Tag Archives: travel

The Post Holiday Blues

Posted on by Steve Higgins

It’s always sad to come home after a holiday, especially when you’re leaving a warm and lovely place like Lanzarote and returning to cold and wet England. We’ve been in Lanzarote for the entire month of February as well as the end of January and it almost felt more of a house move than a holiday. On holiday you know you only have a week or two weeks to do all the things you want to do but with a month out here there is no rush to do anything so you can simply relax.

To be honest, Liz and I don’t do much in Lanzarote anyway except read, swim, have barbecues or go out for meals. All the other stuff that people do on holiday, visiting the sights and things like that, we’ve done it all before on previous visits. We don’t even bother hiring a car, we just get on the local circular bus which is pretty reliable or get taxis.

I’ve often thought about actually moving here. Of course, I don’t speak Spanish which might be a problem but there is a huge British ex-pat community here and I’m sure they don’t all speak Spanish either but of course, knowing the language would not only be a great help but also a way of connecting with the locals. I remember once meeting someone in France who had lived there for years but seemed proud of the fact he did not speak French and had no intention of ever learning it. That seemed to me to be rather pompous and hugely disrespectful to the country that had taken him in.

Another relocation issue I thought about was how would I go on about health care, eye tests and dentistry and so on? Then of course there is Brexit and the fact that the UK is no longer a part of the European Community. We Brits can only stay for 90 days out of every 180 days so I’d have to get a visa. How would I go about that? Is it easy? Would the Spanish even accept me?

Talking of the 90 days, we tried a new bar which was about a five minute walk from our villa. It was only small and served beer, snacks and cocktails but we met an English couple there and we felt pretty pleased with ourselves when we mentioned we were staying in Lanzarote for a month. They were clearly well versed in the art of one upmanship as they promptly advised us that they were staying for three months! Ninety days actually, they stay for ninety days then pop back to the UK and spend 90 days there. When they told me they hated the cold I knew they were talking my language.

The weather was fabulous from day one and in fact we only had one or two bad weather days and when I say bad, they weren’t even that bad really, just a bit dull and windy. On day one the holiday stretches off into the distance and then at a certain point when you still think you have ages left, you realise you only have a week to go. Suddenly the end of your holiday is rushing towards you and then there you are, waiting for your taxi to the airport.

Flying into Lanzarote there must have been a pretty big demand for the journey because our aircraft was upped to an airbus with more seats. They were set out in 2 4 2 formation, two seats, an aisle, four seats then another aisle then two seats. The change of aircraft meant that Liz and I lost our pre-arranged seats so I called the airline up, had a moan and they put us together although we were sat across from each other on either side of the aisle. I had a very pleasant family sat next to me and Liz had a spare seat next to her but she decided to stretch out onto the empty seat. My seat was quite comfortable but on the smaller aircraft coming home I was really cramped and very uncomfortable, so much so when we got back to Manchester my back was killing me.

It always makes me laugh to see the way air travel is portrayed in films and TV. They always, especially on American films, have big seats and lots of legroom. In the second of the Die Hard films, Bruce Willis’ wife is stuck on an aircraft with lots of room and can even make telephone calls. Clearly, these updates to air travel have not yet made it over the Atlantic to UK aeroplanes.

Coming back Liz and I had a free seat next to us so I was able to move over to the window seat. I was all ready with my camera to record the take-off but when we taxied over to a waiting area, the captain advised us that we had a problem with something on the underside of the wing and someone was coming over from the airport to take a look. The guy came over and all was ok but it meant we had to wait for over an hour before we could finally get going.

When we did get going, I felt I needed a wee but almost as soon as the seat belt light went out, a big queue formed for the bathroom. OK I thought. I wasn’t desperate, I can wait. We were on row two so we were one of the first to be served by the ‘in-flight service’. Liz and I had two small bottles of wine each, a cheese and ham toastie each and we both chose the special offer half size (or was it quarter size) packet of Pringles.

A few glasses of wine later and perhaps it was time to try for the facilities again. There was one guy waiting to go in but very quickly a queue formed behind. Before I could get up the queue began to get longer. The guy must have been wondering if there was actually anyone in the toilet and he tried to open it but nothing happened and he resumed his wait. After a while the stewardess came down and she tried knocking on the door. Nothing was heard so she tried the door which opened. The bathroom was empty. There was a communal moan from those waiting in the queue but finally they all began to move up.

There were two people waiting when I decided to get up. Liz had to move to let me out and I had to shuffle along the seats, making sure not to knock over our remaining wine. Just as I managed to squeeze out of my seat, we hit some turbulence and soon the seat belt light was on and the stewardess asked us all to sit down. She went onto the intercom and told everyone the toilets were to be locked while we went through the turbulence. Sadly, I had to squeeze back into my seat.

Despite closing the toilets, the turbulence was clearly not bad enough to affect our in-flight service. By this time, I was having serious tea withdrawal symptoms. I’d only had one cuppa earlier that morning so I ordered a tea. The seat belt light went out but I couldn’t get to the toilet because the stewardess trolley was in the way. Frustrating I know but I’m a big fella and I told myself that I must therefore have a corresponding big bladder so I settled down to enjoy my tea.

A little later I’d finished my tea and I needed to go, I mean I really needed to go and soon I saw my chance. There was one woman waiting and then the bathroom became free and she went in. I asked Liz to move up and she did so, happily blocking someone who was planning to pinch my place. I stepped up to the bathroom. Finally, no one could stop me now. Even if we hit turbulence, I was going into that toilet. What was that woman doing in there? Reading a book?

Finally, she stepped out and I managed to gain entry and relieve myself. Happy days! I zipped myself up, washed my hands and went back to my seat. I finished off my tea and then, wait a minute, I’ve just had a wee, why do I need another one?

That was a very uncomfortable flight back to Manchester but happily our friend and taxi driver Craig, was ready to drive us back to St Annes.

Hasta la vista baby!

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The Big 601

Posted on by Steve Higgins

It’s that time of the year when Liz and I depart for the substantially warmer climes of Lanzarote. I wrote a post a while ago called It’s C C Cold which really sums up my feelings about this time of the year. I really hate the cold. Yes, I admit I it, I hate this time of year. To be fair, this winter hasn’t been so bad in the north of England. Yes we’ve had to put up with two big storms but to be honest, they weren’t that bad, not in my part of the world anyway and apart from a few chilly days it’s not been so cold either. Even so, the cold isn’t my cup of tea.

A long time ago I relocated to a place called Newton-le-Willows. I worked in the GM Buses control room at the time and our control room was about to relocate to Atherton, a mere stone’s throw from Newton-le-Willows hence our move. I’d even been to Atherton depot and checked out the offices that were to house our new northern control room but then our bosses decided to relocate to Oldham instead. I’m not sure why but then when Atherton depot was closed down, reduced to rubble and a new housing estate was built on the spot, I pretty much understood.

Assured of the move to Atherton I went ahead and bought my new house and a short while later I was forced to drive to Oldham to report for duty at our new control room which was a heck of a journey. In the winter I left Newton which was usually raining or sleeting to find there was about 2 foot of snow in Oldham and most days of the winter I had to dig my car out of the snow before returning home.

Anyway, getting back to the present, Liz and I have jetted off to Lanzarote for a little winter warmth. I don’t mind flying, at least not the actual flying but all the other related stuff can be a bit of a pain. Going through customs and passport control for instance. I always take a bag on board the flight for my camera, iPad and laptop, all of which have to be extracted from the bag and placed in a tray in order to be X rayed. Can take you jacket off please sir? OK, jacket off. Watch off as well? No sir you can keep that on. Belt off? No you can keep that on sir. Happy days. My stuff disappears towards the X ray machine and I myself go through the electronic portal and then- Can you take your watch off please? Is there anything in your pocket? Yes, my wallet. Can you take your shoes off please? Are you wearing a belt? Take it off please. Bloody hell!

Further down the queue I’m trying to grab my laptop, put my shoes on and fasten my belt all before my trousers drop to my ankles. I can see the headlines now: Flasher arrested in passport control!

After all that the flight itself was rather enjoyable. When I left home that morning a tune was strumming around my head and it was still there as I buckled myself into my seat. I tried to hum it to Liz but she didn’t recognise it. Anyway, I glanced through the flight menu, decided what I would order later and settled down.

When we checked in online we had a bit of a panic. We had booked the flight about a year ago and we chose our seats right at the front. Since then however it looks like Jet2 have decided to use a different aircraft. It was an airbus something or other and it was one of those planes with a 2, 4, 2 set up. Two seats then an aisle, 4 seats then another aisle and the final two seats on the other side. Anyway, we had to choose our seats again and the only ones near the front of the aircraft were ones sat either side of the aisle.

Only the other day I was watching a documentary about the early days of passenger flights and the passengers boarding their aircraft were served food on proper plates and had tea in proper cups as well as wine in actual glasses. Our cheese and ham toasties were served on a piece of cardboard and the wine came with a plastic cup. So much for the advances in passenger transport.

Lanzarote may be just a big volcanic rock in the ocean but it’s a warm rock, a friendly rock and full of welcoming bars and restaurants and just the place for a winter getaway. Prices seem to have rocketed in the last few years though. Looking at my video from Lanzarote in 2021, most of the tapas at the Berrugo bar, a favourite haunt of ours were round about 4.65 to 4.85 euros. This year most of those are in the 7 or 8 Euro range and the meal we had there the other day was €8.95 and it was nice but so much smaller than it used to be.

The flip side was that it was January and we were sitting outside eating and drinking in the warm evening. That tune was still in my head and I tried it on Liz again but she still didn’t recognise it. Do you remember any words she asked? Sadly no . .

Anyway, moving on. I knew I had my 600th blog post coming up soon and this last week before getting my passport and driving licence together, sorting some euros and packing my case I tried to put together a few thoughts about what to write about. Not a lot came to mind and to be fair, I did have a lot on my mind, all those things I’ve just mentioned as well as sorting out our airport transfers and so on as well as getting a blog post ready for Saturday, the day before we left the UK. Imagine my surprise then when I realised that last week’s post, the one about romcoms was actually my big 600th blog post and I never even realised.

This week then is my 601st blog post, stretching back in a line to the 23rd of May 2014 when I created my very first post. It wasn’t anything exciting, just three paragraphs about the book I was writing and about to publish on Amazon. It was actually a pretty dreadful post and I like to think my blogs have improved a little since then. There is more to them certainly. A typical post for 2014 had 638 words, and a post in 2024 has on average 1626 words. I’ve had over 52,600 views and I’ve been shared over 12,000 times each on Facebook, Twitter and Reddit as well as other social media sites. Every post I’ve ever produced finishes with a little bit of a plug for my book Floating in Space or my poetry anthology so clearly I’m getting my message out there but as sales for either haven’t yet gone viral I’ve had to call Ferrari and tell them to put a hold on the new sportscar I ordered a while ago. I hope that when I can finally afford it, I’ll still be able to actually get in it as my back is giving me a heck of a lot of pain lately.

The plan for this holiday has been to take it easy and do a little light exercise like walking and swimming and try and slim down a little. So far I’ve managed to swim every day and when we visited Casa Carlos, another of our favourite restaurants, I found I had to move my trouser belt up to the next notch which must be a good sign.

Another plan was to make a big effort at writing and while I have done a little of that, the lure of the pool, the sunbed and a good book has so far been a little too much.

Yesterday I still had that tune in my head and I finally began to recognise a little more of it. The singer was Neil Diamond and yes, I finally recognised the tune.

“What is it?” asked Liz.

“Yes I’ve finally got it, it’s The Reverend Blue Jeans!”

“What?”

“You must have heard it. Neil Diamond, The Reverend Blue Jeans?”

“You total divvy! It’s called Forever in Blue Jeans!”

“Forever in Blue Jeans? Really?”

Oh well, I might save that for a misheard lyrics post. Watch this space!

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Some Thoughts from a Francophile

Posted on by Steve Higgins

It’s been a little chilly this week although here in the north west we had one rather sunny day in which I was able to give the lawn and the privets a final trim before the winter.

That brief glimpse of the sun got me looking back through some of my older posts and I started reading about and remembering our recent trips to France this year. I do love the French countryside. I like the quiet country lanes, the swimming lakes and the many parking aires for motorhomes. Occasionally we will find a parking area well placed for a nice restaurant. In many ways French food is for me a little over rated but what I love is the relaxed French way of eating. Lots of small courses rather than one big course.

We spend most of our weekends in France at vide greniers and brocantes. A vide grenier is literally a loft sale, the equivalent of a UK car boot sale.  A brocante is slightly different, a cross between a flea market and an antique sale. Many of these events in France are combined with a village fête and have a bar and a food area which can range from merguez (French sausages) and frites (chips to UK readers and fries to you in the USA) to a full three or four course French sit down meal.

As I mentioned above, there is always a bar, hey we are in France after all. Eighty cents for a glass of vin rouge, two euros for a glass of beer, and nothing stops these events. Rain shower at a UK car boot -forget it! Event over! Everyone leg it to your car and pack up. Are the French bothered by a downpour? No way! Put a bit of plastic sheeting down on your goods and quickly make way to the bar for a glass of red. Stalls soon open up again when the skies clear.

Bric a brac at a brocante

Now, here’s another thing; All these events are pretty well attended which means there must be plenty of people about in the local area but- and this is an important question. What do the French do when there isn’t a village fête on? Where do they go? What do they do and where do they do it!

Liz and I have spent many years travelling through France and here’s the thing; French towns close at 12 midday on the dot. Shops close. The only places open are the restaurants because nothing, and I mean nothing, interferes with the French lunch. Nothing! Everywhere shuts down until 2 pm. Okay, I’ve noticed in recent years the supermarkets have started to stay open, which is a good time to shop for all us UK tourists. But even in the late afternoons French villages are still and quiet. UK villages are full of people, cars, traffic and kids. Where do the kids go? Why aren’t they kicking balls about in the middle of the street like normal kids? Where do the people go and what are they doing? If you know the answer, let me know!

Parked up at a french aire

This is what we need to do. Not so long ago on BBC there was a pretty interesting documentary about cats. The BBC team wired up all the cats in a village, had cameras and tracking devices on the cats and worked out what the cats did, where they did it and in fact the whole pattern of their behaviour. What the BBC need to do for a follow up programme is to attach cameras and GPS tracking to a village of French people and report the results as soon as possible!

We need to know!

In previous posts I’ve wondered about what I would do if I was ever lucky enough to win a large amount of money. After the usual new car and new laptop, next on my purchase list would be a nice house and perhaps a holiday home in France, somewhere towards the south of the country because I really don’t like the cold.

Come to think of it, a great purchase would be one of those large French canal barges. I could spend the summer in the lush Loire then chug serenely south when the weather cooled keeping an eye out for suitable bars and bistros along the way. A change of blog might be in order. Letters from an Unknown Diner sounds pretty good!

The starter at a french restaurant

The French departments, similar I suppose to English counties, date from Napoleonic times and there are 96 departments in France today which are further subdivided into cantons.

In the Cher region which we visited a few years ago, there are some lovely rural communities. Still and quiet villages, almost haunting in their silence can be found everywhere.

What I’ve always liked in France is the simple tabac. As the name suggests it’s a place where you can get your tobacco and in some places it is also combined with a presse so you can also pick up a newspaper. One thing you will always find in the tabac though is a bar, similar to the vault of an old English pub where French men chat and drink coffee, sip wine or a pastis. In the village where Liz and I stayed, Germigny l’Exempt, there is a small sell-everything shop, a combination épicerie, depot de pain (the lady owner explained carefully that they are not a boulangerie, but a pain depot) and of course, a bar! An interesting combination.

You can imagine the situation if a similar establishment was available in England: The wife happens to mention to the husband, sitting in the lounge watching sport that they are a little short on veggies for the coming Sunday dinner. The husband jumps up; “need some vegetables love? Well, I’ll just nip down to the local shop and get you some!” And have a few beers while he’s there no doubt! Frenchmen, at least those of the rural Cher countryside, are clearly made differently here because I’ve yet to see anyone in that bar!

One Friday night, Liz and I went down to a nearby town, La Guerche sur l’Aubois, and had a meal out. The only place open appeared to be a rather nice looking pizza place so we went in. There were only two other diners and at the small bar –this was Friday evening remember- were two or three French guys chatting. We had our pizza, had a beer at the bar and by nine pm they were ushering us out! What do the French do ‘au weekend’? I don’t know but it’s certainly not a beer and a pizza! One really nice thing about that bar though, every time a new customer came in, he said hello to all at the bar and shook hands with everyone in turn, including Liz and me, two English strangers. As for eating out though, that is something the rural French do of a lunchtime, not an evening.

You can’t go to France and not have some fromage!

At every restaurant or bar serving food you will always see a sign for the ‘plat du jour’ or the dish of the day and one thing I love about French restaurants is their menu deals. You might see something like, for instance, a starter, the plat du jour, and then fromage (cheese) to finish. I do so much prefer small courses to one big meal!

The great thing about France is the wine and my personal rule about French wine is this –buy the cheapest, it’s always the best but then, I like my wine cheap and cheerful. In Intermarche, the Asda of France, you can buy a 10 litre box of merlot for about 22 euros, that’s about £19 in UK money, an absolute bargain. Forget expensive French wines, a nice quaffable French red does it for me every time!

Whisky in a french supermarket -and this was only one section!

Another thing about the French, especially regarding drink. You’d think that France, the country that created brandy would be a haven of cheap brandy, after all, this is where the drink is made! Sadly that isn’t the case, in fact, brandy in France always looks to me to be pretty expensive. However, when you come to whisky, a product of Great Britain, there seems to be an incredibly vast choice, far bigger than you would find in the UK. Perhaps the French are a nation of secret whisky drinkers!

Another thing I miss about France is when we rent a place with its own pool. Recently we have rented a regular place in the small village of Parçay Les Pins. It’s an old house with great thick walls and a lovely pool. It’s great to relax in the sun reading and then when you warm up you can just take a dip and cool down. Later in the warm evening we might light the barbecue for our evening meal and sip a glass of wine while the sun slips slowly down.

Of course if I did win the lottery and buy the barge I spoke about earlier, where could I swim? Yes, I may have to rethink what to do with my lottery win!

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A Slice of My Life Part 7

Posted on by Steve Higgins

It’s always good to come back home and yet, at the same time, it’s always sad to leave your holiday destination. As you arrive back in rainy and cold UK, you can be sure that someone else is sitting on your sun lounger, sipping wine from your glass and contemplating a dip in your pool. Oh well, there’s always next year to look forward to.

We’ve spent three and a half weeks tootling through France in our motorhome. The weather was wonderful and not exactly what I was expecting in France in September. Usually, in the first weeks of September in the Loire, and I do speak from considerable experience of the area, there will be a big thunderstorm and the next day the temperature will be substantially cooler. This year we had the usual thunderstorm except that the next day it was just as hot and muggy as it had been the day before.

We sailed from Dieppe back to Newhaven and it isn’t a trip we’ve done before but we had a great cabin and despite a poor forecast, the English channel was pretty calm.

In the UK the traffic on the M25 was an absolute nightmare and what made it worse was that for the previous three weeks in France, driving had been an absolute joy. Yes, there was the occasional traffic jam, a bouchon as the French call it, but nothing like the endless queues on the M25. Rather than complete the trip to the North West in one drive, Liz found us a small village which boasted a cosy pub with lovely food and real ales and was happy for motorhomers to park overnight in their car park.

The next day we carried on north and found that the M6 boasted as many traffic jams, if not more than the m25. Anyway, after various diversions we finally found our way home and after swapping my t-shirt for a fleece we started thumbing through three and half weeks of mail and it’s probably round about then when we started thinking about the people, who were using our sun loungers and our pool, who I mentioned at the beginning of this post.

A few days after returning home I had to start preparations for a visit to the hospital. Prior to going away on holiday I had been for a routine test for bowel cancer and the result was that further investigations were required. I had thought that perhaps an x-ray was required or something like that but it turned out that the further investigations involved a colonoscopy. I’ve got to say that I didn’t like the sound of that at all. As you may know, it involves slipping a camera up the rear end to have a good look round inside your bowels.

The whole thing put a bit of a dampener on our first weekend at home. On the Sunday I had to stop eating at 3pm and then at 7pm drink a not very appetising potion designed to empty my bowels. It took a while to get working and one of the side effects was a rather intense belly ache. Not long after I thought I’d better visit the toilet.

The next dose of the potion was due at 6am so I set my alarm and when it went off Liz had already been up and got the dreaded mixture ready for me to drink. Thanks Liz!

After taking the mixture there was nothing to do but wait for it to do its work. The Japanese Grand Prix highlights were due on TV so I moseyed over to the lounge hoping to crank the race up. The race wasn’t broadcast until 10am so scanning through my recorded items I saw that the final episode of And Just Like That season 2 was ready and waiting to be watched. A cup of tea and a slice of toast would have gone down great guns but sadly, that wasn’t allowed.

Sometimes I wonder why I’m still watching And Just Like That. My favourite character, Mr Big has gone and although it’s has been good to see the return of Aidan, things just aren’t the same somehow. The dynamic of Sex and The City has been lost partly because Samantha is not in the series and the new characters are ones I don’t really have any interest in. Not only that, there seem to be very few male characters in this new series when back in the old Sex and the City days there seemed to be a lot of interesting men engaging with the central quartet of girls.

This episode was in the news before it had even been broadcast as it had a special appearance from Samantha who made a quick phone call to Carrie. Apparently Kim Cattrall who plays the part declined to take part in the series as she felt she was done and dusted with the character as well as not being paid enough money. Anyway, some executive asked her to make a cameo appearance which she did and for a moment it felt as if the series was finally back on track. The moment didn’t last long though.

Later in the episode, Charlotte’s gay friend Anthony is in a relationship with a new boyfriend who wants anal sex but it turns out that Anthony doesn’t do anal sex. Now, I know this is a delicate subject but I thought all gay people had sex that way so that just shows how much I know about homosexual life. Anyway, Anthony submitted to the ordeal and going by the look on his face he wasn’t enjoying it at all. In fact, I’d guess he felt just like me with a camera going up my bottom.

The nurses and staff were all very nice and friendly and made a great effort to treat me with a lot of dignity despite this very undignified process. Even so, that camera bloody well hurt, certainly at first. The worst thing was that as it went up my bowel it pushed a load of air into my stomach giving me really painful wind. The nurses encouraged me to break wind but I struggled to do so, although eventually I was able to shift position which in turn helped to release some wind. After that it wasn’t so bad although I had to turn over so I struggled to watch the camera pictures. Yes, welcome to 21st century healthcare where you can actually see the inside of your bowel on a TV screen.

The ordeal was soon over and apart from finding a small hemorrhoid which caused all the concern in the first place, everything was ok but believe me, that was not a pleasant experience.

Generally I like to finish these kind of posts with a link to the cinema world but I found it hard to think of anything appropriate. However, the other night I sat down to watch one of my favourite feel good films The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. Maybe you have to be a certain age to enjoy a film about retired people choosing to spend their last years in India but I’ve always enjoyed it. One thing I noticed on this latest viewing was something I hadn’t picked up on before. Towards the end of the film there are numerous repetitions of a phrase that I’ve always attributed to John Lennon and which I’ve used many times on my Twitter feed.

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Writing and What Happened in 1977

Posted on by Steve Higgins

1977 was a different world. There was no internet and there were no mobile phones. The only phones were landlines and they were big and heavy with great rotary dials with which you had to laboriously dial a number. As more people wanted telephones they needed more numbers and so numbers got longer and longer. 061, the dialling code for Manchester became 0161 and the code for London which was 01 became two new codes 071 and 081

I should tell you that I’m actually quite interested in telephones, especially those big heavy ones with a dial. I used to collect them and in fact I have quite a few; my two favourites are an old Bakelite phone from the 1940s and a Trimphone from the 1970s. The Trimphone was a new style telephone created by BT. It was a wedge-shaped light phone and the handset fitted neatly across the dial. Although it’s a phone I’ve always associated with the 1970’s, it was actually first introduced in 1965 and had a warbling ring tone instead of the traditional bell. The original versions had a green dial which lit up in the dark although this was discontinued due to concerns about radiation as the phosphorous which gave off the green glow was energised by a small tube of tritium gas which was mildly radioactive. Personally, I wouldn’t have thought anything could be ‘mildly’ radioactive but happily my two trimphones do not glow in the dark.

Anyway, time for a 1970’s telephone anecdote:

Once in 1977 I had a bit of a crush on a girl named Anne. I was a bus driver and my conductor had gone out with Anne a few times before moving on to someone else. I asked my friend Des for her number and I called her up one evening. I didn’t have a phone so I had to use a call box. I dialled the number and the phone rang for quite a while and finally someone answered.

‘Can I speak to Anne’ I asked.

‘Anne?’ said the voice.

‘Yes, Anne. Tell her it’s Steve.’

‘Steve?’ said the voice.

‘Yes, Steve.’

‘Just a minute.’

I could hear someone in the background asking who is it? And someone saying it’s for Anne and I had the feeling then that Des was playing a trick on me but hopefully the girl, whoever she was, had gone to fetch Anne.

A vintage bakelite telephone bought in France

I waited for quite a while and soon the pips went on the phone and I had to put more money in. I was still hanging on when the pips went again and in went my last coin. After what seemed like ages Anne came to the phone. I told her I didn’t have any money left so I quickly asked her out, she agreed and we set a place to meet, just before the phone finally cut off. When I finally went out with Anne, she told me that the phone wasn’t hers, it was her auntie’s phone and her auntie lived around the corner so Anne’s cousin had to nip round to Anne’s house, tell her there was a phone call and bring her back to the phone!

I remember telling Des about it and he laughed his head off. ‘Why didn’t you tell me it was her Auntie’s phone, you twit?’ I said.  Des just laughed even more.

Anne was the template for the character of Anne in my book Floating in Space. Floating was set in the year 1977 and as I mentioned earlier there was no internet, there were no mobile phones and wireless was an old-fashioned name for the radio. What else happened in 1977?

Jimmy Carter was the 39th President of the USA and he had won the election the previous year, taking office on January 20th, 1977. He was a peanut farmer who defeated President Gerald Ford who had served as President after Richard Nixon resigned in disgrace in 1974. As I write this, Carter is currently the oldest living former President.

In the UK the Prime Minister was Jim Callaghan. According to Wikipedia, he was the only Prime Minister to have held all the four main offices of state; Chancellor of the Exchequer, Home Secretary, Foreign Secretary and of course, Prime Minister.

A previous Prime Minister, Anthony Eden died in 1977.

Today’s blog is my 578th post over here on WordPress. It’s my 578th time of reaching out and showing readers a little of my work and hoping it might stimulate a few of you to click the links above and perhaps buy a copy of one of my books.

Creativity is important to everyone and my creative outlet is here in these weekly pages. For others it might be painting or photography. It might be working on a car or motorbike or even a little woodwork or home improvement. Creativity can take many forms, even making a post on Facebook can be creative. If you are on holiday and take a picture of a sunset and make it into a post, that is creativity. You can even take it further, crop the picture, add a filter to the image. Add a quote, Oscar Wilde is always good for one and so is Noel Coward or the big daddy of the written word; Shakespeare. The more you add the more creative you are. You can even write more on the post, another sentence, another paragraph, even another page. Soon you are on the way to a chapter, then more chapters and in time you will find that you have written a book. You’ve become a writer which, let’s face it, is a big achievement but then you need to write more, you need more pages, more chapters and more ideas.

Some people might write more than 578 posts, others may fall by the wayside after a mere eight, after all we all have things to do, jobs, work, life. All of that gets in the way.

Perhaps it’s time to get back to 1977:

On the 16th August 1977 at 6am, it was time for Elvis Presley to get some sleep. Night and day were reversed in Elvis’ world. He spent most of the night awake doing all the things he wanted to do. If he wanted to see a film at the cinema, he paid the cinema to run a film for him and his friends at night. He ate and played games at night, like the racketball he played with his step brothers and friends before going to bed that morning.

His fiancée, Ginger Alden was with him and Elvis who had trouble sleeping, took his usual assortment of sleeping pills before turning in. Sometime around 9am, Elvis awoke and told Ginger he was going to the bathroom. His bathroom was huge and he had made it into a truly personal and private place. In the bathroom was a circular shower. One wall was mirrored and fringed with those lightbulbs that one sees on the dressing table of a stage or film star and Elvis’ toilet things were clustered around the basin. The room was carpeted in purple and as well as a circular shower there was a couch and a TV set.

Elvis may have been sat on a chair reading The Shroud of Turin by Ian Wilson or he may have been using the toilet however, sometime during the morning he keeled over and fell face down to the floor wearing only a pair of blue cotton pyjamas. Elvis Presley, the King of Rock and Roll had died.

A few months before Elvis died, my friend Chris and I decided to pack in our jobs and travel to Spain and look for work there. His sister had already made the trip and assured Chris that there was a big British contingent and plenty of jobs available in bars and restaurants. Accommodation was readily available too. Chris and I hitchhiked to London where we caught the boat train to Paris. We wandered about in Paris trying to get a ride further south but after waiting for days trying to get a lift, we caught the train down to Spain.

We had a big reunion in a place called Lloret de Mar with Chris’ sister. Two Scots guys fixed us up with a pension, a small place to live and we met them later in the bar and bought them drinks as a thank you. After a while I became a little fed up of buying them drinks, yes, they’d helped us get a place to stay but that didn’t mean I was committed to providing them with free beer for the rest of my life.

I’m not sure they appreciated being told that and afterwards even though Chris got on with them pretty well, I didn’t. The incident contributed towards a certain unpopularity on my part in the local community but at least it kept the cadgers from mythering me. Still, other newcomers to Lloret were pretty popular, they had money in their pockets and the local Brits didn’t.

Quite a few notable people died in 1977. Groucho Marx, Joan Crawford, Wernher von Braun, Roberto Rossellini, Marc Bolan and of course, Elvis Presley.

I stayed in Lloret for two weeks and it was fun. Every night was like a Saturday night but after two weeks I realised I didn’t just want Saturday nights. Sometimes I wanted a normal Tuesday night watching TV. Sometimes I wanted a Sunday night and my mother’s Sunday dinner and sometimes I wanted a rainy Thursday afternoon. After a few weeks in the sun I left Chris in Lloret, hitchhiked north through France and finally back to Manchester.

We didn’t have a telephone at home so I couldn’t call to say I was on my way back. I always remember knocking on the door of our house. Mum opened the door and said ‘What are you doing here? You’re supposed to be gone for six months. ‘It didn’t work out Mum,’ I told her.

‘Well,’ she said, ‘I don’t know what we’re going to do. I threw your old bed out!’

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Thoughts From A Sun Lounger (Part 15)

Posted on by Steve Higgins

This year we arrived pretty early at the Eurotunnel check in at Ashford. We’d spent the night near the Bricklayer’s Arms, a pub in Kent that has a quiz night combined with a special food offer and it was a short hop down the M20 into the Eurotunnel terminal. We were pretty early and fully expected to be upgraded to an earlier train but no, it wasn’t to be. So we relaxed for a while, made a cup of tea and then finally drove down to the customs. Both the English and French customs are over here in England. We passed quickly through the English passport control and then on to the French where they take a much longer time. I’m not sure why, after all it’s not as if anyone is trying to smuggle immigrants into France, that happens on the way back.

Finally, after a cursory check by the French we drive down to the loading area and soon we are driving onto the specially built trains that take us under the channel and into Europe. Once we arrive we are free to drive off into France as of course the French customs have already checked us out.

A couple of years ago we came into France pretty late, drove for about an hour and stopped at a small motorhome stopping place which was part of a farm. We had found the place in our motorhome stopping guide and although it looked a little unloved, there was everything we required, a nice pitch, water and a place to empty our toilet. Liz had brought along some leftover Bolognese and we heated it up and it went down well with a glass of red wine which as you may know, is compulsory in France.

Parked by a lake in France

As I walked around, I noticed a sign which mentioned a ten euro fee for the night which I hadn’t seen in our guide but I guessed as the place looked a bit run down, that notice was probably an old out of date one. Next morning though at 9am (8am UK time) I realised that wasn’t the case when the farmer’s wife came hammering on the door wanting her money. She looked and sounded a little fierce so not wanting to upset her I coughed up the ten euros.

Last year we had a late night crossing and parked next to a crematorium and this time it was free. We usually get ready, have a cup of tea and then drive off and search for a picnic place or an aire where we can get breakfast under way. I’m not an early riser and breakfast is for me probably more of a brunch than breakfast. My personal rules are that breakfast must contain (A) eggs and (B) toast. After that I’m pretty easy going but secondary items must be things like bacon and sausages and tomatoes but really, I’m not fussy.

I’m not really a lunch person but the other day we decided to dispense with breakfast and have lunch. We took ourselves down to a French restaurant we had visited before. Their lunches come complete with a basket of bread which usually gets refilled when the supplies get low, a bottle of water, a bottle of vin rouge and a bottle of cider. The cider is fairly low alcohol so as I’m driving that’s what I tend to go for.

The starter is a buffet with things like salads, pâté, cold meats and so on. The main course was a choice of four dishes. Choice one was roast beef. Now I knew this wasn’t going to be roast beef that we know and love in England so that was out. Choice two was fish, no thanks. Choice three was something I didn’t understand even when the waitress repeated it so that was out also though Liz later said it was some kind of turkey dish. Choice four was steak.

Now the problem with steak is that in France, French chefs don’t like to cook a steak too much. If you ask for medium rare you usually get rare. If you ask for medium, you’ll get medium rare and if you ask for well done, well that’s an even bigger problem. When the chef hears well done, he immediately realises the customer is a dreaded ‘Rosbif’, an English tourist as clearly, no Frenchman in his right mind would order a steak well done. Now the chef might be eager to teach the unsuspecting Brit a foodie lesson, so you might find your steak arriving pretty much like an incinerated burnt offering. (It’s your own fault, you asked for well done!) Now some French chefs will go the other way and give you a medium steak but now I think about it, you’ll probably find it’ll be medium rare because the French chefs just don’t like cooking their food too much. This is where I made the fatal mistake. Faced with those food choices, I went for the roast beef. It came in a tasteless red wine sauce and it looked like it had hardly seen the inside of a roasting oven when the chef decided to whip it out and slap it on my plate.

The good news though was this; the resourceful lady in my life, Liz, slipped the beef into a plastic bag, we took it home and she fried it up later with some onions, a little seasoning and served it up on a slice of a French baguette.

Of course this being a French restaurant I didn’t starve. There was still the cheese course and then the sweet which customers help themselves from a plentiful choice displayed in a glass cabinet. Lunch? Think I might just stick with breakfast in future.

The first week of our holiday the weather wasn’t great although it was pretty warm in the sun but cool, very cool in the shade. Afterwards things got hotter and we were able to spend many relaxing hours swimming in lakes or relaxing in the countryside.

Here’s a pretty crazy random thought that came to me in my sun lounger. Before we left the UK, I trimmed my hair with my trimmers but the other day I looked in the mirror and after only a week in France my hair had grown quite considerably. It is Spring of course and everywhere in the French countryside, things are growing. On our travels we saw fields of poppies and other wildflowers blooming, could it be then that people are linked in to the forces of nature? Does my body know that the season of Spring is upon us and has reacted in sync with the universe?

Or perhaps I should just have given myself a number two cut rather than a three?

After two weeks away some sad news came to us, my mother died.

She was 93, suffered with dementia and lived in a nursing home and although many times during my visits to see her I was able to put a smile on her face I knew she wasn’t happy. She always asked me to take her home even though she was no longer able to remember where her home was. Death was a release for her, something that has set her spirit free again.

She was a tough lady and very, very determined. On one particular visit, many months ago we spoke about the warm weather and the rose buds that were on the bush outside her room. We talked about her sister Ada who was a keen cyclist and was sadly killed in a road accident many years ago. I asked her how she was sleeping and she gave me a big smile and said ‘you know I never have any trouble sleeping!’

As usual I asked her to recite some multiplication tables in the hope it would get her to use her memory and exercise her brain waves. We did a simple one, the three times table. One three is three, two threes are six and so on. Round about nine she began to falter and looked suddenly distressed. ‘I can’t remember anymore’ she said sadly.

We talked about other things and then I told her it was time for me to leave. I felt a little disappointed as my attempt to get her to use her memory had backfired when her memory failed her.  The disappointment of not being able to remember such a simple thing was evident in her face. We said our goodbyes and I went towards the door. As I turned back for a final wave goodbye, she said something and I stopped to listen.

‘Ten threes are thirty’ she said. ‘Eleven threes are thirty-three, twelve threes are thirty-six’. She looked back and smiled. ‘I remembered after all’ she said. Like I said, she was a very determined lady.

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Thoughts From A Sun Lounger (Part 14)

Posted on by Steve Higgins

It’s still only January and yet here I am writing another ‘Thoughts from a Sun Lounger’ post. I love it! Yes, I’ve left behind the cold and wintery UK for the Spanish island of Lanzarote. It may be just a rock peeping out from the ocean but it’s a warm rock, warm and sunny, well mostly. We’ve had hot and sunny days but we’ve also had some dull and windy ones. OK so we’re not freezing in the snow and ice of the UK but I was hoping for a little more sun that we have had so far.

Travelling here wasn’t so enjoyable. Things weren’t too bad on the aircraft as I had an empty seat next to me which gave me a bit of much needed stretching room but the experience at Manchester Airport was not good. Security, which is inevitable these days was an absolute nightmare. A huge overcrowded busy scrum. I had a lot of gadgets in my hand luggage, my laptop, my iPad and camera. Those had to be x-rayed separately apparently and placed in a plastic tray and then I had to put my wallet and trouser belt in another tray which all went through at different times because of the amount of other people trying to get their things scanned and x rayed too. Our small case was held back because of a suspicious item inside which turned out to be our sandwiches. The security guy tried to hand back the case to me while I had my laptop and my belt in one hand and was holding my trousers up with the other. As it happened he could see my predicament and so a Carry On moment was happily avoided.

Security is important in order to travel safely but it can be a pain. I put the blame squarely on the shoulders of people like Dan Cooper. Dan was one of the first aircraft hijackers and he did what he did not for religious reasons or to further any kind of political cause, he just wanted money. The media have named Dan DB Cooper although there is no evidence to support those initials. Dan hijacked a Boeing 727 in November 1971 after paying cash for a flight from Portland Oregon to Seattle using the name Dan Cooper. He passed the stewardess a note demanding 200,000 dollars and a parachute and threatened to explode a bomb unless he got it. He showed the stewardess the bomb or what appeared to be a bomb inside his briefcase and then sat back chain smoking to await the outcome.

Official FBI artist rendering of Dan Cooper

He released the passengers in Seattle and when the aircraft took off again heading to Mexico, a destination specified by Cooper, he ordered the crew to all go forward then opened the rear exit and jumped out. He was never seen again although in 1980 some of the ransom money was found by a young boy along the banks of the Columbia River. It’s a fascinating story and I’ve read quite a few articles about the affair as well as having watched a couple of TV documentaries. A number of people have been named as being Dan Cooper but so far, no one has been definitively identified. I’ve added a picture of Dan just in case you happen to recognise him although these days, if he is still alive, he will probably be getting a little long in the tooth.

It’s been over a year since we were last in Lanzarote and one thing I have noticed is that in quite a few places, prices have gone up considerably. In the Café Berrugo, one of our favourite places, the meals were looking a little smaller and rather more expensive. When we first came here the staff boasted that this was the only place on the island that didn’t charge for bread with a meal. Nowadays, they charge.

Our local contact who picks us up from the airport, his fees have gone up too and a big problem we encountered on our first trip out was that no one seemed willing to answer the taxi number that we have always used. I checked and yes, the number was correct. We later found out that, just like in the UK, it’s better to use the app. Yes Lanzarote has gone all hi tech and instead of calling the taxi company it’s better and easier to book a taxi using the app.

The villa we wanted to rent wasn’t available and as rental property seems to be snapped up pretty quickly round here, we went for a villa we have rented before. It’s a nice place within easy walking distance of the marina and all our favourite restaurants. It has a nice pool, nice rooms, a nice kitchen and a nice barbecue area. Great you might think but there is a lot missing. There was only one wine glass for instance which was a bit of a pain and we had to go out and buy two matching wine glasses so we could share our evening wine together. In rental properties there are always items left over from previous tenants, a little olive oil, a half used packet of pasta, some salt and pepper and so on.

When we last rented this villa there was nothing, the cupboards were bare. We even had to buy a scourer to use for washing up as well as washing up liquid. Seeing as we have spent quite a few thousand on this place on both of our visits, I do find that a little mean. Once, we rented a place in Portugal. It was an out of season deal and was very cheap compared to the prices at the height of the summer but when we arrived there, waiting for us was a bottle of wine, some milk, a bottle of water and a loaf of bread. There were various left over bits and pieces in the cupboards too and because of that we felt not only welcome but were happy to pass on our left overs to the next people too.

The really big issue for me though is the pool. As lovely and inviting as it looks, the pool is unheated. There is no cover either so any heat gained during the day, evaporates during the night. On our first morning at the villa a lovely warm day opened up before us. We had breakfast out on the patio. We relaxed in the warm sun for a while. Time for a swim. Not a good idea. The pool was not only freezing but incredibly freezing! I did manage to get in and do ten lengths but I came out a shivering, tingling wreck. Later it warmed up a little. It went from incredibly freezing to just freezing.

As I mentioned earlier, the weather has not been all warm and sunny. We had quite a few dull and windy days and even a little rain. The bad weather should be good for a writer like me, you might think. Less sunbathing by the pool and more writing. Yes, I thought that too but so far I’ve been a little slow in opening up my laptop and writing. I love reading and it’s great to settle down with a book by the pool and read. Then of course I’ve got emails that need reading, TikTok videos to watch and unlike this blog, I’ve no deadlines to force me to work on my books and screenplays. I got kind of excited for a while the other day when a producer showed interest in a screenplay of mine, then a few days later he declined to take it further. Pity because I had mentally planned most of my trip to Hollywood by then.

Another of my emails mentioned that I had won a prize on the national lottery. Now that isn’t much to get excited about at all as I’ve had emails like that before. You click on the lottery site and find you have won £6.70 on Thunderball. Even so I might as well check I thought. I clicked onto the lottery web site to find you can’t access the site unless you are in the UK! What the heck, I know its going to be £6.70 again but I did read about that unclaimed million pound win the other day. Nah, it’s £6.70. I know it is. Probably.

Think I might try that freezing cold pool again.

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A Day in the Life of a Motorhomer

Posted on by Steve Higgins

I’m not sure a motorhomer is even a word but language evolves, new words appear and it’s pretty exciting to think that this particular new word -Motorhomer- first appeared in the pages of this humble blog. After a few weeks of living in our motorhome I thought I’d try and give you a flavour of just what motorhome life is like. OK, here we go.

Morning.

It takes me a while to get used to sleeping in our motorhome. It’s only small and there is a little dip in the bed just at the point of my lower back which has given me some backache in the past but lately I’ve learnt to either avoid it or just live with it. Another issue that affects our sleep is the way the van is parked but I’ll come back to that later. My place on the bed is over by the window and there is no way out for me except by climbing over Liz so one of my rules is to not have beer prior to going to bed. Otherwise I’ll be waking in the night wanting to wee and struggling to get out. Even so, I’m usually the first one up so I’ll shuffle over to the small bathroom for a wash and a shave.

On summer mornings I can handle a wash in cold water but as summer has come to a close I’m less inclined to do that. I can switch on the water heater but usually I just put a pan of water on the hob.

Despite the bathroom being small, actually very small, there is a basin, toilet and even a shower in there. To shower it’s important to switch on the water heater first, pull out the panels that keep the water away from the toilet and basin and then switch on the water. In a motorhome I’m always aware that there isn’t an endless supply of water so a good idea is to apply shower gel liberally to the body, switch on the water and get washed as quickly as possible using as little water as you can.

Note to self: Don’t drop the soap as it’s pretty difficult to bend down and pick it up in these cramped conditions.

Shower over, towel yourself down, get dressed and get the kettle on before hanging your towel out in the sun on the bike carrier to the rear of the van.

Next I’ll check my emails while the van chef, Liz, gets herself ready too.

I’m a big lover of breakfast. In fact I’m even tempted to say it’s my favourite meal of the day and I love a standard English breakfast. Bacon, sausage, black pudding, tomatoes and eggs, preferably poached, served with toast. That can be a little difficult on the cramped three ring stove in the van so lately we’ve been having a bacon omelette with some French bread. I’ll either walk to a bakery if there is one nearby or we usually have some bread in our little freezer which always keeps pretty well.

Noon

Another option is to not have breakfast at all but to save ourselves for lunch. In France there are many places that serve a cheap lunchtime menu which will consist of a buffet starter, a simple main meal, a cheese course and a dessert.

We found an excellent restaurant near to Parçay Les Pins called the Restaurant De La Gare, the Station Restaurant. The buffet starter is always my favourite and I fill my plate with pâté, cold meats, coleslaw and various salad items. A basket of French bread will appear and is usually topped up when it gets low. Vin de table is provided as well as some chilled water and on this occasion,  a large bottle of cider as well. Not bad for 12.50 euros each!

OK, breakfast (or lunch) over it’s time to head off.

We will usually be parked in an aire in France and these special parking places, reserved for motor homes tend to have all the important things we might need. A very important thing is a place to empty the van toilet. It’s not a pleasant task but I tend to empty it whenever we get the opportunity. A lot of French aires have a water pipe to help you rinse your toilet cassette but many require a token, a jeton that is usually available from nearby local shops although there are many aire de camping cars that are completely free.

The van navigator (Liz) will usually have perused google maps for a plan d’eau, a French swimming lake and we’ll be off to find it. We usually factor in a stop for some French bread and some more French cheese as well as a box of wine.

It’s important of course to keep a check on our fuel. We usually fill up with diesel at French supermarkets as they tend to be cheaper than the usual petrol stations. What can be a bit of a pain is that many of them are unmanned. That’s not really a problem except I tend to use a travel card that I preload with Euros and it’s not accepted at unmanned petrol stations. Then I have to pull out my credit card and pay the foreign currency fee.

Our fridge and cooker are powered by LPG, liquid petroleum gas and we always keep a look out for stations that provide gas. The big problem when we first came to France was finding a petrol station with LPG. There didn’t seem to be any until eventually, we realised that in France it’s called GPL! Duh!

Swimming

In the French alps this year we found a fabulous lake. It was in a valley surrounded by hills and mountains. It had a parking place for camping cars, the French name for motorhomes and it wasn’t too busy.

Various French people arrived around 12 noon with picnic baskets for lunch and few had a pre lunch swim. The water in the lake was lovely and cool and it was wonderful to have a swim and then lie back on our towels and dry off in the sun.

Over on the other side a couple of fishermen dipped their rods in the water and waited patiently for the fish to bite. We read our books, competed against each other to finish that day’s sudoku and swam some more.

Later it’s time to find somewhere to stop for the night. Usually, we will stop by the lake or if we are trying to make our way to somewhere in particular, we might get a few miles under our belt before stopping again.

On our last trip we had planned one evening to visit a restaurant where we have stopped before. The restaurant, Micheline’s in the village of Berny Rivière, is not far from a large camping and holiday spot. Sadly, when we arrived we found it was closed and the owners had gone on holiday after the camp site, presumably the source of most of their customers, had closed at the end of the summer. We were very disappointed. We found a place to park, not far from another restaurant but then the heavens opened and an almighty downpour began. Oh well. I decanted some wine and Liz made us some food and just as it was time to serve, the rain cleared and the evening sun came out.

The downpours in France always make me think of something that happened to me years ago when I was hitch hiking in France. I was making my way to Paris in order to get the train back home and it began to rain. It was pretty heavy and I was sheltering under a small porch but then I noticed a bus stop on the other side of the road. I ran across but just then the rain came down, or so it seemed, in one almighty whoosh and it was if I’d decided to run under a waterfall. I got to the bus stop completely soaked. The rain cleared and the sun began to beat down again and as I walked along, steam began to rise off me!

Evening

On summer evenings I will usually get out our table and chairs and our little gas barbecue and we’ll have some salad with sausages and whatever meat we have bought cooked on the barbecue. We might finish with some cheese washed down with a glass of wine. Lovely.

Later we’ll be off to sleep but making sure the van is parked properly is very important. A tilt to the left and Liz will be rolling over and crowding me. Over to the right and I’ll be crowding her. A slight tilt forward and we tend to slide off our pillows and down the bed. If we have to have a tilt its better to tilt back toward our pillows but we do have chocks which we can slip under the wheels to level us up.

The sun going down after a day by a plan d’eau

We usually relax in the evenings with a book or an iPad but looking around I’ve seen some fabulous motorhomes this year, some with impressive satellite dishes so the occupants can watch TV. We’ve even seen some vehicles with a trailer towing a small car so they can park up and then drive off into town.

Personally, I’m happy with a good book.

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A Bit of a Blog or a Blog of Bits (Part 3)

Posted on by Steve Higgins

Sometimes, as a writer of blogs, I end up with a few bit and bobs of a blog that I know aren’t going to make it into a full blown blog post. So, what can I do except maybe pull them all in together and give them a title like A Bit of a Blog. See where I’m going here? Of course you do. Let’s crack on then. .

As I write this, I’m in France once again as Liz and I have decided to nip over to the continent. We came over earlier this year and have wanted to return for a while but various appointments and arrangements have been in place, keeping us at home but what the heck we thought, time for another trip in our motorhome.

September isn’t perhaps the best time to visit France. Yes things are quieter, holidays are over and the kids have gone back to school but the summer is largely over too. We had planned a week touring in our motorhome followed by a week in a French gîte which we have rented before followed by another week touring. As it happened, when we booked the gîte, the owner very kindly advised that the property was empty the week prior to us arriving and so if we wished, we could arrive whenever we liked.

As a member of the Order of Northern Tightwads, this of course was music to my ears. Free rental at a French villa with a swimming pool! Ok, no touring for us. We literally raced down to the villa arriving in a matter of 48 hours.

Our first day was wonderful. The sun poured down warmly, we swam in the pool and between dips, relaxed on our sun loungers. Day 2 at the villa was a washout, it rained all day, but happily day three was an improvement. So far, despite the mixed weather, I’ve managed to swim every day which has always been one of my goals on holiday; to relax but also to do a little exercise.

Another important exercise in France is to get out and about and mix with the locals a bit. I’m not much of a lunch person, I kind of like my usual late breakfast but a few times on this holiday we’ve skipped breakfast and headed down to a fairly nearby restaurant, the Restaurant à La Gare, or the Station restaurant to you. It’s about a ten minute drive away from Parçay Les Pins where we are staying and it does a four course lunch (yes, four courses) for a measly 12.50 euros, including wine. Ok, the wine is vin ordinaire, the cheap French wine found in most places in France but to be honest, it’s the kind of wine I like, not strong, fairly tasty and hugely quaffable. I’ll have a glass with my starter which involves a trip to the buffet table for all kinds of salad, cold meats, pâtés and so on. Our basket of bread is routinely filled by the waitress who then brings the next course which is jambon (ham) served with either frites, rice or petis pois. Time for more vin ordinaire and by the way I went for the frites. Top up the wine for the cheese course and then there is the dessert. I fancied a little ice cream but instead I had meringue with cold custard (île flottante). I prefer my custard the English way, warm but what the heck, at 12.50 Euros each I wasn’t likely to complain.

The Queen

Last week on the 8th September the Queen passed away. I’m not a particular royalist and there is a lot I don’t like about the Royal Family but the Queen is someone I’ve always admired. She had a dignity and elegance never to be found elsewhere in the British political scene. Whenever controversy emerged she rose above it and stayed discreetly silent, whatever criticism arose in the news media.

She has been, I’ve always thought, the glue that holds together the United Kingdom of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. As long as I’ve lived, she has been the Queen. I wonder now, how the country will change?

Books

So, what else have I done on this trip? Well I’ve read books, after all reading has always been one of my greatest pleasures. I took it upon myself some time ago to read the entire library of Hamish Macbeth novels. They are not great works of literature but the world of books has everything for everyone and sometimes, I just like an old fashioned, easy going mystery read. Here in France, I’ve just finished Death of a Scriptwriter, the 14th entry into the series which wasn’t actually one of the best. The previous two were very good though, Death of a Macho Man and Death of a Dentist. If you are not familiar with Hamish Macbeth, he is a constable in a Scottish highland village. He likes to apply the rule of law in his own way, taking away the car keys from drink drivers before they leave the pub, giving various minor bootleggers a warning before removing their illegal stills and he’s not averse to poaching the odd salmon. The books are wonderful, quirky murder mysteries which Hamish always solves but tries to give credit to others in case his bosses think of promoting him and moving him away from his beloved village of Lochdubh.

A somewhat different kettle of crimefighting fish is private detective Philip Marlowe and a while back I picked up a Raymond Chandler anthology containing three of his Marlowe books, The Big Sleep, Farewell my Lovely and The Long Goodbye.

I wrote about the first novel, The Big Sleep a while back. It is a brilliant novel, one of my favourite ever reads and I particularly like the opening where he is engaged by General Sternwood to look into an issue of blackmailing.

Book 2, Farewell My Lovely, starts off well. It’s about Moose Malloy, an oversized fellow looking for Velma, an old flame. Marlowe gets in on the hunt as well as looking into another case and later finds both are related. I read the first part of the novel pretty much all in one go and enjoyed it very much. The next quarter was a little confusing. (During the filming of The Big Sleep the director and his stars wondered who killed the character of Owen Taylor, the Sternwood’s chauffeur. They sent a cable to Raymond Chandler asking him. Chandler told a friend later ‘Dammit, I don’t know either!)’ Happily, in Farewell My Lovely, everything finally came together towards the end.

Dilys Powell called Chandler’s writing ‘a peculiar mixture of harshness, sensuality, high polish and backstreet poetry’ and it’s easy to see why. The Long Goodbye has been unputdownable. The mix of fabulous descriptive text and authentic dialogue has got me hooked and I love hearing about the Hollywood Hills, Mulholland Drive where so many film stars lived as well as Romanoff’s, the famous Hollywood restaurant.

Not quite sure how to finish off this blog post so let’s go with the trailer for The Big Sleep, the 1944 version starring Humphrey Bogart.

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A Few Holiday Reflections

Posted on by Steve Higgins

It’s always a bit of a let down when you return home after a holiday. The weather isn’t that great, there’s a whole lot of washing to do of your holiday clothes. You start wishing things like, maybe we should have had another week? We were travelling in a motorhome and I start to think why didn’t we go there or go to see that? There’s always the next trip of course and the good thing is that as I’m now retired, I don’t have to go back to work. Anyway, while I’m feeling a little deflated looking out at the rather dull suburban view from my window it might be a good idea to take a look back at the last few weeks in France.

One of the things I’ve always liked about France is their laid-back lifestyle. Over there, and perhaps more so in the rural areas than the big cities, everything stops for lunch. No, not a quick sandwich grabbed on a 30-minute break, lunch times in France are something to be enjoyed and for care to be taken over. Shops close between 12 and 2 pm and it’s only in recent years that some supermarkets will stay open during those times.

At picnic tables all over france, the French descend on sunny days with huge containers of food and wine. Tablecloths are laid and the food is eaten and enjoyed at leisure.

Restaurants in France always have a plat du jour, a dish of the day and many are served as part of a formula menu comprising of starter, main, dessert and/or cheese. I always thought that the plat du jour was something a French restaurant had to serve but I couldn’t find any evidence of that on the internet so perhaps it’s just a tradition. Plenty of bread is always served with a French meal and it is usual for the waiter to top up your bread basket when he or she sees it is empty.

My favourite French restaurants are those which have a buffet starter. There is usually a small choice of main courses but over on the buffet table there will be a large selection of salads, cold rice and pasta dishes, pâté, cold meats in various dressings, shredded carrots and chopped beetroot. I try to avoid the various fishy dishes like cold rice and tuna but I usually find my plate piled with goodies.

House wine is usually served by the pichet, small jugs. Very small at 25cl and larger ones at 50cl. On hot summer days I tend to go for the house rose but more often than not Liz and I will share a pichet of red.

Cheese in a French restaurant with a pichet of vin rouge

Our first French meal this year was in the Buffalo Grill, a franchised restaurant you will see all over France. It’s like an English steak house serving steak, burgers, ribs and so on. A small salad in a bowl came first before our choice of mains. Mine was an excellent cheeseburger, Liz had a steak and the dessert was some ice cream.

In the town of Saumur, we had our first proper French lunch. The starter was the lovely French buffet I talked about above and the main was confit duck for Liz and a chicken in curry sauce for me. Curry is an unusual dish to find in France as the French don’t seem to go in for spicy food. The curry sauce was to me very mild and more of a slightly curry flavoured cream sauce. It came with fries and the traditional green beans and I have to say, I do love French green beans.

Curried chicken and frites

For dessert we ordered ice cream for me and cheese for Liz and we split the two between us. It was a lovely meal although perhaps a little too much for someone like me who rarely eats lunch.

Most weekends we scour the internet and find ourselves a few brocantes or vide greniers to visit. Vide greniers or car boot sales are usually part of a village fete and there will also be music, wine and food to be found. I remember going to one a few years ago which was interrupted by a pretty heavy shower of rain. In the UK, the vendors would have quickly packed up and been off but in France it was a different story. Plastic covers were quickly whipped out and people took shelter in the food and bar area. Liz and I stood at the bar and drank a glass of cheap red wine and when the skies cleared, we carried on looking for bargains.

I like travelling in our motorhome but after a few weeks living in a somewhat cramped environment I was glad to get to our French villa. I say our French villa even though it is a rental property. We have stayed here a couple of times before and it is ideally placed for everything we need although a bar or restaurant within walking distance would be nice.

The sun going down after a day by a plan d’eau

At the villa I usually try to act like a writer. I get up fairly early and after a cup of tea and a quick scan of my emails on my iPad I crank up my laptop and do some work on my writing projects. In my draft blog folder I’ve currently got eight blogs awaiting attention. Most are just ideas but some are partly written blog posts that need an injection of effort and inspiration to get them finished. The sequel to Floating in Space is still only half finished but I still chip away at it, a few pages at a time as well as a few other stories, screenplays and poems that all need urgent work.

After a little of that it’s time for a late breakfast, brunch might be a better word, and to have a swim and a read by the pool. I remember once reading about Noel Coward that while staying at his house in Jamaica, he rose at 8 am and worked at his writing until 12 when lunch was served. No wonder he produced a fine body of work while I have only produced one novel and one poetry anthology.

A big disappointment on this last trip was the failure of one of my video cameras, my GoPro Hero. I had intended to put together another travel video and at first, I thought it wasn’t going to be possible as I hadn’t shot enough video. However, looking back through my video files I see I’ve got hours of unused video from our previous trips so perhaps I can just cobble something together after all.

Looking back through some of my old video I came across what was quite a scary moment. We were travelling through the town of Rouen, a lovely old town but quite a busy one. I’m always a little nervous driving in big cities, especially in an area where there is lots of traffic and also when the road goes into multiple lanes. I’m pretty good at driving on the right-hand side but in multiple lanes I find myself drifting to the left-hand lane and I usually have to say to myself, Steve, get over to the right.

As you leave Rouen, there are numerous roundabouts and the French have come up with an interesting congestion busting idea. If you are carrying straight on you can duck under the roundabouts down a tunnel and in fact, Google maps which we often use, tends to direct you down into the tunnels. The big problem is that our motorhome is between 2.8 and 2.9 metres in height, just over 9 foot and the tunnels have a height limit of 2.6 metres if I remember correctly. One year I was getting flustered and ended up in the lane for the tunnel but then realised I wasn’t going to fit. Luckily there was an exit lane back to the main carriageway and after some scary reversing we managed to get out.

A big disappointment this year was not seeing much of my favourite cheese, Rondele Bleu. It’s a blue cheese produced in a light mousse style. I think we managed to buy the last tub in one supermarket and then failed to find it again in any other store.

Naturally, we brought quite a bit of French wine and cheese back to the UK but already our stocks are getting low. Time to plan another trip perhaps?

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