Tag Archives: Ella Sharples

Comedy Club

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We stayed for a couple of days with a medical student in Providence, Rhode Island where the main bit of excitement (even more exciting than hearing me singing the Eagles song The Last Resort loudly and incompletely as I couldn’t remember any more of it than – “She came from Providence, the one in Rhode Island, where the something, something, something, something in the air” and something about packing “her hopes and dreams like a refugee something, something father something across the sea”) – yes, even more exciting than me repeating that over and over again was that we went to a Comedy Club.

It was staging a qualifying round of a national competition to find a new comic talent. The two winners from that night’s heat would win a trip to Vegas to compete in the next stage. There were 9 comedians lined up. We got there early. We were hungry and they did sort of bar food there so we went in to eat. They put us at a table for two slap bang in front of the stage.

Basically, the front row – – was us. Ordinarily, I would have moved because it didn’t take a genius to figure that it was extremely likely that we would become involved in some of the stand up and we were a little worried it might not go well and would be awkward for them knowing there were two vicars sitting smack in front. But the thing that kept us there was that this trip was about new experiences and well, what was the worst that could happen?

What was the worst that could happen in a grungy flea-pit comedy club in a beat-up part of a rundown town where there were only two items on the menu; a menu which was a testament to the art of de-cluttering and keeping things simple. There were only two words on it. One was “Ribs”. No indication where the ribs had once lodged. Just, Ribs. And the other was “Burger”. “Do you want ribs or burger?” asked the barman when I enquired about food. I was just about to ask what the low fat gluten free super-food vegetarian option was tonight when I realised I would never say that.

We had burger.

The compere got up to get things rolling. He was large, round and very, very bitter. Like a 6 foot aspirin.

He clearly resented being there. He’d been in the business for 20 years he said (several times) and yet there he was, nowhere else. He couldn’t think why he hadn’t made it. We could have given him some ideas but he was too bitter and angry to risk telling. I think he had decided long ago to take his anger out on his audience.

Maybe 20 years experience had taught him that people weren’t going to laugh if he tried to tell jokes, that they weren’t going to laugh if he engaged them in wry observational humour or situational comedy and, basically, with him they just weren’t going to even snigger. I think he assumed we would only laugh if we were afraid he would hurt us if we didn’t.

Shall we engage the audience? Nah, let’s not look for engagement, let’s go for an acrimonious divorce.

And two middle aged vicars were sitting immediately in front of him. We were close enough to actually hear his mind unhinging. We nibbled nervously on our burgers and hoped that if we had our mouths full he wouldn’t ask us to speak.

To kick things off he spent a few minutes picking on the drunken stag party lurking around several tables near the back, asking them questions, ignoring the answers and begging to be heckled. He then moved on to make fun of the guy at the bar who couldn’t help coming from Wisconsin. Warming up, his eyes then ranged around the room: he looked straight at me: leaned back slightly and, as I stuffed an entire burger bun in my mouth we were saved. Saved, it must be said, by an unlikely source.

A gay suicide bomber.

He spotted a suicide bomber sitting at one of the tables in the third row. A suicide bomber sitting on his own. A suicide bomber, therefore, with no support. Nor, it must be said, with any form of explosive device. We only know that he was a suicide bomber because the compere told us he had to be because he was Arabic. Repeatedly told us. And then we learned that he must be gay because he was sitting on his own and so obviously had no girlfriend. The compere’s brain didn’t necessarily follow logical pathways. Having someone whom he could call a gay suicide bomber in the club seemed to be the answer to all the compere’s wildest dreams and so he spent a few minutes of what he probably considered “jolly banter” but what sounded more like the recipe of a hate crime until he eventually tired of that and, as contentedly as a cat that’s just left an unpleasant present in your slipper, introduced the first comedian.

In one respect he was a great warm-up for the contestants. After that opening it was easy for them to look better.

But gee willikers it was stereotype central. The old Jewish guy only did jokes about being an old Jewish guy, the gay guy solely did jokes about being a gay guy, the menopausal woman exclusively did jokes about being a menopausal woman, the massively overweight guy limited himself to singularly doing jokes about being massively overweight. And so on. And on. Each of the 9 hopefuls were drawn with a broad brush deeply dipped in a big pot of cliché.

The language was often stronger than the jokes, but hats off to them, 9 very brave individuals; and it was brilliant fun. A small sweaty club full of vocal locals. Some material to laugh at, some to groan at and you could even download an app to vote for your favourites as it went along.

And then, once they’d all had their 5 minutes of fame the compere got back up to change the tone. With the judges off compiling the votes and deciding on the two winners Missed-a-Personality returned to fill in.

By now the stag party were pretty far gone and he wasn’t getting any coherent response from them. The suicide bomber, fair play to him, had stayed and this defiance brought with it less “comic” potential. The Wisconsin lad had moved from being sat at the bar to being slumped over it, which meant new blood was needed.

The compere breathed in and smelt the sweetest aroma a bully’s nostrils can snort on. The smell of fear. He looked down with veloceraptor eye.

“Soooooo, where are you guys from?”

We no longer had burger to protect us.

“England.”

At least, I’m pretty sure that I said England but from his response what I think I must actually have said was “I bet you can’t scream at me for 5 minutes.”

Impressively he didn’t seem to draw breath during the whole tirade. When he did pause, having finished off with a rapid and increasingly rabid version of “I’m Henery the Eighth I am” he leaned close and said “And what do you English *&^$$$! ++$$^&* do in England?”

“Urrr, well, we’re both priests, actually.”

“Ohhhhh ****!”

The audience seemed to think this was the funniest thing that had happened in their entire lives.

And you never know, maybe this would be the cue for him to enter into some clever witty banter with us.

Or maybe we’d just thrown a meaty bone to a doberman. He launched. Verbally. Though most of the verbs were variations of fairly intimate activities. He had a very loud voice. He also had a microphone. This was only going to be very one way traffic. I got the impression that even the stag party were feeling a little uncomfortable with it all and the suicide bomber had stopped entering codes into his phone. Eventually one of the judges came onto the stage to stop him and produced an envelope within which was the name of the two winners. The neurotic new dad who had told jokes about being a neurotic new dad and the massively overweight guy had made it through. We all clapped.

People started leaving. The menopausal comedienne came up to us and said hi and thanked us for coming. Then the compere came up and wanted to know why on earth we had come to something we knew would be offensive and where we clearly would never be welcome.

We told him perfectly truthfully that we hadn’t been offended by any of the 9 comedians. Admittedly, we probably wouldn’t be able to use much of what they’d said in a typical Sunday sermon but this was a comedy club and we wanted to experience it and so why should a priest not be there? You choose whether or not to take offence at something and there was nothing in what they had said that would cause us to do so.

The only thing we did find offensive about the evening was him – and that was only because his brand of humour was bullying and vicious. The others were just trying to get people to laugh: I think he was just trying to get people.

He said that the audience expected that sort of humour from him.

He’s been doing it for 20 years so I guess they do expect it.

But it doesn’t mean they can’t hope for something more.

A very grand canyon

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Sometimes you just have to embrace the tack. Don’t fight it, you’ll only come across as a grump. Embrace the kitsch and allow the awfulness to wash over you like a warm, badly made, slightly smelly blanket.

And you never know, you might end up enjoying some of it.

We embraced the tack – we went for the full experience. There’s no point merely going to the Grand Canyon, seeing how big it is and then going home. No siree. Not when there are other ways….

So we went on the train to the Grand Canyon. Not just any old train – but THE Grand Canyon train which takes you from Williams, Arizona to the south rim of the canyon in a gloriously tacky way.

They wouldn’t call it tacky, mind you. Indeed I didn’t find the word tacky mentioned even once on their website. They call it things like “exciting” and “adventurous” and words like that. They’re obviously entitled to choose their own words – I’m happy to stick with mine. I’ll stick with tacky.
The day starts authentically in exactly the same way it would have done in the good ol’ bad ol’ Wild West with an early morning cowboy shoot out in a mock-up Wild West street next to the platform: the Cactus Creek Gang had a run in with the sherif and he filled them full of lead. There was audience participation, mockery of Wisconsin folk, a bit of slapstick – all good clean fun.


(Another one bites the dust)

 

Once boarded, we had “entertainers” come along the train to “entertain” us. A guitar playing chap on the way out who had a moustache and a mouth organ, and then a truly manically and almost certainly drug inducedly-enthusiastic accordion player on the return journey who led a repeated singalong. A repeated singalong is where they play and carry on playing each song until you singalong. The trick was to avoid eye-contact at all costs or she stole your soul.

And we had a real life train robbery. On the return journey those pesky Cactus Creek Gang members reacted surprisingly well to having been shot dead that morning by riding alongside the train and, following a wonderful announcement from the conductor that for health and safety reasons we would have to bring the train to a complete stop for the robbers to be able to board safely (no one, not even hardened desperate cowboy baddies are allowed to board a moving train nowadays), they then came along the carriages robbing people.

It was all good natured, though you didn’t get anything back that you gave them!

I think the key ingredient missing from our carriage was children. There were no children. I think we probably needed some.

I inadvertently became the guy diagonally across from us’s best buddy by pouring him a glass of lemon from the buffet as I had the jug in my hand and he had an empty glass in his. This was apparently the secret sign that meant we’re blood brothers. He was on the trip celebrating 30 years of marriage. His wife uttered only one line the whole journey (coming up later). At one point, Hilarious Hal turned to me and said: “Hey buddy, I’ve got a drink problem!” at which point he put the open end of the glass against his forehead and spilled half of it down himself. He thought this was probably the funniest thing that had ever taken place.

His wife looked out of the window.

I smiled, politely, but hopefully not too encouragingly.

The most telling line of the trip was when the train robbers came along the carriage and one of them stopped by Hilarious Hal and said to Hal’s wife: “is this man bothering you ma’m?” She replied wistfully: “I wish!”

Hal, however, had just the best time.

They released a buffet shortly after the trip started and you would have thought people had been injected with poison and then told the buffet was the only known antidote. I think the received wisdom was get the antidote first or it may run out. It was also fairly clear they thought the more antidote you could get the better you’d recover. It was like velociraptors had been thrown a burger.


(“This man bothering you, ma’m?”)

But, say what you will, the day was memorable. I can remember every second of it. I’m even remembering the bits where Hal was involved in slow motion no matter how much I try not to.

And it was fun.

And the Canyon, when we got there, was absolutely spectacular.

A boy of about 13 had the best response. He was there with his family and as he approached the edge he kept repeating “that is so amazing: it’s incredible: it’s just beautiful,” and similar. Over and over again. I thought at first he was sweet-talking his mum, showing he loved it in exchange for a guaranteed ice cream, but a little later when the rest of the family were off away I saw him again, this time on his own and he was taking photos, still saying quietly to himself: “this is so amazing, it’s just too beautiful….” Even though my normal response to things is more along the lines of “it was alright” or, on an exceptional day, “it was alright” but with an upward inflection on the “right”, on this occasion, I was with the kid.

It’s one place where photos fall so desperately short of capturing the true scale and scope of the scene. I could have happily sat for hours, just looking out over the extraordinary scale of just a fraction of the Canyon. I think they said it was 270 miles long and, at this point, 18 miles wide and a mile deep. Not everything in America is bigger and better, but in terms of canyons, I think they’ve got it sewn up.


(Photos don’t even get close to the scale. There are actually buildings down there you can just make out sitting just before the stretch of trees you can see in the valley foreground – – maybe they are actually matchstick houses but I think they’re probably bigger. I did suggest they should dump a double decker bus or similar onto one of the big stacks in the distance to give an idea of scale but the warden thought it might not be in keeping with their desire to keep things natural.)

I also had my first “birthday cake flavoured ice cream” from one of the shops there.

I’d been out in the sun for 2 hours and I think I was missing Hilarious Hal.

McDonald’s: no place for young men

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We popped into McDonald’s, mainly because they offer free wifi. We felt we should order something but couldn’t bring ourselves to get any food, so I ordered two coffees. It was proudly displayed on the board that coffee was one dollar for any size of cup. Sounded reasonable so, two coffees it was.

The 14 year old behind the counter looked at me, asked if I wanted cream or not to which I replied that milk would be fine – he said something to the effect of not having milk but cream was milk and then mumbled in juvenile-speak and asked me for one dollar twenty eight and lolloped off to fill something. I presumed he must have misheard my order and would return with a cup of something that wasn’t coffee as even with my dodgy maths I could figure that two lots of one dollar is a relatively straightforward calculation.
He returned with two cups that actually looked and smelt of coffee and placed my change and a receipt in front of me. On the receipt it said two snr coffees. We’re not a million miles from Mexico: there is a lot of Spanish speaking going on round about here and so I initially thought the snr meant señor, though why it mattered if you were male or female to order coffee escaped me. But the amount was clearly wrong.

Excuse me, I thought the coffees were a dollar each.

Yes sir, that is correct.

But you only charged me one dollar twenty eight.

That is correct sir.

That’s less than two dollars.

It is indeed sir. Would you like anything else?

No, just the two coffees really.

Very good sir. Have a good one.

Thank you. You too. But why are the coffees cheap today?

They’re not sir, they’re always a dollar.

I’m confused.

Did you want a larger cup? They are the same price.

No. I just wondered why you charged me less than 2 dollars.

Oh, I gave you a senior discount.

A what?

(Looks a little apprehensive and starts speaking as one might when faced,with a grizzly bear) A senior discount, sir.

When do you get those?

When you order, sir.

But how old do you have to be to get a senior discount? How old do you think I am?

Umm, over 50, sir. The manager doesn’t like us to ask so we just guess and if someone looks over 50 we give them a discount. (He looked awkward and stared over my shoulder to the next person in line hoping I would go quietly.)

I went quietly, hoping my joints didn’t creak too loudly and walked slowly off to join Ella at the booth, trying not to shuffle as I went. Happy to get cheap coffee of course, and pretty good coffee at that, but confused (it comes with old age I guess) that the 12 year old server had thought I was over 50.

Nobody thinks I look 50. I don’t look anything like 50. Admittedly I will be 50 in December but nobody thinks I look fifty.

OK, one person obviously does.

And where there’s one there are bound to be others. This sort of thing spreads like nasty disease.

50!

That’s what happens when you employ 10 year olds.

And what am I doing having coffee after 6 pm? I’ll never sleep.

So, that’s it. I officially look over 50 even though I’m not. I don’t want to return to McDonalds, ever – but they have free wifi and cheap (even cheaper, now) coffees and we’re sleeping in our car.

I’m an old, homeless, jobless person living in a car and existing on McDonald’s coffees, hmmm, I think it’s time we booked into a hotel. So I turned to Ella, (who looked to be suffering early signs of claustrophobia – the car roof is only 18 inches above us as we lie on the inflatable mattress) and say the words everyone woman is waiting to hear:

“Let’s go to Vegas, baby!”

Las Vegas

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We drove into the night, partially through the night and, having been pleasantly surprised at how much the petrol (or, gas, apparently although it’s obviously not gas) plummeted when you got into Arizona, had our first glimpse of Vegas from a full 45 miles away. It was still on the other side of some mountain range, but sat nav said 45 miles still to go and we could see a clear, strong glow in the sky from the city lights even at that distance.

We arrived after midnight and thought the most sensible thing to do would be to head for the main strip and see if it looked like it did in the films. Not knowing where it was we pooled our Vegas film knowledge and came up with a few likely candidates to put into Ms Sat Nav. Caesar’s Palace, Planet Hollywood and Bellagio’s were our finalised list. They must be on the main strip – they’re on the telly. Caesar’s palace was acceptable to Ms Sat Nav and she directed us downtown.

Our sunglasses, having been placed in the cup holders in the doors earlier in the day when the sun had gone, came out again to protect tired eyeballs from the fallout of the sun’s explosion which seemed to have been captured and then poured over every building as far as the eye could (so long as you had sunglasses on) see. It’s like a Dulux paint shop had been hit by a sunburst and the whole lot had landed in a Fluorescent tubing factory.

Which had then been struck by an atom bomb.

Our black Jeep Patriot was just about cool enough to hold its own among the glittercarti strutting up and down the street, though it looked like the tiny baby of some of the ridiculous Hummers that towered over us. (Those, the eye-wateringly ugly cube cars and Fiat Multiplas are on my list of top three awful looking vehicles that should be banned from the roads.)

Having been well and truly wowed by the fantastic over the topness of the Strip we found a room in one of a large chain of cheap uncheerful hotels (spell check wanted to change that to cheap ‘n’ cheerful but cheap uncheerful sums it better). It was a hotel whose aspirations had long ago been knocked out of it and whose joie de vivre had become, after many disappointments and let downs, a tired, world-weary sigh.

On the bright side it had a bed and the bed wasn’t in a car.

I asked the guy behind the desk if there was a gym in the hotel. He said it wasn’t hotel policy to give out names of guests. I smiled. He didn’t. Even though I had had a very long day he looked like his had been longer. I went to search for the stairs.

While the hotel was cheap uncheerful, breakfast was included, though it wasn’t to be found in the hotel. To achieve breakfast you had to go into a neighbouring casino, in one corner of which was a tiny add-on in which you could decant a bowl of the dust that’s left at the end of a box of normal cereal when you’ve taken out all the reasonable sized bits, a glass of either vaguely orange or in another container, not quite green, and as many waffles as you wanted.

Five was the answer before I had one.

Not even one was the answer when I’d bitten into the first.

Even at 8.30 in the morning the casino was about a fifth full. Rows and rows of slot machines, many of which had people who looked like they were surgically attached, on some sort of bizarre life support machine as many of them had credit sized cards on leads that were attached to their belts while the other end was inserted into the slot machine. This joined human and machine and it wasn’t clear which thought it was benefiting more from the arrangement. Was adrenaline being pumped into the people through the wire connection, or was hope being drained out? I’ve not understood what’s going on with slot machines since the 1980s, simpler times when you simply had to line up fruit and then occasionally you could nudge wheels up or down and would peer up into the machine to try to see what symbol was three away. Now? Not a clue. There was certainly an awful lot of “winning” music blaring around – but I didn’t see anyone who looked like they’d won.

Slightly less zombified were the people playing on the craps tables (long oval tables with lots of numbers on and someone throws two dice to the other end and everyone cheers or groans at the same time depending on what’s thrown). There were, maybe, two dozen small tables for a whole variety of black jack type card games.

Add to that a smattering of roulette wheels and you had the carbon copy of every casino on the strip. Lots of drinks waitresses rushing drinks to people at the tables to keep them topped up lest they sober up and leave.

How I wished there’d been a table at which you could just have a simple game of Snap. Or a table at which 8 fancily dressed gamblers were engaged in a nail biting game of Happy Families.
People didn’t look too happy, but it was early morning and most of them probably hadn’t had breakfast yet and no one looks happy before breakfast and so we left them and went to explore the town.

Every 15 minutes the long, fancy fountains outside Bellagio’s hotel fire into life and shoot dozens of water jets high into the air to music. Some of the shows were brilliant, and the big lake also gives a great natural meeting place for people and draws in street entertainers and people dressed up so you can have photos taken with them. I had mine taken with a minion who must have been 300 degrees inside the huge sponge suit.

On the flip side, the city exposed its greasy underbelly on each and every section of pavement along the strip. For every 100 metres you walked there would be at least one and up to four individuals or in some cases what looked like entire family groups handing out business cards promising to have girls delivered to your room. Lots of tee shirts declaring the same as well as A-Frame boards, advertising trucks and stands at the side of the pavement filled with leaflets.
People had brought young children to Vegas. Are they nuts? Are they selling them? Are they in any way shape or form responsible to look after children? You know the big buzzer on Family Fortunes that sounds when a contestant gets an answer wrong. (“Uh uh!!!) That was the sound that blasted in my head every time I saw families with children on the main Strip in Vegas.

Come to Vegas. Bring the kids. Uh uhhhh!

(If the French want their tower back, Vegas have got it)

We thought Caesar’s palace was going to be way over the top in its tackiness but I think the Trafford Centre out-tacks it. (Go Britain!) We drifted around and saw the sights, some of the free shows and played a fairly long game of “find the exit”. Planet Hollywood with its “Miracle Mile” of shops was great to window shop in and we saw an awesome Turkish ice cream seller who had a brilliant routine which involved elaborate methods of taking back the ice cream cone he’d just handed someone. One of the routines lasted about ten minutes until the hapless child finally got to gobble their cornet, followed by him dancing to hyped up dance music (the Turkish guy! not the child). He had a lot of photos taken of him but I bet his boss wondered why his ice cream sales were so low.

We went to a recommended restaurant in the evening which did big plates of steak and salad for about £4. Unsurprisingly it was a little busy and we were handed a buzzer thing which would buzz when a table was ready and we were asked to come promptly when it buzzed as they had lots of people waiting. Meanwhile we were to wait, unsurprisingly, in the accompanying casino.
Well, we managed to avoid putting a single cent into a slot machine or onto a roulette table the whole time we were in Vegas. But we didn’t stay entirely gamble free. While we were waiting for our buzzer to buzz we stood next to a craps table trying to figure what was going on. Lots of numbers, lots of people, four staff, one of whom kept pushing chips round with a long stick. Dice being thrown and people throwing chips round like they were confetti. The couple to our left decided we needed educating and tried to explain the game.

I am monumentally poor at describing games to people and always make things sound far more complicated than they are. These good people were from right out of my stable. In the end they said it would be good luck for everyone round the table if a dice virgin (I think he said dice virgin – he might have had a cold) threw the dice. Gamblers are superstitious sorts, he said, and someone who’s never thrown before always brings luck. Having less than no idea what she was aiming to do, Ella was handed the dice and told to throw them to the other end of the table. She duly obliged and was allowed another throw. Whatever she threw seemed to make people happy as they all shouted “hooray”, or American equivalents, and asked her to try the same again. They said throw a nine and lo and behold, Ella threw a nine. A couple of throws later they had changed their mind and seemed to want a 10. Duly dispatched. It was becoming the table to be at. Ella, the dice machine, churning out the numbers. It was a little like on the Bond films (and she had her sparkly dress on too). Bet, bet, bet, dice throw, roll, bated breath, stop. roar!! People were coming across to see what all the fuss was about. I expected a tap on the shoulder from security accusing us of dice counting, or something equally frowned upon.

Then, disaster. The buzzer went off and we said the words that not many hard core gamblers utter in casinos in Las Vegas:

“Terribly sorry, but we have go for dinner.”

You’d have thought we had just burned an American flag and said guns were bad. Apparently when you’re on a hot streak you don’t go for supper.

If that lot were superstitious before, they’ll only be extra so now because with the buzzer of doom vibrating merrily on the side of the craps table (couldn’t switch it off), Ella immediately threw a 7 (losing throw) and the bubble was burst. The couple who had drawn us in insisted we take the winnings they had bet for us as you can’t throw without being in the game so they had apparently staked us in and placed chips accordingly. We declined but they said that everyone around the table had won from Ella’s awesome throwing. They had both won handsomely themselves and even taking back their original stakes that they’d placed for Ella she had still cleared $110 from the small amounts they’d bet on her behalf. They had own much more themselves, so we said thank you very much and went to eat cheap steak. And ended up getting through three days in Vegas 110 dollars up on the house having bet nothing at all.
And yes, it was tempting to try again. But no, we didn’t. We still have a few weeks to go and the budget’s still just about on target.

As it is we’re sleeping in cars and in hotels that smell of sadness.

Vegas. Tick. Next stop, the Grand Canyon….

(They’re probably putting this photo out all round the casinos to warn them about the English broad who’s breaking the bank, little by little…..)

Camper Van

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Well, we’re now fully fledged camper vanners having been in our camper van for a couple of weeks. At the depot where we picked it up we had to sit and watch an informative video which included the awesome line…. “In New Zealand you should always drive on the left hand side of the road: if you find while you are driving that your passenger is in between you and the lines in the middle of the road please reorientate yourself on the carriageway.”

We went for cheap and cheerful. We had to go for cheap, we were hoping it would be cheerful. We booked the smallest self-contained camper; turned up to claim it and found they’d given us an upgrade (they always make it sound like they’re doing you a huge favour when it’s probably down to an admin error or the original vehicle being dead but we were very thankful all the same). Basically, it’s a Mercedes Sprinter van that’s been attacked with a chainsaw and had windows added all round and various ingenious storage units fitted in. It has the world’s smallest shower/loo – good for washing etc, bad for claustrophobics: fridge, microwave, sink, heater and gas hob and a barbecue which folds out cunningly from the outside of the van but as we’re into N Z winter now it’s probably going to stay firmly tucked away.

(Our sweet “wheels”)


(Ella cooking and either dancing with joy, or trying to keep warm. To her left is the world’s smallest shower/loo)

With the van having the world’s smallest shower/loo it means we are officially self contained and therefore can park pretty much anywhere outside of civilisation and don’t need to be dependant on campsites.

Brilliant.
However, what the blurb didn’t tell us was you can only use the heater (very necessary piece of kit in the increasingly cold evenings) and the electric sockets when the camper van itself is plugged in to the mains which, due to the plugs they’ve got, can only be done when you’re in a campsite. Similarly for recharging the reserve battery which they suggest you do every other day. So, we’re not quite as free-from-campsites as we’d hoped to be.
We have done some “freedom camping” (we stayed at a look out point on the top of a mountain our first night: awesome view – excruciatingly and literally mind-numbingly cold overnight) and also tried a few campsites along the way.
I must admit that, never having campsited before, upon successful completion of the first thorough excavation of the collection tanks lurking in the nether regions of the van into the imaginatively named “dump station” and refilling the water tanks I did feel very rugged and manly even though, as we were the only residents of that particular camp site there was no one around to be thralled at my rugged campsiteness. Ella dutifully swooned but that may have been the dump station fumes.
The main reason I thought it would be a good idea to get a self-contained camper van was so we could sit in the middle of absolutely nowhere (and in New Zealand there are lots of middles of absolutely nowhere) and, if I’m honest, more importantly, to not be on camp sites because camp sites tend to be a gathering place for campsite people. Campsite people are weird. They are permanently jolly and wear shorts they’ve long since outgrown and they always try to engage you uninvited in conversation from their deck chairs and always have kit you wish you’d thought of bringing but they have done this sort of thing for so long it’s a perfect art form for them now but because you are also on a campsite they assume you share some deep bond and, like them, have no shame.
I’m not so into all that chatty stuff. (Add that to the list, along with thumbs ups – see skydiving entry). I want to know how early is reasonable to pull all the curtains closed so you avoid that awkward eye contact of passers by, or neighbours, because when it happens I feel the need to make some ridiculous acknowledging gesture which is bound to be misconstrued as being friendly and they’ll take it to mean I want them to come over and chat. But it doesn’t, it really doesn’t.
It’s meant to mean “this is my cave: admittedly it has wheels and I’ve been forced to bring it into your midst for the purposes of having electricity and heat but it’s still, fundamentally, my cave. Go away.”
Ella has none of these hang ups.
However, as it’s turned out, it being winter here, unsurprisingly the camp sites are mostly relatively, and in a couple of cases mostly totally, deserted.
This is good, and in addition to that I’ve discovered the optimum angle at which to park to leave the minimum of window frontage on display to the passing world.
Ella says I can’t put a fence round the van.

(View from our pitch on one of the camp sites…… And below is the same  campsite the next morning. #perfectcampingconditions)

(And here is a lake I jogged to. Not too shabby)

It’s been fun driving a big long vehicle. I did almost get it inextricably stuck in a walled-in supermarket car park which, once you were in seemed irresponsibly small for large camper vans to be lured into. Nevertheless I managed to park as unobtrusively as possible (which was to unobtrusiveness the same as an elephant carrying a party balloon). Ella went in to the shop and I waited in the van in case people couldn’t get out of any of the parking spaces we were possibly preventing exit from. After enduring a few native hand gestures of welcome I figured it would be diplomatic to leave and find somewhere else to park. This however required me to wait for two cars to leave before I could achieve the right angles to safely manoeuvre out again and nearly scraped a sign on exiting which, I noticed when I looked back said “No Camper Vans Please”. I would contend that, by definition of my not having seen it on the way in, it wasn’t nearly clear enough.

That evening, with curtains satisfyingly completely drawn I managed to destroy 20% of my entire wardrobe in one fell swoop. 6 night light candles burning merrily, giving a bit of ambient light and even a little extra heat, placed in a bread tin (cos we’re safety conscious and the bread tin would keep them safe). Someone opted to place the bread tin onto a dinner plate in case the bottom of it got hot and burned the camper van worktop. Still looked pretty safe. Then someone (I know I keep using the term someone but I’m trying to protect the guilty by keeping her identity hidden) opened an overhead cupboard and a loaf of bread fell down, hit the edge of the dinner plate which launched the bread tin and candles in an arc of waxy warmth all over my trousers and shoes and (my only) jumper.
Never fear, thought I, if there’s one thing being a vicar has taught me it’s how to get candle wax off things (mainly carpets and pew kneelers). So, after buying some brown paper from the local post office the next day I commandeered the camp site ironing board and iron. Unfortunately, in my uber-zealous ironing on the dirt-cheap, waffer thin ironing board I managed to imprint long lines of xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxs from the metal mesh the board was made of and which were hidden under its micron thin cover. Top + trousers ruined. Happily, we’ll be off to the States soon and it’ll be hot so I’m consoling myself with the thought that a.) they would only have been unnecessary baggage in the heat and b.) I might legitimately make the 7kg carry on luggage allowance on the next Qantas flight.
New Zealand is by far the prettiest country we’ve visited. When we were in Queenstown we drove the road to Glenorchy which is on the list of the 10 most beautiful drives in the world. Stunning – with a new reason to stop and take photographs round each of the very, very many bends. We also visited Arrowtown which was pretty and stumbled across a little museum in which many of the exhibits were touchable, climable on, sittable in and contained stuff like huge saws and tools U K museum curators would have slapped barriers round and shouted “health and safety nightmare”. A printing press was there, open to the touch, with a massive roll of newsprint stretched across rollers – you could just reach out and stick your finger through the paper if you wanted. And yet, no one had.
Either, New Zealanders have and use far more respect and common sense than we do and this magically rubs off on visitors. Or, some oik had nicked the barriers and we weren’t actually meant to touch any of the stuff we were handling. Oh well.
Some of the early medical exhibits were interesting – including this everyday essential….

World travel – it’s an eye opener.

Lord Of The Rings

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The only real time we spent outside of Ngatiawa during the month was to drop into Wellington (which is apparently, officially the windiest city in the world, – and I can believe it) so that Ella and I could make wedding rings for one another. 29 years ago we had no money at all and so all we could afford were really thin, cheap gold rings and mine had got more and more worn over time until at the New Year it decided to end its life as a ring by snapping.

Having been told it would be pointless to fix it given its overall condition, we figured it would be symbolic at the start of part II of our life together, while halfway through our sabbatical year and half way round the world, to make new rings.

We contacted a crafty person in Wellington who had the means and the skills to show us what to do and we spent two wonderful afternoons making new rings for each other. It was a bit like being back at school only without the possibility of being sent out for misbehaving and being allowed cups of tea. We also melted down our two old wedding rings (which resulted in a surprisingly tiny amount of gold – not even enough to make a single new ring – so Ella crafted a shape in a cuttlefish shell for a mould and created a little pendant that the lady soldered on to her bracelet.) (Ella’s, not the lady’s – that would have been cheeky.)

The process of making the rings was fairly straightforward: first off we had to make prototypes out of hard plasticcy wax which would then be sent away to have moulds made of them. This involved sawing and filing and sanding and, quite frankly, lots of pretending to be Gollum – and then when we were sufficiently surprised that we hadn’t made a complete pig’s ear of them they got sent off to the silver people and a week later back came the rings cast and ready for us to finish filing and sanding and trying on and going “ooh” and “it’s stuck” and generally sculpting til we had the finish we wanted.
And they look awesome!

 (The elves at work on the prototypes)

 

 (Finished!)

It’ll be worth being married another 29 years just so’s I get to wear mine for that long.

I’m secretly waiting for a bunch of dwarves, orcs and Cate Blanchetts to waylay us in order to read the strange markings on the inside of Ella’s ring which look to the untrained eye to be scratches from my shoddy workmanship but might well be ancient rune markings and which sends them off to Hobbiton (like to see them get 75 dollars a head off the orcs when they turn up for the tour) and then grabbing Bilbo and running off up mountains all over New Zealand.

Talking of running, I started again, finally, while at Ngatiawa. Having taken my trainers and running gear away with me and only having got them out three times in Zimbabwe and never since I was determined to make it worthwhile having used up a goodly proportion of my allocated baggage allowance on them by getting back into shape.

The main difficulty was that Ngatiawa is in a valley and there is nothing flat in sight. So every second day my route was, turn right at the end of the drive and run up a steep, steep hill sounding like a wounded hippo til the road ran out. Then turn round and run down hill, back past the driveway, then turn round and run uphill back to home. Ella said, after a few weeks: “It must be beautiful running in such stunning scenery” and I had to confess that when I run I’m oblivious to the scenery because all I can hear is a voice in my head screaming “Kill me! Make it stop.”

This had improved by the end of the 4 weeks. The voices were still shouting the same thing, but the runs were thankfully taking less time.

We left Ngatiawa physically and spiritually fitter – and, as the ferry to take us over to the South Island left from Wellington at 8.30 in the morning we arranged to spend the evening before in the city at the home of a fantastic couple who had been at Ngatiawa the weekend before and whose house overlooks Wellington and who have their own Heath Robinson looking monorail-open-elevator thing running up the cliff face to get from the road to their door. Their own monorail-open-elevator thing! Straight up the cliff! I’d have completed signing the papers for the purchase by the time I was halfway up the monorail-open-elevator track had I been shown around by the estate agent. You ride in a sort of big open crate, straight up the cliff face! To get to the house! Good luck postman and paper boy!

A Ferry, a Coach and a Feijoa Frenzy

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Early next morning we boarded the big inter islander ferry for the several hour journey to the South Island. Not being the best ferry passengers in the world (due to a propensity for nausea, not because we’re antisocial or disobey all the rules – although it was me who got shouted at – twice – over the loud speaker on the Sydney Harbour ferry for standing up on the top open deck to take photos) (what do they expect? It’s Sydney Harbour and all I could see were people’s heads…). Anyway, we found we could upgrade to the “executive lounge” for the same price as they were charging for a breakfast and midday scones and coffee in cattle class – and in the “special lounge” you got comfy seats and breakfast, coffee and scones and muffins and cold drinks al for free. And no children. And newspapers and 2 year old copies of Top Gear magazine. And you got to look like posh people to all the poor people outside on the deck. A few of them looked in at the windows and I waved and thought that their lack of response was because they are classist and objected to our comfy seats and free Top Gear mags. No one responded at all. Not to little furtive waves or even grander ones. Halfway through the trip I went out onto the deck to mingle with the poor and saw that it was one way glass in the windows. You,could see out, but not in. They’d been looking at their own reflections and couldn’t see in to the luxurious innards of the “luxury lounge”. Probably just as well as a riot may have ensued if they saw the decadence in which we wallowed.

After a pretty voyage and duly fortified by a lot of free scones – though not really proper scones, more like biscuits but they were free, the ferry dropped us at Picton, a place as picturesque as a sneeze.

Fortunately, a coach was there to jump onto and travel down the coast to Christchurch.

There is a fairly random list of things you are allowed and not allowed on this coach. It’s displayed prominently on the walls and the driver also helpfully read it through to all of us before we set off. Among many other things, you are not allowed to have any hot drinks and nor are you allowed any form of hot food. You are, however, allowed cold drinks and cold food. So I’m wondering if it’s OK if you have hot food and wait a while…

You are allowed sandwiches, but you are not allowed fruit. And no milk shakes.

I’m not sure where they stand on feijoa smoothies – for I have bought one by mistake. I got it in Picton, so maybe it was getting me back for insulting it. A feijoa is a fruit much grown in New Zealand. I think its name is Maori for “Yuk.”

I mistakenly bought a bottle of Feijoa Frenzy because it looked to all intents and purposes like it was cloudy apple juice. It comes to something when you have to imitate something else in order to sell your evil foodstuff to an unsuspecting public.

I would never have bought one knowingly. We were first fed feijoas at the monastery. I”m sure they thought they were being kind: I thought I must have done something terribly wrong for which they were punishing me.

Have you ever had a feijoa?

You would remember.

They look innocuous enough – they are small and green and soft, a bit like Kermit the Frog. But imagine Kermit the Frog’s psychotic evil twin who has a taser gun and a mallet. Sure, he’d look just like Kermit, and just like Kermit he’d be all green and small and soft and friendly – but as soon as you took a bite out of him….

That’s the same with feijoas.

(I just woke Ella up to tell her I’d spotted a sheep. I thought it was funny. She didn’t.)

If someone was fed only on toenails and mud – if that was their sole diet and all they had ever eaten and then, say, after ten years of that diet they were given bread to eat I’m sure they would devour the loaf or bun or bap or French stick and ask for more, amazed at having a different flavour to savour. Now imagine the same initial scenario, but after ten years of toenails and mud they were given a feijoa to eat.

They would spit it out.

I cannot see how people eat them – they taste of something between Ralgex and Deep Heat. You eat them and you are eating a rugby changing room.

I think they are only endured in New Zealand as the small print around the bottom of the label reads: “One day the world will recognise the glory of the feijoa. Until then, they’re all ours.”

Please, please keep them.

All of them.

 (The offending article)

If a barman ever offers you the choice of a feijoa juice or a smack in the head the correct response would be: “Hit me.”

If he then starts pouring the juice: “No. I meant hit me!”

Opt for the punch.

A flurry of punches if need be.

We’re heading down to Christchurch where we’ll be picking up the camper van. The man three seats ahead of us needs to learn how to put things properly on the overhead shelf. In the last ten minutes first, a coat fell down onto his head, (picked up and put in between him and the lady traveling with him). Then a drink bottle (hope it’s not contraband – if it’s a milkshake the driver’s going to duff him up). And just now a smart phone with an emergency charger attached (I know what they look like now as we bought two of them and then accidentally rendered them useless by throwing away the leads that connect them to our phones and iPads). Right onto his head. A little bit painful and a little but funny for everyone else. Every time we go round a sharp right hand bend something else comes down. Stuff must be balanced up there like those coins in the arcade machines. Why doesn’t he re-pack it all – or bring it all down?

The reason for the sharp bends and cascade of possessions is that we’re zig zagging through stunning mountainous passes. I want to look out of the window, but I also don’t want to miss what’s going to fall next. (Ella’s being my “spotter” while I write this.)

As I got off the coach I confessed to the driver that I’d been in possession of a contraband item. He said what sort. I said fruit. He said what fruit. I said a feijoa smoothie. He said that was fine.

It’s not though.

Ngatiawa River Monastery

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I know everyone said that New Zealand would beat most other places hands down for the sheer beauty of its countryside – they also say that seeing is believing. Well, lordy, I believe! Especially South Island. (Sorry, north island! but you totally know it.) North and South Islands are like twins, one of whom got the brains and the other got the looks. Over time they drifted apart. Northy was industrious and clever and cultured and Southy got by by being drop dead gorgeous.

There are loads of those mountains that look like they’ve been concertina’d together – as if God had been designing bits of the world while driving in the back of his parents’ camper van and when he was making New Zealand they went over a cattle grid.

Or like those Chinese Shar-Pei dogs, wearing a hand me down skin from a far fatter older brother and who’s then run into the wall face first too many times. Not a good look in dogs, but a brilliant look in mountain ranges.

New Zealanders seem to be happy enough and their accent is almost the same as English except for an inability to pronounce a short e so that seven is pronounced sivn, heaven is hivn and Dennis is dinnis.

And it seems obligatory that once in every sentence they say a word which sounds like it’s taken them totally by surprise. The word itself fits in with the meaning of the sentence – it’s just a regular word among other regular words, but the way they say it it sounds as if they’ve no idea where it came from not what it’s doing coming out of their mouth.

But apart from that they seem pretty normal. And they don’t seem to have regional accents. Nor, thinking about it did the Aussies which, considering the massive distances between some Australian cities seems incomprehensible, or, in New Zealandish, incomprihinsibil.

Anyway, to backtrack to our month spent in the new monastic community on North Island….

Having got ourselves, via gallant middle-aged hitch hiking down to Waikanae (small town about an hour north of Wellington, down in the southern end of North Island) we were picked up by John, one of the full time members of community at the River Monastery and driven up the valley to the remote and beautiful Ngatiawa (pronounced Nattyarwa), nestled in the mountains with a river running by although, on the day we arrived there had literally been a river running through it as it had been raining hard for a few days, the rivers were swollen and a pallet had become wedged in a culvert at the top of the property and caused an overflow that washed much of the drive away.

We would be there for 4 weeks and at the outset had very little idea of what went on, who the people were, what we were going to do and whether there’d be any strange rituals we might have to join in with. (We’d come armed with the words to On Ilkley Moor Baht ‘At just in case we got engaged in a cultural sing-off so felt pretty well prepared.)

Ngatiawa is permanent home to about 16 people and temporary home to anywhere from a few to a dozen extras and up to 60 or more for some weekend church groups or camping parties. People are constantly coming for a couple of days or so to reflect, to pray, to talk things through, to have space. And it’s a perfect place for all those things.

In the main building is a large communal kitchen where most of life takes place, a lounge area and a largish hall space which fulfils various uses. The permanent residents either have their own small houses on site or else rooms in the main buildings and there is a variety of other accommodation for those staying short-term. They are self sufficient in many vegetables and fruits and occasionally the number of cows decreases by a factor of one and this tends to be followed shortly by the freezers becoming full. There is an excellent verandah for sitting on, a large prayer labyrinth shared with sheep and a big trampoline which Ella and I had a very unsuccessful attempt at an Olympic-quality synchronised doubles routine.


(The trampoline at Ngagiawa – excellent item for feeling like you’re getting closer to God)

The day is based around and given its rhythm by three services in the small chapel. Morning prayer at 8.15, Midday prayer at noon and Evening prayer at 7.15. The singing is all unaccompanied and there will be 5 or 6 short songs sung at each service, which are intended to be easy to lick up; Taize style chants and Ngatiawa’s own penned hymns and a fair number of Maori songs. There is no talking in the chapel (apart from the liturgy) and shoes are removed at the door – it feels a very special space and the times within (especially the singing and the extended silences) were definite highlights for me.

Apart from the regular pattern of services the large kitchen table is often where stuff happens. Meals will be for between 14 and 30, usually, and those preparing will often have limited idea as to how many will actually be there in the end. Most things are organised on a rota basis and it seems to work incredibly well. The people here are committed to live out a calling of hospitality, “for the lost, the last and the least” but they’ll also take in anyone who thinks they’re outside any of those categories too.

It was so good to be there for a month and to see behind the scenes, as it were. There is a genuine spirit of caring and generous and gracious sharing. Put a request up on the chalk board and it will be answered! “Anyone got a car we could borrow to go into Wellington tomorrow?” Boom – a choice of three. “Anyone fancying putting up fences tomorrow afternoon, help would be appreciated.” And there were volunteers. The magical chalk board always seemed to get results.

Every Thursday evening they have “tea party”, a tradition that stretches back many years – when Ngatiawa welcomes members from a local L’arche community with whom they have strong ties. L’arche is an international federation of homes and small communities in which able bodied and those with intellectual disabilities live, sharing life together and building community.

I had one of those moments in chapel the first Thursday evening when, in the candle pierced darkness, an effort-filled, determination-fuelled, almost strangulated voice began reading the next part of the liturgy and in a shameful slap to the cheek moment I realised my surprise at hearing that one of the ladies with whom I’d shared a meal just minutes before was able to do far more than my ignorant stupidity and lazy pre-judging had assumed. She has cerebral palsy and until you become tuned in to it, her pattern of speech is very difficult to understand.

In chapel I understood the words she was saying because I knew what the words were: they were written down in the liturgy. Conversation with her at the table had been difficult because there were fresh sentences coming from her and I couldn’t find enough words in them that I could understand in order to interpret the whole – (not, I’m ashamed to say, that I tried too hard) but my response to not being able to understand was to lazily assume she had the mental ability of a young child rather than a much more able minded adult whose verbal messages just happen to get hijacked by a bastard disease on the journey between brain and the muscles of her mouth and tongue.

One of the songs we sang that evening is from the L’arche Community song book and has the words: “Broken, all of us broken, all of us loved, all of us loved. Travel, each of us travel, companions together walking the way. Beauty, discovering beauty, lighting the darkness surprising us all.”

I had made wrong assumptions. Bad assumptions. Assumptions which showed more brokenness in me, than in her.

While we were there there were youth groups, church groups, a school 5th and 6th Form and maybe 20 – 30 families, couples or individuals who spent time there too.

I’ve been hoovering round my mind trying to think of things to take the mickey out of about the River Monastery for I occasionally accidentally do that – but there really isn’t anything to latch onto. This, to me, probably speaks more loudly than anything else of the genuineness of the people there.

People who deeply cared for one another and also gave out to those who came in. We need very little to have enough. We all too easily convince ourselves we need more.

Of course, there was a variety of other people who came in and out of our lives over those 4 weeks as they stayed for a night or two. Lots of wonderful people, among them a smattering of the mad and the sad and the lonely and the lost. Some very self-contained and some who were, to put it mildly, pastoral black holes and the people on community tag-teamed looking after them because, well, sometimes you’ve just got to do that.

It was a profound time. For Ella and for me. A profound space and place. At times the curtain between heaven and earth was very very thin.

It will remain a place with which my spirit rests softly and closely.


(The view from our room, a little hut on the hill. Perfect.)

Tasmania II

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Long time no post………      Lots of blank space where blog posts should be. 

Apologies if you were hanging on in eager anticipation of another post, and major apologies (and awed congratulations) if you have been holding your breath, but I have simply been woefully tardy – so, in order to catch up with where we are now, I’ll add some catch-up  snippets – otherwise I’ll just fall further and further behind.
Think of it as a smorgasbord, or at least a snack buffet. 
Hope there’s something you like and that it’s not all tomato and celery (foods of the evil one) 
There will probably be three or four posts put on together rather than one hoolying great big long one.
Tasmania II
So, we were in Tasmania. And we were realising that a lot of Australia is stolen. Certainly a lot of the place names are swiped from the UK, maybe out of some strange sense of nostalgia for the country which banished them forever to the other side of the world. We stayed a week not far from Derby and St Helens, neither of which look much like their UK namesakes. The Sheffield in Tasmania has palm trees – and when we stayed the night in Swansea (tiny coastal town – all the restaurants close at 8pm and the town’s free wifi gets switched on and off by the lady in the local Information Office each day “in case the internet gets used up”!) we noticed a large sign proudly celebrating that it won the title of “Australia’s Tidiest Town, 2007”! There, Welsh Swansea, beat that!
I like it that Australia has a tidiest town competition. Brits have “Village in Bloom” and “City of Culture” whereas the Australians are happy so long as it’s tidy. 
Quite a few of the towns in Tasmania seem to have a particular “specialism”. There’s Railton, which is known as Topiary town on account of its many sculptured hedges: there’s Sheffield, the “Town of murals” and the awesome “Town of the painted poles” (Lilydale). You have got to wonder what kind of town meeting they had that ended up deciding that this would be the best thing they could become famous for.
“OK everybody, we all know people are flocking to Railton to see their fancy-dancy topiary, and the murals are all well and good for “Look at us, we paint on walls” Sheffield, I’ve seen scarecrows appearing in the gardens of some of the towns – so we need to get creative – we need an edge – something that sets us apart. Think, everybody think harder than you’ve ever thought before. We need something that will catapult us to the top of the “reasons to visit a small town that’s not necessarily on the way to anywhere we were actually going to” list.
(Sound of the occasional chair scraping and people heavy thinking) 

(Finally…..) “Well, I’ve got three bits of fence post I could paint.”

“Ooooohhhh” “like it!” “Yes!” “We could use different colours” “Brilliant – let’s do it people!”

We drove through Lilydale, town of the painted posts – but we didn’t see any. Come on Lilydaleites, get your poles out.
There is also a tiny village called “Nowhere Else”. What an awesome name.
Not sure, when you think about it, why they didn’t just call it “Here”.
Finally, the famous (around these parts) Doo Town in which most of the houses are named with “Doo” names. In the 1930s someone started the trend when they called their house “Doo I” and then a neighbour changed their house to be called “Doo We” and, perhaps because there is not much to do in the evenings, others followed suit so today there are “Doo” names for most houses. “Doo Little” “Gonna Doo” Doodle Doo” “Love me Doo” and many more adorn the gate posts. (One killjoy has called theirs “Medhurst” but I don’t think they get invited to many parties.)
We didn’t get across to Doo Town, but we did see a duck billed platypus in the wild in a pond, which was nice. 
We spent a few nights in Hobart (second deepest natural harbour in the world, if you’re interested) and while there we managed to drive up the wrong mountain while trying to find the awesome viewpoint which looks down over the city and surrounds. The proper view point is on Mount Wellington, but the mountains weren’t labeled and we headed off, under my skilful navigating, to find it. We drove out of the city and saw a sign for a lookout post and followed the road up and round and up and up and at many of the corners we caught glimpses of another mountain which Ella kept on saying looked higher than the one we were driving up. I am male and therefore my sense of direction and correctness is unerring so I confirmed that we had agreed that whoever was driving had to listen to the navigator and we ploughed on. 
We got to the top of Mount Nelson and couldn’t see much – mainly trees and, if we turned round, a massive mountain towering behind us. So Ella turned the car round and we eventually found the road which led up Mount Wellington. from the top the view was stunning.  
When we flew back from Tasmania to Melbourne it was via JetStar: Jetstar is what the ugly love child would look like if Easyjet and Ryanair had an affair. 

An Argument

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Ella met a lady in a cafe and, in the time it took me to stand dithering at the counter deciding what it might be that Australians call a normal filter coffee she had had a lovely conversation in which it transpired this lady had been on holiday with her husband for 2 weeks and was ready to kill him. At that precise moment he wasn’t there because she had sent him off to look round some gardens as she figured they needed a bit of breathing room. Hearing that we were 10 weeks in to a trip she wondered how on earth we were still talking. 

I guess you can never be fully sure how you are going to get along sharing the same space almost every second of the day for so long. We hit a bit of a barrier last week and had the closest we’ve come to an argument. Some couples argue a lot and shout and make up and get along that way. We tend not to. We don’t really argue. That’s not to say we always see eye to eye and always get on – we just don’t seem to have the necessary pieces to our personalities that would combust when brought together. Sometimes I’m sure that if we both flew off the handle about a particular thing, then made up, we’d end up resolving the matter far quicker than our normal method – our normal method is second guessing the other person. We were probably second, third and fourth guessing one another last week before I let slip with a comment that hadn’t been passed through my normal set of several filters first. So Ella went for a walk to figure what hadn’t been said. (Most people “say” stuff – we more often “don’t say” things which makes it much more tricky but allows for far more wiggle room.) When she came back and made sure I’d eaten – always wise – we figured we were going a little stir crazy and needed to stop trying to think what the other person wanted to do all the time and instead, when asked what I or she would want to do, to say what we actually want to do rather than what we think the other person wants us to say we want them to think we want to do.
It was good to get that cleared up. 
Two months in – one blip. Still learning after 29 years.