank in the pattern of a happy face: two eyes and a smiley mouth, rifle style.

Not unexpectedly, given prior evidence, I took to the society of semi-criminals and midi-drunks like a duck takes to water. The night was spent swapping confidences, phone numbers and some very ill advised dance moves, and I do believe, that I almost did believe, for a minute or two and eating a midnight hot dog snack, that I had found my spiritual home.

Be that as it may, however, I soon had proof that their society had taught me great things.

The Better Mans mother – a lovely sweet little old lady – has a slightly wonky memory. It is nothing much, but I imagine the burn rate of glasses left in microwave, pillows left in freezer and phones left of the hook is marginally higher in her home than, lets say, in mine. (I however, will never yield first place as looser of gloves in odd places).

Alas, as we arrived at her house, for a quick lunch before dashing to the train and back home, I was decided to do best to be remembered as perfectly pleasant and potentially long-endurance girlfriend of youngest son, but also aware that being remembered at all might not be a given. I had not counted on the teachings given to my sub-conscious by my recent consorting with the criminally insane: as we arrived at train station, I looked down on my feet, and discover that I have stolen (!) my potentially someday mother-in-laws outdoor shoes.

At first I was mortified. Having left a somewhat distracted elderly woman behind in two feet of snow, minus 20 degrees, and with no footwear and scant provisions, did not put me in best light. Having pilfered the belongings of the infirm, did not help my character. Also, the shoes were proving too large.

Reconsidering, however, I realised that my little bit of robbery had probably accomplished what all smiling, nodding, and chatting never could have: I will live, in her memory, I am sure, though infamous.

Like Zonko in the annuals of the police, like black ice in the memory of my bones, the Better Mans mother has learnt my name, and learnt to fear it.

Train of Thought

I am unoriginal. I love to travel. Once, for work, I traveled four cities, four countries, in five days. That was one of my favorite weeks, so far.

1.

In Paris, I went to the Banlieux to visit with an arts center, getting lost in a market full of plaster urns and scrap metal. As the evening fell, before meeting a young, ardent, inarticulate poet in a Russian restaurant, for vodka and Blinis, with twinkling fairy lights, I sat in a green courtyard, and had thin slivers of carpaccio, a glass of rose wine, and the doves cooed.

My hotel room had a lopsided sink and cool, stone flooring, the bed was very hard, the sheets stretched tightly, and the window I threw open.

2.

In Belgrade, some men, part of an underground political group, took me to a rally. I walked to our meeting place from the hotel, a humongous concrete structure, full of cigarette smoke and the smell of bland breakfast cheese and cleaning products. The staff were friendly but the windows did not open.

First we stopped in a bullet-riddled apartment building and went up the stairs, smelling of urine, to sit in a kitchen and eat stale birthday cake while waiting for a third man. While we waited the spoke rapidly of politics and money, politics and money. Never about history. I was unsure whether it was taboo, or understood, or whether the past simply was not important: what was important were the very low wages, and the increasingly angry taste in music of the young.

We drove without lights, in dark night, zig-zagging over what might have been a one-lane, or a freeway, and before complete dark fell, I peered out the dusty window at the clapboard, corrugated hovels erected on the roadside, in growth of bare and feeble forest. Of the language at the rally, I didn’t understand a word.

3.

Germany we mostly hurried though, except Hamburg. In Hamburg, the commercial port makes inroads into the city proper. You might see rats from the ships, I believe, on city streets. Old warehouses, in stately brick, stand across the water from super modern apartment buildings, maybe even an Opera, freshly white and lit.

In the old warehouse, a big buffet had been set out, and glasses of champagne, and at my right was an old professor of music, who waved his fork and its dribble of asparagus and sauce, of fish and sauce, of raspberry moussé, like a conductors baton. Across sat a young and collected Italian city planner, full of admiration for the way things were done in Germany, in Sweden, full of scorn for his home town, which I think, if I remember rightly, might have been Bologna.

He kept his elbows, in a pale blue shirt, very close to his sides. Leaving the banquet, walking at a slow pace, feet tired, people sat out under fairy lights, sipping bottled beer.

4.

In Amsterdam, I had the afternoon off and sat, while it rained, in a small bar and ate a hamburger with extra cheese, and read the papers, trying to make out the dutch, and then at night I lay again, with windows thrown open, and great big chess-nuts rustling. Naively, I thought I could make out the sound of bicycle wheels, spinning, and pages of books, being turned, over the traffic and the humming of the mini-fridge.

5.

I am unoriginal. I love trains.

Planes I won’t mention, for obvious reasons. Ferries, if overnight, are just asking for trouble. Being driven, taking a cab, is a perfectly pleasant options given that your driver isn’t sui/homicidal.

On buses, one tries to keep from vomiting. The worst ride I was ever on was the morning after a huge dinner, which my mother treated me to at the tail-end of a particularly bleak summer. In an overladen country eatery, we went trough seven courses, desert wine et al. The next morning at seven, I got in a cheap student seat on a bus, a bus of swirly purple fabric seats, scant air-conditioning and faint respect for g-force curves.

Another bus wound its way up a serpentine road in some southern European country, red clay steep drops into Eucalyptus death. And on a bus outside Madras, though making fast friends with lady and her blushing, flushed, ready to marry son – the sun beating on the roof and the chickens, the goat, the much worn, made a too heady, cineastic cliché of a stew.

But take the train. Take it quickly through France for a weekend hidden away in Nice, 16 and on the lam. Take it, seat turned backward, over the swooping bridges of Denmark. Wait for the whistle in some border town, speed through tunnels, mini-slices of altitude buried deep.

Or wait for it, eating stale sandwiches and watching the clubfoot doves peck their way along dirty tiled floors, or watching the red head-scarves of the carriers bob, or reading desultory, half a page of Vouge and then gossiping, listlessly, after too many nights spent together.

Jury of My Peers?

I am on the train, bound for whatever is the opposite of home: a place I cannot properly pronounce, much less locate on a map, where apparently your bog-standard sub-zero temperatures won’t cut it – they are hoping for a balmy -20 in the next couple of days.

In my bag are woolen long-johns, skates, and a dress-just-in-case. The Better Man, for whom this is a return to the old home town, has promised me a lake, and forest, a picturesque village, homegrown salmon, and a bottle of champers for the New Year.

He has also promised me ample time to write, and in case the scenery and the locals prove uninspiring, I have brought books for back-up – The Last Life, by Claire Messoud, shows promise, and the latest Harlan Coben is always trustworthy. In short: I am on tack for a few days of exoticism and relaxation is sweet union. So why the nerves?

Parents do not faze me. The fathers are normally either dead or on the booze in a sociable sort of way, none of which present much of a challenge. As to mums… well, they may be a bit of handful, but really in the end, they are no more than the proverbial bark to the bite of their sons. After all: what with the statistical risk of your beau turning out to be Toad of Toad Hall, why turn the Molehill Mommy Dearest into a Mountain of Woe?

There was this one guy (mad as a hatter, studying to be a surgeon) I used to live with. We used to visit his Mother a scary amount; her cooking wasn’t quite up to scratch and she’d sit on the side of the tub, while I was in it. But still, her cinnamon swirls are not what springs immediately to mind when considering why he and I are no longer living together. More so his incessant rage, punching of walls, and pathological jealousy – all which would have ensured, had we still been shacked up, that we’d have been shacked up someplace secure and bondage-y.

There was a Greek mama, who gestured me into the broom-closet of a guy I was in the early stages of dating, to show where the vacuum was kept. Her slightly non-feminist views paled, though, in comparison to his: and those of his voyeuristic dog.

And somewhere far back in ancient history, there was a mum who danced in a loose white blouse, and kept filling up my glass, and whispered with smoke and lipstick, giggling in my ear. A fond memory – fonder than that of her son, who mid-relationship decided to pursue a career as Gigolo. For real.

Getting back on track, however: even had I been worried, the answer the Better Man gave when I asked what to expect from his parents, would have dispelled immediately all fear. ”It will be nothing like meeting your mum” translates reassuringly: nothing like meeting my mum means no grilling as to political views, career choices, family dynamics, or backhand.

But there is something much, much scarier than Parents lurking in the dark woods into which I am heading. A primal force, a power running deep. A coven, a band, a hoard bound by mystical rituals, rules of ancient law. Childhood friends.

Boys play together and shape each other. They give each other bruises and porn, they give each other accents and fags, they smash each others teeth out with hockey sticks and in all the blood and gore and milky dunked cookies they forge a special, steady foundation. And those childhood friends, breathing the same farts and stealing the same candy, give of course the right, 30-odd years on, of judging The New Girlfriend.

That would be me. And me would be attending a big birthday bash, bringing all these worthy jurors together, on Saturday. And not to mention: the worthy juror’s wifes.

Do I profess a love of hunting, or do I squeal becomingly? Do I do Sara Palin (as my glasses do suggest) or do I do Carrie, as my heels demand? Do I try to blend or do I flaunt my difference? Do I coo over the babies or do I tell about my work? Do I sit demurely or do I laugh at what I hope are jokes?

Or do I babbble nervously, without prior plan, and hope for the best?

Pied Piper

Blame it on my star-sign or blame it on my genes, blame it on society or blame it on the coffee: I am a restless soul. I like to hop from one thing to the next, like to be always starting up, changing tracks. Nothing pleases me more than a pure white notebook still unwritten, nothing is sweeter than the idea of a grandiose project – rather than the day by day dull lull of execution.

Ever looking for the thrill of the new door, I end relationships at six months, have an inordinate number of unfinished scarfs waiting to be knit to the end in a drawer somewhere and several semi-painted walls to my conscience. I read five books at a time, abandon shoes, diets and savings accounts with an almost Casanovan frequency. It is not something I am proud of, though it gives me a wealth of experience – rather like the civilized drunk, I suppose, is not so much pleased with his addiction as with his vast collection of cocktail shakers.

And so, last night – and no, don’t ask me what kind of a moon was a-shining – I felt the old twitching and twinging. I could feel the heat in the pit of my stomach and the itching in my teeth, just longing to take the bite and break into sheer speed; not minding much about who’d be thrown of my back in the process.

Normally, this is when I’d break up with the guy, leave the job, change apartments and start checking rates for tickets to Africa. But as I was walking at a clickety-click speed through town on my way to meet The Better Man, something dawned on me. Feeling peripatetic two weeks into a new and exciting job, a month into a new and exciting man, and a week into a new (and well, fairly horrible) apartment is really pathetic. Also, it is counter productive. Bear with me:

Always longing for the thrill of starting fresh, I have been doing nothing but for 27 years. And it is starting to get old. Same old first looks, same old new colleagues, same old finding the right spot for the tea-urn. Same old packing and same old clumsy fiddling and same old slight feeling of maybe, possibly, running scared. What would really be new, instead, would be to stick. Like bloody glue.

And now, then, for the application of said sticky substance.

Having been brought up to believe that the worst thing you can do to a man is to ask him to change, I try to hold back on criticism and even commentary. I don’t know how many boys have been boring me to tears, without a word of warning passing my lips, so that finally, when I cannot take another minute of the same as yesterday, I snap and wave my adieus.

But last night, in the spirit of trying something new, I told The Better Man that we’d better do something soon, or I’d get restless. (Yes, all the while realizing that this might be a bit heavy after only a few weeks of snogging, but still). I told him about my deadline for next steps, I told him about my need for a forest walk, I told him about the way I never can wait to turn the page.

All the while I could feel my heart in my throat, fully expecting him to turn on his heel – or wheel, as in specific case – and bugger off. All the while I could feel the deap-seated dread of opening up and being vulnerable and all that mumbo jumbo. But strangely, also, all the while I could feel the abhorrence of neediness and honesty paling in the downright glory of speaking my mind.

Oh, and do you want to know what he said? He said fine, let’s take that walk then, slaying in one fell swoop my assumption that to ask is to be denied and therefor it is better to pack than to ask.

Which is of course opening a whole fresh can of worms – but since the consumption of new and strange fodder was the whole point of the exercise, I suppose I shouldn’t be complaining.

Trip: Post Mortem Pro Memoriam

Welli well well. Well. Well, well, well. Ha. I think back to times in my life when I’ve felt smug. There have been a few. But I don’t think a single one of them comes close to this days smugness. It’s smugness on a new level, a degree of self-complanency, of high-horsedness and holier-than-thouism than is really very unattractive.

But I don’t care, because I fit into my old jeans, can talk knowledgably about the stretch of road between East and West Ed, and do an uphill in my sleep. It all feels sooo good. Soon I shall go out to lunch in a very civilized brasserie with a gossip-truffled friend, and then this evening, I will be eating sushi and maybe even going to the movies. Just because they are there.

But before I leave the Uphill behind forever, I want to jot down a few brief impressions, such as may steer other travellers away from the same pitfalls I have fallen into on my journey. I give you: Five Important Lessons on Solo Bicycling Between Ystad and Stockholm, Or Any Other Godforsaken Place and The Civilized World.

1. On dressing the part

Forget your smart linnen pants, your low cut blouse and you strappy sandals. You will not be needing them. You will live in your padded pants all day, and when you get to the hostel at night you will be to knackered to even consider exploring the nightime delights of Gunnebo, Sölvesborg or Timmernabben.

I normally argue that there is no right time for functional materials – you know the type that is part plastic part tinfoil and promises to cool you with a breeze and keep your feet toasty at the same time – because they are so very, very unattractive. I will now go back on this statement and say: there is a right time for such materials: rainy long days on the road. And trust me, it will rain.

Lastly, a word on padded pants. Do not buy them cheap. Do not buy just one pair. They are all that stand between you and a world of rectal hurt, and as such, they should be treated with respect, love and slight awe. Bring an extra slightly tighter fit for the last days – because when it comes to the correct placing of a bag full of bubble-wrap between your legs, size does matter.

2. On asking for directions

Should you be so lucky as to see a real live local on the road: please do your self a favour and ask them for directions (seeing as your map is probably more of an inspiration board than any true guidance). But beware, there are other types out there, ready to pounce on the unwitting cyclist and send her on a varitey of wild bird hunts:

a. The Jogger. They will be friendly looking, sweating profusely, and take into no consideration whatsover that a bicycle cannot traverse all than two feet can.

b. The Madman. Will also be friendly, but also swatting at imaginary flies and follow up his instructions by getting his old bike out and following you at a slow threatening pace at the best part of an hour.

c. The Senile. Again, friendly, and very helpful, only according to their seventies world-view when the new motorway hadn’t been built yet. Never very good at distingushing right from left, but will give you very good stories about her husbands football-socks.

3. On eating and drinking

Do whenever opportunity presents itself. But it won’t.

4. On reading

You do not need to bring more than say, a sparkling new issue of some Condé Nast publication. Comprehending anything beyond the chrystal prose on new looks for fall will be beyond you. On the other hand; looking at all them nice pics will keep you happy, with plenty of incentive to keep pedalling, and with lots of food for thought planning your wardrobe.

Alas, this is not, and I say this from experience, the opportunty to finally saw your way through The Man Without Qualities, both volumes, in hardback.

5. On Being a Citizen of the Road

There will be Caravans out there, and cars, and the occasional piece of motor driven farming equipment. There is only one way to tame these beast of burden: wear very bright colours, stay well out in the middle of the road and flick them the finger if they start honking. Yes, you will be travelling with a very long tail of angry motorists, but that beats being flat. Literally.

 

And so I leave this trip behind. The next serious one will probably be the Transibirian, or another tour of India, over X-mas… But for now: all is blue silk shifts and Ceasar salads for me. You know, comfy, even without the padding.

Trip Day 8: Damn Straight

It is done. Am showered, changed and waiting for brother to come pick me up and usher me in general direction of food, drink, and unsuitable men. Am too tired to read any more signs, make another decision, even a bad one, and all I need is, just like Dire Straights, another tired act, to “keep the beat and the bad company”.

Will recap trip tomorrow, and till then, leave you with the viewing pleasure (this one is for you, apiece) of the one picture I have taken on this trip. It is of a close friend of mine, one I shall miss like I miss being shot in the foot.

Trip Day 7: Shooting Blanks

My on-again-off-again relationship with the rain is no more. We are now a confirmed couple, I am ready to change my status on facebook, and declare to the world that yes: the wet from the sky and I are one. I have dissolved into it, relaxed in its embrace, and it has filled me and consumed me and now we are expecting little tiny drops. We are very happy together.

But you know, when a relationship goes on for that lenght of time, you start to wonder. Take stock of your life. As you hear the monotonous sound of your life partners pitter patter, the drooning noice of it, and you feel, yet again, its cold cold fingers fondling your neck at really rather the wrong moment, you start to wonder. Is this really what I want? Is this all there is in life? Could there be someone out there for me, not as wet, surely, but perhaps slightly warmer?

Today has been the type of day the most conductive to a measured, critical analysis of weather this bloody fucking trip was a good idea to begin with or no. My thoughts have focused on two main issues, both rather high on the Maslovic Pyramid.

1. No Food Is Worse Food than Bad Food, When You Are Hungry

Jereome K. has already explained to us the faith of a packed lunch in rain. I will not borrow, nor steal, from him, and only say that I wish he could have been around today, to bring his comic genious to bear on the concept of an orange-filling danish, and three slices of smoked salmon, travelling together down a bumpy road in a paper bag in a tropical downpour. Leaving you to imagine the rest: I will instead go discuss the more general aspects of food on this trip.

Far be it from me to kick someone who is down (barring that Caravan-owning member of the Furtherancers I met in a back alley last night). Which explains why I have written so scantily about the joys of eating – there has been nothing to eat – and by default, precious little to be praised. 

As I write this, I have journeyed some 800 odd k of Swedish road. And I have been able to procure exactly two cups of coffee. In towns, luckily, you do find some “shops”. Their vegetable departments have ranged from banana – in singular – to potatoes – uncooked, not ideal for a sensitive stomach such as mine. This has left me subsisting on stale bread, packs of unidentifiable conserved meats and the occasional ice-cream – frosted of course, being a left-over from summers past. Now, I know that a slow death of scurvy is not the fate of travellers in all lands.

Walking in France? I can give you the adress of a great farm, at the back of nowhere, where a man lives with his pigs and his goats and his live in Russian he-lover: they serve a divine meal, complete with little toxic rocks he calls, affectionately, cheese. Wandering the wilds of Spain? Well, stay away from the chilled red, but please have your fill of the Pulpo and the extra dry cider; to be had at your convenience, climbing every mountain.

Of course I know that these delicacies have probably been flown in from Quaint Local Produce Ltd outside Austin, Texas. Of course you can’t expect Swedish yokels, who see one passing tourist ever ten months, to be standing at the ready with the skillet or the spit. But a cracker, perhaps?

2. No Company is Better Company than Bad Company, But Still Kinda Sad on Day Seven

Yes, I’ll admit it. There is something about standing in the middle of nowhere, drenched to the bone, with six hours of heavy uphellish road before you, that sort of makes me wish I had someone to share my impressions with. (This goes also for the breathtaking scenic views, the quaint villages, the cute houses and the Downhills). Explaining it to others later will never quite capture the gashtlyness/grandness of the occasion.

This lack of company became extra evident today when I looked through my camera. I had promised my sister to document my adventure (she thinks I have secretly taken the train and am booked into some SPA or other). But so far I had taken one picture. Of a road going uphill.

(Being a not very good photographer is only made bearable if you have people, some human interest, in your pictures. The nearest I have come to human interaction in the past few days was saying a guarded hello to a one-legged Finnish lady who was sharing my bathroom this morning.  And I couldn’t really snap a shot of that, I mean, her.)

Suffice to say, bar the snippets I can give posterity (and the Radio Surveillance unit of the Swedish Military) on this page; no one will ever really know what I have been through. And that means, I am afraid, no medal, no oohs or aahs and no later doubling over laughing Together With Someone thinking about that time we (that is, the rain and I) missed the ferry crossing the sound.

Once I got to thinking about this, I felt sort of down. I mean, the rain was pouring, my stomach was rumbling, and that was it for human sounds. So I did what any girl does when she is in need: I called my brother. Having ensured that I will arrive tomorrow to a large cooked dinner, a large glass of wine and then a large party full of debauched artists I feel better.

And I guess I can face on more day of downing in love.

Trip Day 6: Wet wet wet

If you have never been to “Småland”, let me give you directions. Just go the other side of Barking Mad and you’re there. For the past few days I have been making my way through this pine infested, mosquito riddled, lunch-less desert. I am finally out of it.

Yes, tonight I sleep in Östergötland. True, in a basment cell type of room, very à la The Tower (or that may not have been underground?). True, my phone is still being decidedly standoffish, and the internet connection leaves a certain something to be wished for, namely, dependable excistance.

But still, I am full of joi de vivre. The only thing needed to complete me would be a beaker full of eau de vie, but since that is not to be had at Drab Concrete Walls Central, I will have to go for the next best thing, and drown my last smidgen of ennui in a torrent of words, instead of my liver, in a glass of red. Bottoms up!

Today many interesting things were brought to my attention by the pouring rain. The loose fit of my padded pants, riding wetly like rude men where angels would fear to thread, the smells of said padded pants and the fields, the newly bathed flowers and the newly bathes cows and and the newly bathed cow pats. All these things were as one big harmonious scented embrace, giving if not shape, then at least a nasal quality to summer, freedom on the road and off deodorant. In short: I felt wildly alive, slightly molested by my garments, and ready to take on any hill.

But. The rain had also brought out another distinct feature of Swedish Summer. Less sublime, less subtle, less pleasant than the straining sweat-drenched qualities of padded Spandex. Caravans.

Caravans are popular here. There is even a song, entitled “One Ough To Own or at Least Lease a Caravan”. The Caravan generally comes with a large man attached. To him in turn is attached a gaggle of family, a heap of earthly possessions, and a can of tepid beer. The Caravan is used to lug this entire menagerie around all summer, from one picturesque spot to the next, all made parking-lots by The Caravans very existence. I would think that cramming all your daily struggles and malfunctioning electronics into one very small and brown space for the duration of your holidays would be less than pleasant. But then again, I spend 8 hours a day in padded pants, so who am I to talk.

Anyhoodle, a motorized Olsen sized Hold-All of this type must of course be put in motion every now and then. And what better time to up its roots and set forth for new pine-infested joys than when it is pouring. I can picture it all very clearly:

The Caravaner wakes up and there is definite moisture in the air. His moosehead t-shirt is sopping. His bermuda shorts are wet. There is nature in his beer. He immidiately packs all the bits and pieces of his family into the giant tin box, and speeds down the road, Caravan trailing behind like the squat tail of a squat dog, rumbling with empty crisp packets, rancid socks and whatever else may pass for cuisine in Caravan land.

He is stressed, he is anxious. He has left all he knows behind, and a Caravan neighbour may steal the next prized slot next to the KIOSK of the identical camping that is his destination. His wife may see the sun breaking through the clouds and start complaining. Oh yes, I see it all, and I feel his pain.

The Caravan man, though, shows no such feat of empathy. (After all, we are talking about a man who can see no alternative to spending the holiday guzzling gas at the same rate his thirteen years old daughter guzzles Watermelon Baccardi Breezers before taking her top off.) When he is on the road, and he sees a cyclist, he does not see a fellow human being, lugging its own load.

No, what he sees, through a thin red mist of blow-up toys, missing board-game pieces, entrance tickets to mini-golf courses and sweating packs of hot dogs, is an insult. A renegade. A person who travels unfettered by family or two-odd tons of steel and male ineptitude. A person who has left behind the turmoils of the fold-up bbq and the orange bermuda shorts and the wonky recliner. And he wants to run this person off the road.

I have spent the better part of the day dodging and braking, throwing myself at the mercy of peoples back yards, of anthills and the random and unexpected swamp, all seeking refuge from frustrated men and their large totes. But I bear no grudge. I only wish I could flag them down and show them the content of my fifty litre saddlebags: nailclippers, some extra undies, and some rather heavy tomes of 19th century morality tales.

They would see then, that we each have our cross to bear. True: some of us do not have to fight for our right to some bloody silence, or worry about the freezer in the back. But then again, some of us get indecent proposals from our clothing, some of us never get anywhere in time, and some of us have to lug each itsy bit of packing up every damn hill sans petrol.

Perhaps, if they knew that, they would… leave the keys in the ignition, say goodbye to the wailings of wifes and pregnant silences of teenage daughters, and join me – free as birds. And maybe help me push this damn machine up the next hill.

Trip Day 5: Howlin’ Fury

The PAT once told me he thought I was not very good with children. An opinion which is countered, if I may defend myself, by being the chosen godmother of no less than one and one-cooking child. I view this essentially as a gift certificate at some terrible store in the mall: something you try to forget about, since valid only under horrific circumstances, but on the plus side it would, if circumstances brought you that way, guarantee some truly unique pieces. (Knock on wood).

All that aside: the PATs statement was essentially based on me not liking all children, indescriminately, unconditionally, and forever. But then no more would I like all slightly larger people indescriminately, unconditionally and forever, unless they did their damndest to deserve it. 

And can’t we all admit: children of a certain age are not fun. When tiny, they are cute. When adult, they may be interesting. But mid-size, they are a pain and a nuicanse, only slightly tempered if sugared. Children of midsize are for example, the worst thing in the world to bring on an outing. They will scream or sulk, blow hot and cold, and they will, most of all be ever present (or else lost, which is also annoying, because then you have to search for them).

In this they have very much in common with the second worst thing to be faced with on an outing: wind. While cute if balmy and breezy, and interesting at gale force – it is an absolute horror when neither nor and set against you. Today, I was tormented by this natures nine years old. When he joined forces with his evil twin brother, the uphill, it was something of a trial.

Basically, it has been like this: I have been pedalling up a fair-to-middling-uphill. The wind has been in my face. It has pushed me around, done its best to tease and torment me. At the point where I have become hot, sweaty and agitated, it has stopped, and sat around, quite as though always angelic – leaving me the hot and sweaty and agitated one but with no one to point a credible finger at, and with nothing even to cool me.

Then, should I have encountered such a thing (a sweet, scarese, sacred blessing) as a downhill (dare I mention thy name) it immeditely starts up again, with the prodding and the taking of things out of ones sails and stuffing them somewhere else, well hidden, but only as a joke like. Leaving me speedless, and once more hot, sweaty and agitated.

This behaviour was repeted on several, not to say continous, occasions all through today. I had a brief break in lee of a nuclear power station: a gesture, if you will, to my sentiments regarding that other most blatantly inexhaustible source of power. Then I set of again, climbing slightly, grinding my teeth, behaving in every way as a frustrated adult faced with a brat. It was only when the wind took my empty water bottle and threw it into some brambles by the side of the road, but only as a joke like, that I realised: though frightningly childlike, this was no actual child. This was something much better – something one could swear at.

Now, I have been told, on occasion, that telling a child what you truly think of it is a deed worse than, say, letting it grow up to be a complete terror. But as I tramped tramped tramped along the pine scented roads, there were nary a young rosebud ear within shouting distance. And so I let go of all reserve, telling the wind where to get of. (Since there are no kids around, guess I can tell it straight, I told it to fucking well go fucking fuck itself.)

It was sweet relief, pedalling like a fury and shouting like one too – getting every smithereen of anger, annoyance and harm out of my system. At the end, it was mostly and incoherent AAAAAAARRRRRRGGGGH. But a very good AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHH, if you know what I mean. And what do you know: after a while the wind quited down, softening to a slight breeze, just enough to stroke my flushed cheeks (both pairs, yes) and bring me the scent of roadside flowers.

So guess my recomendation to parents, those of you that have to mind, feed and wash those little rosebuds I collect for a hug and then gently depostit back in you careworn arms at cryingtime, is this: get yourself a bike. Find any road leading north. And wait for therapy.