Twenty –Six Hours in the Making: CAUSTIC! BEWARE ‘the flotsam and jetsom of Life’

Thursday October 20th, 630pmOk so it has now transpired into a monthly blog…. Better that than wither entirely as usual

I have been away- metaphorically and physically – back to Erin my Homeland.
Ah but did I not quote this Isle as being my Home?
Well I am rather sneaky …for I have two. Yes very greedy especially as both are beautiful and ingrained in my very spirit. But what one gives the other takes away – and vice versa. I also have a home city or town …but that is yet another- in fact a whole other! – story and one I cannot dwell on just yet.
A huge part of the reason I came here was the scourge of the previous town although the bigger part of me was calling out for this. I have spent the entire day back on My Isle writing – ok the day before that socialising and exploring – if you could label it such – and the previous 26 hours beforehand travelling back ‘home’ from ‘Home’.
Yes 26 long hours – yet somehow they were not tedious. A friend who shares my name once said that it is I who make hours – and Life untedious – I who add my own excitement. It really is never intentional and sometimes I abhor interaction – others I crave and attract it. Again, Selfish of me.
Characteristic of me.

So, anyway, after a fun road trip with a friend I have not seen in 33 years – Thelma & Louise eat your heart out – we were like old buddies slurping on our huge creamy ‘99s – distinctly creamier we both noted than back in ’72 on holidays there! Ahh Nostalgia. Careering through Waterford and on into Wexford in her most UNjalopied vehicle – again reams away from my childhood hols which invariably involved an old Bedford van packed with grimy kids on a longed for day out to Sandy Cove. We laughed and chuckled, exclaimed over dormant memories and recalls of long unthought of classmates and generally travelled as far back in time in our heads as we did in Irish kilometres towards the ferry port. Oh what a tedious choice of transport vehicle ferries can be! Particularly when you have prebooked a cheaper flight and are literally passportless therefore unable to board on arrival – its OK I have always suffered from identity crisis and my passport and many names with me! A college tutor once noted my inability to open the huge wooden swing doors at Oxford using the correct handle – ever. Equally, my jovial but hard pressed driving instructor lamented my diffidence between left and right! All – I am informed – signs of Identity Crisis. Little wonder methinks.

The bus from portside to dock was hilarious – had I been inclined to laugh at that stage – most of my laughing gas having expired on the 3 hour car journey from Cork at 5pm. I am amused and once again stoic that on arrival at check in, now completely paranoid that I no longer exist,yet find I do however, if taking that Identity Inducing mode of transport – The Irish Ferry ! Once again I discover that any flotsam and jetsam are guarunteed entry into both honourable countries at will whether your name be prefixed by an ‘O or lumped with the suffixes Ski or Ska. In fact who even needs a name check? Are you said person ?– yes but sorry I have no ID – do you have money? – Yes – OK just pay and get on board…..!!!! In this age of high security and Identity obsession and rightly so – I am mildly bewildered – just as I was when entering ‘The Auld Sod’ from the British ‘end’ less than a week ago. Marvellous loophole for letting anyone into either ‘protected’ border – and how very easy just to ….vanish!! But I digress – we were on board the connecting bus from port to ferry weren’t we.
With obsequious ticket stuffed safely in my ever bulging bag in case someone should by chance surreptiously change their mind to my ease of entitlement – you really have no idea how difficult travel has been since the vanishing passport – maybe it too is on the ferry of nameless vanishing people ? – I sink thankfully into my allotted seat – surrounded by Ireland’s entire Brewery intake.
Or possibly just Wexford.
After waiting for an eternal 20 minutes for the bus driver to finally appear and move the overstuffed cattle bus of legal – apparently we are because garda control Stena said so – immigrants and travellers – and swooning in the confined space at the heavily Guinessed breath of the 20- plus We’ve Had a Great Weekenders – n I’ve Sank Only 20 Pints Today Alone crowd…. I breathe a sigh of relief – fortunately inaudible below the shouts and bellows of these charming 40 plus beer tourists. The 20 plus reference earlier was numbers in quantity not age. Another eternal 20mins follows until we are vomited out into the carcass and bowels of the huge ferry’s hull. I scamper free and head for the stairs …with little chance of escape.
Wishing fervently I had exchanged heeled boots for flats in the car I take the many steps two at a time toward safety and civilisation – level 5 – smirking that Beer Boy and his companions sank one too many and are huffing and puffing diligently below me – on level 3 stairwell I hasten to add!! It was quite enough hearing Beer Boy’s blow by blow account of his non sex life with ‘the missus’ and his Whiskey Wheezing mate’s even worse depiction of his imagined pornographic sex life with his at home – why lament so often then that not one of the 20 had ‘pulled even a toilet chain’ all weekend!
Now where to hide that is far enough away from the bar – never thought I would EVER hear ME say that ! I choose family level movie room – even tired noisy kids are better than that boozy lecherous lot. Never been so quiet in my life as I slip off the offending footwear and crack open my Irish cider can…..

One bad movie and and a pleasingly uneventful 3 and a half hours later we reach English soil. Great I hear you sigh in empathy. Would please me more if I now didn’t have a 2 hour wait to get a train West – I am convinced Wales is on go slow even if it is 1230a.m now – just as I am convinced that the Smiling Stena Supervisor who gleefully expounded on their no ID policy not only set me up with a ludicrously long winded journey homeward – the worst she could possibly conjure up in her long boring night job – but also on the ID front.
For the first time since leaving the UK 8 days before I am duly confronted by a Police block on entry to the UK port – no ID me arse – as we eloquently say in Ireland.
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Adept at blagging my way out of the proverbial paper bag part 3 of horror journey commences.
Do I ? ( based on the cunning calculations of the SS – Stena Supervisor or Smiling Stena if you have not been keeping up zzzzz – )
a) Wait another 2 long hours on an empty rainswept Welsh platform for the next train to Destination 4 listed as 550am – its now 245am
b) Hop on the first train to pull in as all the other LMTs seem to be doing regardless of such pedantic itinerary sheets ( Legal Immigrant Travellers if you have given up the will to live now …like myself that night.)
c) Sleep at last. Forever. Anywhere
Forgoing C for B – regardless myself of its actual destination and desperate to leave the WS (windswept) platform and save my own v WS hair and soul at this stage – and the gaggle of welsh …er….beauts who have spent the last 95 minutes slagging off every teacher in their son’s school claiming they could do better ….despite some not so eloquent utterances/grammar ‘gramur’
A was never an option. Despite the SS itinerary.
Two more hours later – most of which was spent on the Fishguard line – just sitting at intermittent moments in the ‘journey’ – how could I conveniently forget this ten years on …..I rename it The F…it Line – with no guards whatsoever!! At times it was like being back in the 70s – provincial line – provincial train. Metallic rusty compartments with crucifying blazing overhead lamps allowing no semblance of soporific bliss to enter its carriage! And why was I even taunting myself trying to spot a charging point for my long dead phone. That luxurious element from today’s decade did not occur until well after Cardiff!
To all passenger’s glee the Severn Tunnel decides to shut – thanks for the warning SS. Yippee another 1.5 hour wait for the Replacement Bus – its title in itself a misnomer. Now frozen and being entertained by yet another wet and windy station I consider joining the sleeping homeless for an hour beneath the benches in the empty ticket office. Not amusing I know but tempting.
545am becomes 6.50 – I then discover SS has completely misinformed me and the replacement bus is going to the wrong place at 6.50 – I could – of course, how silly of me – have caught one of 3 buses by now – one at 6am – to the right destination for my last ever train home ( and I mean ever again!)
Oh well – you were misinformed – get the next one at 7am – have a nice day!! Bit late for that love…

The joy of meeting Clark Kent in a similar predicament raises my spirits somewhat – Ok Ok he is a slightly unkempt and OLDER version of the Clark Kent of my childhood but he will do. We bemoan the rail system, its ill advised or ill advising workers, the misery of the torrential downpour that constitutes life in South Wales today and generally feel justified in grumpily boarding the bus that finally winds its own wet and weary way down the hill just as we wet and weary travellers are giving up.
Oh double glee – it is now rush hour
Not that the word rush when conjoined with this particular noun deserves any connotation of speed whatsoever – another rechristening then – Slow hour – Slow Slow Snaillike Slow hour. My 7.50 ‘final’ train is of course on perfect time unlike myself on the SSSS hour bus… Even more bedraggled than before as I dared’ cop a snooze’ – you can tell I have been in Ireland – I pitch up instead at the next station at 815am. Oh the fluidity and organisation of British rail.

Wet Windy Forlorn Platform no 4. Another 45 minutes of my life I wont be refunded.
At least after Cardiff real human life enters on this train – but still no phone chargers…
His name was Dave.
Everyone knows a Dave. Apparently. Usually with a brown suitcase I am told.
Yet this Dave not only sported anything less than a lovely tan leather portfolio case but a genuine smile. The first I had seen since leaving Eire – minus SS lady at Rosslare.
The moment when you find yourself engaging with Dave’s smile and sharing your life stories – he in turn – in fact he instigated it – you know you are challenged for company and its been a long time since you said much except yes or no in response to train announcers. You know you will never see ‘Dave’ again (if he was even called Dave – if he even existed! My mind was numb by then) So it really does not matter what you divulge to each other within the secret confines of GWT – with all the other freshfaced morning commuters eagerly listening on. Laptops are a great disguise.
By Salisbury you know Dave’s entire history, about all his family and his marriages…you have stood in his garden and admired his new patio conversion, met his current wife and her penchant for numerous holidays, commiserated with his building woes when his current builder rings – I alone know said builder is due for the sack….and offered encouragement when his brother rings to refuse a night’s hotel rest at the end of their imminent 15 hour day so he will need to book a return. The brother’s wife is scared to sleep alone. I used to prefer it .
Even more brain weary I shake Dave’s hand – did you know he was adopted too? Yes – aged 3 after his mother set up the tea as usual one afternoon – all in place and then disappeared leaving a note. This still handsome 73 year old man told me this part with tears glistening in his eyes. As a good friend always said – Yve you are like a magnet for stories. He doesn’t want to search for her. Never did. I do not believe him. He was half Spanish half Irish – great combo! I will never see Dave again but yes it touched me.
As Dave hastily retreats back into real life , real streets, real problems – did I put a spell on him or he on me? Who knows? – I long for home.
I have now been travelling for a total of 22 hours.
Now I have always loved travelling. People watching. Chatting. What WAS Clark Kent doing on the Bristol Meads bus at 7am having arrived from Gwent with a mission that is only one day a week? The mind boggles but he definitely looked more excited than me.
I gave up retouching my makeup hours before and my hair – now resembling a bird’s nest of broken straw warranting the ex’s new girl labelling me scarecrow last year – is being hidden beneath a strategically draped scarf so I now resemble a 1900s post- famine Irish immigrant if nothing else.
I pretend that Sleep is not some elusive Holy Grail and close my eyes – momentarily – only to open them to see a newcomer in my ‘Dave’s’ seat. Hooded eyes under faded hoodie and a mean thin mouth. He glares back at me and I rapidly close my eyes again. Be wonderful if you could close and open at will and conjure up, say, Damian Lewis or Ed Sheeran. Far more interesting and easier on the eye.
And yes…I do have a ‘thing’ for redheads.
‘We are now approaching Southampton’. Sheer music to my ears.
‘You have now been travelling for 26 hours and still need to get home via another bus ferry bus to your island’. Cheers.
‘Please check your belongings and wait for the train to halt before leaving the coach’. Having left so many belongings in both Ireland and en route I don’t bother checking again – let me off this monotonous, unhalting. ever moving, airless, metallic capsuled centipede at last!
Final mode of transport. Or have I already pretended that?
Most of my LIT have tailed off along the way now – the majority in Wales at some godforsaken spot that defeated the Replacement Bus Scheme at least. Those of us left after our marathon trek stand haplessly at the ferry link bus stop believing its poster’s lucid boasts of one bus every 10 mins.
40 minutes later – 20 of which were spent watching our’ 10 minute’ driver saviour eat his packed lunch and pick his nose for dessert all in full view of his restless waiting passengers – the link bus decides to finally shift itself. Just as 2 other buses pull in. The ‘orderly’ British queue disintegrates in panic as we all scrabble to the other side of the road to finally be allowed on. Subjected to our saviour’s painful – and painfully cheerful- whistling from boarding to alighting – he adds insult to ear pain by gleefull y dropping us meters from the port declaring proudly that we have missed our ferry. Yes. But I hope you enjoyed your sandwiches.
It was not my intention to make this tirade as long as my disastrous journey but I do hope you are still on board….
Because it’s not over yet
Ferry no. 2

I run up the ramps to board despite my copious luggage which has some how grown with each passing mile despite leaving items behind – the gypsy in me! I then brave more stairs – still in the damned heels – and collapse on the first available empty seat – believe me the two are not the same.
And there it is .
After 26 hours – its shiny white surface grinning at me at foot level – the niches like a face taunting me at my long awaited discovery.
A plug socket!! The woman beside me looks up from her book in surprise at my excited yelp.
Phone in. Food purchased. Heels swapped for flatties. Wine open. It IS now 12noon by the way – officially wine o’clock. By anyone’s standards – surely?
As we pull out of port I feel relieved to be leaving English soil again – albeit to adjacent English soil.
The wake of the boat as it leaves shore behind and the numerous random small crafts and huge vessels feel like a homecoming – silent and morose as they all are. I am craving a hot bath and soft bed. I am the shape of a GWT seat.
The woman beside me is doing that ‘she said/he said then I said/ well….she CAN’T do that can she?….’ vitriolic gossip thing the entire hour’s crossing but with hot food inside me – a NON GWT shaped seat that even invites sleep – and soothing wine – I feel nothing. Oh and a phone with charge. I am finally back in civilisation.
On reaching said civilisation I realise my house fridge contents are nil. De nada. Zilch.
So one more push it is – euros unceremoniously changed back into sterling – the dour post office woman seems delighted my last 50 only equates to 39 – but its enough to stock up and beg a final bus home.
The last to my area today.
If he hadn’t driven off on seeing me loaded down with more bags than The Botley Bag lady….
Taxi it is then.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~And my mates call me Bridget Jones? I concur. Point in case.

Gosh its soooo good to be ‘home’.