It's one of our days off. We are off to Moreton Island. It's second only in size to Fraser but only by a bucketful or two of sand. There's an overloaded ferry to take us across. The bar had been topped up with various lagers as the crew had been told that we were the Barmy Army. They must have been tipped off by the Brisbane ground authorities as I'm sure I saw a police car parked by the quay. If they were expecting a load of animals, what they got was a load of vets. Heavy Brigade or not, we were well prepared to lighten their load. The lovely lady had noticed that there were not many overweight people in Australia. Well we found where they hide them. They were lying in wait on Moreton Island. The ferry crossing was quite smooth. The overland journey to the far reaches of the island was not. While others got into their 4X4's, we got into a Dads' Army / Corporal Jones lorry type of bus. The huge driver apologised about the state of the road. He explained that the light house on Moreton Island was no longer serviced by road. The bulb was now changed by helicopter and was one of those energy efficient longer lasting ones that the missus has installed at home. You know the ones that give off hardly any light so you can't see.
We set off along what I suppose was the road. I couldn't see it. I could only see sand. We lurched for a 100 metres or so before we came to a jam. The other 4 X twos had come to a halt. Our tour rep was being carried back towards the ferry terminal, or 'beach' as they call it over here. He could have been on a stretcher. He should have seen it coming. He'd had the last waltz with the lovely lady the night before on the paddle boat on the Brisbane river. I think that could have been the first signs of stiffness. One Rep down we careered on, descending into depths and climbing out of chasms at five second intervals. It was my first experience of a white knuckle ride. The movement became more exaggerated front to back. It may have been the pot bellied driver's preference for the larger potholes that caused the guys in the back seats to head butt the luggage racks. What would this guy have done to us if we had beaten the Aussies in the first Test?
Despite his passengers hanging on grimly to negate the bouncing that he was handing out on a track that would have been declared unfit even by Lillee and Thommo in their heyday, he insisted in pointing out each individual bush and blade of parched grass. In his defence there wasn't much else to see.The highlight was when we passed a rusty pole. He told us it was the remains of a telegraph pole used by the army in World War II. As one of the guys pointed out, just before he hit his head against the luggage rack again "We've come over 3000 miles to see a 'fucking' telegraph pole!" 'Oh by the way fellas, did I tell you that Moreton Island is a dry island? He hadn't hit my head yet, but he'd managed to grab me by the throat. We were all aching by the time we reached our beach destination. Like the good English we are we formed two orderly queues. One for the BBQ manned by the driver's equally large family,and one for the lady who had rubbed sun cream over my legs on the ferry. She turned out to be a masseuse and was in great demand to help ease the aching limbs. Having already had the benefit of her fingers, I decided to go into the South Pacific Ocean to loll in the surf. I didn't go in too deep. Despite the aching nature of my limbs, I didn't want the pain to be relieved by losing any of them to a foraging fucking great white shark. And if it was of the same dimensions as the rest of the Moreton Island Great whites serving the kangaroo steaks I would soon be legless even though the island is teetotal. Luckily Jelly fish and shark fin soup and moi were not on the menu. Having been revived by sun, sand, lemonade, kangaroo and the aforementioned masseuse we managed to reestablish English pride by impressing the Moreton Island residents with the standard of our beach cricket. Which should we offer to the England team for Adelaide? The route back to the ferry was a different one but was of the same ilk. We rolled about in the aisles as if the place had been a gin palace and the missus had been making the jokes. I'm sure there could have been a better way. There's always a choice of routes.
The missus always seems to know the way even if the route is unfamiliar. Planning routes is not everybody's forte.We had come to these parts a couple of years ago with some of the same friends who were in France with us. Unlike Manuel who came from Barcelona we wanted to go there. We had flown down and landed in Girona. For those of you who know your maps this route we wanted is in the opposite direction. We wouldn’t have noticed the route anyway as we just followed those who like to lead, plan and control in the silvery hire cars. All easy stuff when you are cruising through the various empories of the Catalan countryside on your Rutes dels Castells or your Ruta de los Jardines to mix the Catalan and the Spanish or vice versa, but not to be recommended in the fair city of Barcelona. As you would expect I was not party to the detailed planning of what route to take and where to park when the families decided to visit the place. In actual fact all went smoothly until the final left turn into the preset parking place. What do you do? Go into the car park? Stick together? Yes we stuck together. I may have been born in the year of the rat but I don’t leave a sinking ship just because of poor navigating. Wrong decision. You know when a line of ice skaters are going round and round together on an ice rink and the ones on the end are doing everything ten times faster than the people in the middle. Well that’s how it felt. Their lights were green. Ours were red. Their turns were sudden. Ours were U. Their cars were silver. Ours was turning blue.
We got to the chosen car park about an hour later. I remember the name of the area had something to do with Angels. I wasn’t feeling very angelic. My little part in all this had been talking to a Spanish family next door to us on the campsite who actually lived in Barcelona and had offered to take us around the city. During our first week at the campsite nothing more than a couple of nods in their direction were made. We assumed of course that they could not speak English and the families bridled at their badly behaved and noisy children. I remember that the man was large the lady was tasty and the grandparents nodded more than the parents. They had a lifestyle I empathised with. They got up late. A long breakfast. A quick shopping spree usually for food. A snacky lunch with beer and wine. A long afternoon siesta followed by a visit to the beach. They come home mid evening to another liquid supported meal. They clear the table of solid food around 11.30 pm and start to play Spanish Bingo. As far as I can see the rules are the same as ours except he shouts out the numbers in Spanish, and you can’t understand when he says the equivalent of two fat ladies. I suppose familiarity breeds contempt, but ‘Cincuenta cinco’ seemed more harmonious than the missus saying ‘fifty five’ when we used to play Lotto with the kids in the caravan on that farm site in Devon when it was pissing down with rain. When wasn’t it?
Anyway later in the week when we were just about to join the early rising other families down the beach, I offered our kids’ badminton rackets and shuttlecock for their little ones to play with. They had often watched in awe as our kids played. We were then in awe as Xavier and Mercedes thanked us in English for being so kind. Awe not awe and wonder. Xavier and Mercedes are the parents not the children. Anyway we got talking and despite the missus confusing the life out of them and the fact that their kids were whacking stones with the rackets when we got back from the beach, there was no stopping the neighbourly chats for the rest of the week and hence the offer of a guided tour around Barcelona. There’s always a downside, and I fully expect Great Britain to lose in the final of the mixed pairs at badminton in the 2008 Olympics to a Spanish brother and sister pairing.
Funnily enough there was a similar event in the French campsite with our touring caravan with some Dutch; except the game was cricket and they didn’t offer to take us around Amsterdam. Again our much maligned family friends didn’t think a lot of the Dutch people across the way. No English spoken and no manners. As ever ‘Sports’ as the misssus calls it, lovingly similar by the way to her ‘Hawaii 505’, almost came to the rescue. The biggest pain in the ass Dutch kid became fascinated by our kids playing cricket on the road between us and them, and joined in the fielding. He took some spectacular catches but couldn’t get the hang of waiting his turn to bat. The kids not having parental prejudices gave him a go at batting when the girls were out, and it turned out that he had a flair for the game as well as a good eye for the ball.
It didn’t make any difference to the frostiness between the non English speaking Dutch families and our Camp David. You know the sort of thing. Their kids were noisy when we were resting. Ours skateboarded past them while they were still in bed. Them having digs at us. Us taking slingshots at them. We and they alternated in staying up for noisy drunken nights preventing the other side from sleeping. If we felt really annoying we’d start up an argument about religion and that would always make us last an extra hour or two. I use the same argument in trying to persuade the missus to dress up as a nun back home. With no give from either side I decided to send in a Trojan horse in the guise of the missus. One evening when both parties were manning the barricades at the same time sipping cooling drinks I explained to the missus that a couple of the Dutch did in fact speak English and had been interested in finding out the laws of cricket. The missus did ask why I hadn’t explained the game to them and I told her that there was a little bit of feeling between us and them and I felt a bit reticent. ‘Don’t be so bloody stupid’ was the wonderfully received response from the missus.’ Somebody has to break the ice. I’ll draw them a diagram.’ She stood up, took some paper and a pen from her handbag and was just about to cross no-man’s-land when the missus’ mate burst out laughing letting the cat out of the bag and unfortunately the Trojan guinea pig smelt a rat. ‘You swine! You were trying to set me up’ She bellowed accusingly. What a shame the missus’ mate couldn’t have kept a lid on it. We’d have had a ring side view of something similar to Professor Stanley Unwin expounding the theory of relativity at his ineloquent best to Playschool viewers through the round window.
Relations didn’t improve despite my attempt at sending over the diplomatic bag. As we were still winding up the stays of our caravan getting ready to depart, you could see the Dutch scowls trying to wind up our friends as they drove off. It was like Ajax supporters with liquid ammonia after having been beaten by a big big carpet for less than half a crown. Their mouths formed a different shape however as their jaws dropped when I strolled over and presented them with a plastic bat for the good young cricketer. They were still stunned as we drove by, but not as stunned as the missus was at me being able to tow the caravan from the pitch without the help of any Dutch people. Oh yes they did help. There was no way I was not going to do it by myself. I'm looking out to see if the kid is playing for Holland in the Cricket World Cup this week.
Anyway our follow my leader friends and the missus had formed a committee to work out the best place to meet Xavier and Mercedes. I was kicking some cans with the boys but keeping a close eye on the girls as a few shifty characters had driven by (Present company excepted). After 15 minutes of lively debate and cross examination with the commitment of argument and destruction of character reminiscent of the ‘The Moral Maze’ on Radio 4, a route was decided upon. A few dumped televisions later made me break my rule about interference, and I suggested we phone Xavier. He and his senora arrived within 15 minutes and he suggested a different ruta. ‘If you go down that road you will have your cameras and your purses taken’, he said. I think the earlier reference to Angels was that they would fear to tread in this carefully chosen part of Barcelona, let alone park in it.
He took us around all the sites via the metro, the cathedral, the Gothic area, the commercial district, Las Ramblas and finally a park with a fantastic musical and illuminated waterworks show from the fountains. It is a lovely city but I found it a bit too Gaudy. Xavier and Mercedes and their two kids said their bye byes, goodbyes and adioses. The young boy turned out to have the Spanish version of ADHD and kicked my mate in the goolies, no doubt as a farewell gesture of goodwilly or as a request for balls next time not shuttlecocks. I don’t know whether Xavier and Mercedes will accept my mates’ offer of a Balti in Birmingham with a free supply of Ritalin for the boy. I purposely left the two silvery cars pull away out of sight before I asked the missus ‘Which way?’ We had the beer on ice, the Rioja opened and a spaghetti dish simmering by the time they got home. ‘Bloody one way system’, they complained. If only it had been earlier in the day, they could have said that they came back terria the Ruta de les Cultures knowing that this was a route that I would have avoided like the plague.
It’s weird that none of our friends want to come on holiday with us this year. Our own kids too come to that. You don’t think that the missus’s sister will be spending her last holiday with us do you? The missus tells me that we are going back on the autopistas. She said that she’s fed up with me taking the piss out of the French and she doesn’t intend that it carries on in Spain. It’s unlikely that this will be the case as I can’t ask for a cup of coffee in Spanish or even Catalan come to that, so I’ll have to take what they give me, and I don’t want to be seen as an aseos in public.‘Did you get lost dear?’ I enquired. ‘Get lost yourself’, she replied. ‘Junction 4, Vilamalla ,Vilacolum not Vilamacolum, Torroella de Fluvia, Viladamat and then L’Escala’ she exclaimed with a triumphant air surely reminiscent of the gladiatorial victories that must have been a feature of these parts before package holidays and touring parties reached these shores.
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