Home & Away

We left France on the 3^rd of May.  We made good time along the French motorways, only being held up by the geniuses of P&O.  The 1^st thing we noticed about being back in Blighty (& we continued to notice it) was just how fat most people were.  Don’t get me wrong, nobody would mistake me for a bulimic, but I’m talking about proper fat, the sort of people who can no longer walk but waddle.  The rest of Europe just doesn’t do fat like we do.  We arrived home the way you should, floating towards the white cliffs of Dover & I would like to say that I was really happy to be home, but I wasn’t.  I couldn’t wait to see my family & friends & we received an overwhelming amount of generosity but I was depressed.  Not least because after 6 months in the mountains coming down to sea level & the country was in its full spring bloom the hay fever didn’t gradually come over me over weeks but slapped me in the face like wet tar forcing me to take tablets, hay fever tablets always bring out my dark side but I was a bit miserable.  I shouldn’t of been though, we were staying in a friends house for free whilst they were on holiday, another friend met us at 11pm to help me unpack & give us a carrier bag full of essential supplies, we was bought lunch, made dinner & got drunk.  After a couple of days & being the hero I am I stopped with the hay fever drugs & everything became fun again.  All be it in a very hectic & rushed way.  After meeting up with the family & seeing the progress of the parents new home, collecting our clothes from all corners of the county & repacking from winter to summer it was time to get back into the local pubs.  The wife was out with the girls so most of the men were forced to baby-sitting duties, all but 1.  He had to come out but the poor boy was grey, very hungover from night before it took him just over an hour to finish his 1^st beer.  Finish it he did though (it was touch & go for a while), he kept it down & we managed a good 12 hour session ending in a row of tequila’s each.  We can’t remember who was responsible but I do know it pushed me over the edge.   It delayed my sample production for another day!  Before we left to France in November I got the snip, we’ve never wanted kids & it was the sensible but painful solution but to be given the all clear my fertility needed to be tested.  As the old saying goes, ‘your either a wanker or a liar’ & I’m no liar but doing on command wasn’t as easy as you’d expect.   There’s so many rules.  These are the actual notes I was given; do not use the withdrawal method, it is not to be passed into the container orally, no lubricant can be used, no trace of soap can be left & the sample must be produce directly into the pot without contamination!  Add the fact that it had to be taken to the hospital within an hour of production & the necessary hospital was half an hour away & the sample needed to be kept in a pocket to keep it at body temperature the whole thing took on military planning.  I had to produce, pot, bag & deliver during a week day morning with the neighbours builders drilling & shouting out through the open windows, the wife stomping about downstairs packing & all the time the pot sitting there winking at me like Jabba the huts ugly sister.  Every time I got close & picked up the little plastic basterd the whole moment was lost.  There is jut no romance these days!  Anyway, job done.

We were at home for 2 weeks & we only spent 1 evening in.  It was a feast of food, booze & company. That was all great but the 2 weeks did make us both realise that as much as we have missed the people at home we still don’t want to go back there.  It took us the 2 weeks to finalise our plans to get away, not booking our accommodation until 3 days before we left, but the day to leave arrived so off we went.  It was 1 of the worst days travelling we’ve ever had & most of it was down to my own stupidity.

My parents were driving us to the airport & they arrived half-hour early, which I’m going to blame.  We made excellent time getting to Heathrow T5 in just under an hour so we had a good 3 hours to relax into the airport shops & bars.  Whilst enjoying a coffee before check in the wife, checking I had every thing, said got your injection, cause I had!  Oh fuck.  As you may know I’m a diabetic.  Not being 1 to over dramatise a situation without insulin I will die & as we intended to be away for a few months I had quite a lot of it.  It was left in the fridge round our friends house, my parents where carrying on to see some friends & the rest of my mates were at work apart from 1 hapless buddy who happened to be on the night shift.  I went into the airport Boots & they contacted my doctor who was able to give me an emergency prescription for a few douses but I needed the lot.  I woke the poor basterd up who then had to drive round Kent to get the keys, pick up the life saving insulin then hot foot it to Heathrow before check-in closed.  The irony of it is is that back in his single days & previous job (making drugs for a pharmacy company) 1 of his regular chat up lines was that he saved lives for a living!  He made it though & we were on our way.

1^st Stop Milano.  It was an easy flight & an easy train ride to Central station.  This was by far the most impressive train station I’ve ever been to.  Easily beating all the London ones (as great as they are) & even Grand Central Station NY.  We had a short walk to our hotel & that’s when problem 2 started.  We had been moved hotels without prior warning.  Granted we had been upgraded from a 3 to 4 star hotel because of it but it was another 20min walk in the sweltering heat with all our luggage (which in total consisted of 6 bags) to a more remote area back the way we had come by the train station.  As we all know, the train stations the world over attract the down & outs, vagrants & in this case 50 year old Chinese transsexual hookers.  We made it to our hotel with both our luggage & arseholes in tack & hit our 3^rd problem.  They had only booked us in for 2 nights instead of 3!  After what seemed like an ice age since we left Kent we were finally in our room, which, as we have no other address, would be our home. 

This blog is becoming  bit long now & I know some of you need to get back to work(?) so I will tell you all about it later.

The end of an era

Its been a while since my last post but before I fill you all in I just need to give a massive thanks to my good friend, you know who you are, who yet again put himself out & this time it really was to save a life.  He is the brunt of most of our jokes (mostly coz he gives as good as he gets, better a lot of the time) but he helped me out of a bad situation.  Its not often us men are very genuine but I can say with all sincerity, Thanks you bender!  I will fill the rest of you in when I get there, now its recap time.

The ski season is over.  I skied for the 1^st time in my life & probably the last in May, I did just 1 run on the last day of the season.  The top half was amazing, true spring snow conditions, the mountain all to myself & a seasons worth of experience in my legs.  It was great.  If any of you are yet to experience spring snow its like the softest of powder days, you float through it like boarding on sugar, it’s the best.  The bottom half was quite the reverse, the sugar turned to slush, the mounds turned to mud & the dips turned to puddles.  There was a section where I had to speed over some mud, skim a slushy puddle & turn before the snow run out.  The run complete I joined the wife in a celebratory beer & reminisce of the season complete.

The last week in Val was spent almost entirely in a state of drunkenness  & 1 day with top 5 bad hangover.  On the Monday it was the wife’s birthday, so we packed up a picnic & set of to hunt for the elusive Marmot (which we shall all call the European Beaver from now on).  We went deep into the backcountry searching moist crevices & overgrown shrubbery & then there it was, the European Beaver poking out between 2 rocky lips looking all cute & like it needed a tickle.  The European Beaver satisfied we went out for, what was supposed to be a nice long meal & a sensible amount of drinks.  1 out of 2 aint bad!  After the meal we had to walk home as the buses had stopped running for the season.  I had to clear some of the lovely Italian wine from my body so we thought we might as well pop into Café Face & have a nightcap while we’re at it.  It was a very surreal experience, I’m not sure if it was the staff end of season party or what but there was only about 10 people in there & all of them were behind the bar out of there nut passing round a microphone MC-ing to the music.  We got told the drinks were on the house & was subsequently thrust 2 very big Bombay Gin’s & tonics (usually about €10 each).  They were doing roly-poly’s over the sofa’s, swapping T-shirts & generally acting every bit of drunk they clearly were.  We were in a different world to them & just couldn’t quite manage it so we carried on our Journey down to V-Spot where we proceeded to quickly leave our world behind.  The next day was our wedding anniversary & we intended to go round all the posh hotels & have a cocktail crawl, instead we went up the mountain to the Folie Douse for a very over priced & hungover lunch. 

The Wednesday was my works party.  As with the spirit of the season & the forward planning I came to expect from the job; at 9:45 I was asked if I could help out for the day & could I start at 10!  It was 1 of the best working days of my life.  I was paid to burn things & drink beer, 2 of my most favourite things in the whole world.  So by 10:30 & 2 pints down we had managed to get a raging fire, we dumped on the coals & the BBQ began.  The person I was supposed to be “helping” was swanning round on the pretence of taking photo’s so it was down to me to take all the money from the punters & give them the obligatory stamp.  It was disgraceful; some of the tramps even wanted me to stamp their thighs & chests!  We soon drunk the place dry of beer so I had to resort to the red wine.  The problem with that though was I was drinking it in pints & as fast.  I don’t know what time I made it home only that I didn’t make all the way upright.  The next day though, Oh My.  I wasn’t like death warmed up, I would of dreamed of feeling that good.  I didn’t think I was going to die or the world was going to end.   The world had ended, I had died & gone to hell then that had ended & the devil himself was released of doing evil every again as I was suffering for everybody’s past & future pain all in 1 day!  Then what made it 10 times worse?  I had to go to fucking work.   

For the next couple of days I hit the slopes getting in a bit of last minute boarding.  It even snowed when I was up on the glacier for the last time.  But all things must end & soon enough the packing was done, the car was loaded (only half as full for the return leg) & farewells were said.  It wasn’t sad leaving, we were ready to go but I don’t know.  There was so much good about it but unfortunately there was as much bad & it’s that, I suppose, that is just shame!