On the long way home from the other side of the world to find my former addresses and the meaning of ‘home’ my path wrenched me from the loving arms of Ireland and pitched me into the steaming cauldron of tropical Malaysia.
Six weeks at Annaghmakerrig, County Monaghan, had dulled my edge.
My last two addresses were in Ipoh, north of Kuala Lumpur, and I was dreading the journey.
I tried to chicken out of the whole thing and head straight home but I couldn’t afford to changes horses in mid-stream.
No concrete plans, no idea of how I was going to get to where I needed to go. I had a hotel booked on arrival in Singapore and the same hotel booked on the eve of my departure. How I would manage what happened in between was a mystery.
I had a vague idea you could get to Ipoh by train. I had an even vaguer idea that this journey would take between 7 and 8 hours.
I was freaking out.
What if the train broke down and there was no air-con ?
I would die in the heat.
I don’t do heat well.
I’m a take me to Tasmania/ let’s do the Antarctic kind of girl.
I was SCARED.
It was so hot on arrival in Singapore at 7 p.m. I was even more scared.
My hotel room, by contrast, was freezing.
It was like sleeping in the frozen food aisle at Safeway. Waves of frosty air fanning out over the thin blankets.
By the morning I had a cold.
I was up at 5.30 a.m. because the train to Ipoh left at 7.40 a.m. and the story was, the journey would take TEN HOURS.
I nicked a bacon and egg sarnie from my complimentary breakfast – no idea whether there would be food on this trip. Wore as thin clothing as possible, with a light wrap, just in case.
First class was comfortable and I was seated opposite an Aussie couple from Perth.
Everything was going to be all right.
Their mobile phone, unlike mine, was working.
Then the air-con came on and it was delicious and cool.
Quite cool, in fact.
Cold.
Frosty.
It was feckin’ freezing !
The morning’s rivers of sweat snap froze on my skin.
I shivered for TEN HOURS stopping-all-stations.
The only relief was to go to the buffet car, which was sweltering, suffocating, my worst nightmare.
I spent the ten hours alternately freezing, frying, freezing, frying.
The worst part was knowing that I would have to do the whole thing all over again twenty-four hours later on the return trip.
Well, they wouldn’t get me this time.
At the night-market in Ipoh I bought a jacket from a second-hand store for 10 ringgit.
It was as gold as a reclining Buddha, and just as fat.
Sorted.
For some reason, the return trip took ELEVEN HOURS.
I missed out on 1st class, so, steerage it was.
Travelling backwards, sharing a seat with the world’s fattest man.
Could things get any worse ?
Well, yes, as it happens, they could.
Suddenly the video screen springs to life and begins showing, first, a Robin Williams film – sending me screaming for my i-pod – then, wait for it, for my very many sins, they start showing
GLADIATOR !!!!!
Am I not suffering enough ?
Do they have to send in Rusty Crowe in all his twitching, wooden puppet glory to torment me with his tight-lipped Oscar-bamboozling style ?
The air-con in steerage wasn’t as bad as in 1st. Or maybe the friction between my corpulent neighbour’s huge arse and my thigh was counteracting the frost. In any case I had to get away from Rusty and mini-Brando Phoenix fast.
Across the clanking steel plates connecting the carriages, where the wind blows hot and foul, I blundered, on my way towards the hell’s kitchen of the buffet car.
Since 7 a.m. that morning I had eaten a one-egg omelette, a fairy cake and a stale Danish. It was now 7 p.m. and I had another 4 hours on the train.
The cans of ‘Kickapoo Joy Juice’ looked tempting enough to risk.
When Campbell MacComas and I used to perform Loveletters my character used to confess to having had too much of ‘the old kickapoo joy juice’ and I thought she was just using a euphemism for booze. Turns out it’s a product.
Well, maybe it was a saying which they turned into a product.
I buy rice.
Can’t go wrong with rice.
So many palm trees out the window.
Eleven hours of palm trees.
Someone in the buffet car asks what time we get in to Singapore.
‘8.15’ says a smartly dressed woman.
‘8.15 !’ I splutter. ‘You mean we get to the border at 8.15.’
‘Yes,’ she says. ‘Then Singapore at 8.45.’
‘Are you including the hour we have to spend at the border check-point ?’ I ask.
She smiles at me politely.
On the way up, it took an hour to travel from Singapore station to Woodlands checkpoint, on the border with Malaysia – everyone drives very slowly and carefully in Singapore, everyone is very law-abiding.
At the border check-point we were told to take just our passports and leave everything else on the train. We queued for immigration and pressed our thumbs on the infra-red thumb I.D. check to see if we were wanted criminals.
Then we waited for about forty minutes while the border police went through the train - and everything we had left behind, presumably - with a fine tooth comb. Then, these boys in navy-blue with their guns on their hips and wise-cracking smiles on their dials waited until they were good and ready to let us back on board.
To kill time I went to use the proper toilet.
They have both male and female toilets on the train but everyone uses the Ladies.
‘Hey ! Buddy ! The sign on the door shows a guy in a dress ! Oh. Right. You are a guy in a dress. My mistake.’
In the platform toilet there was a poster on the wall with a cartoon asking people not to ‘squat on the sitting toilets’. The last frame showed a woman (well, of course, it would be) with her leg stuck in the bowl and she’s hopping mad.
I took a photo of this poster to show the folks back home and then I saw another sign. A warning not to use unauthorised cameras or videos anywhere in this building.
There was another sign on the platform with a cartoon of a man being shot at close range but I wasn’t quite sure why, as the sign was in Malay.
Taking no chances, I stowed my camera, got back in the queue and kept my immodest, sexy-as-all-get-out, sweaty-haired, uncovered head down.
On the return journey there were two checks: one at Jahor Baru – leaving Malaysia – and one, again, at Woodlands – entering Singapore.
I was prepared for this stop.
I was taking everthing with me this time. There would be no sneaky rifling through my luggage on the train. If they wanted to check it they could do it in front of me.
Oh, yes, smart me.
So, I’m walking across the platform towards security, pulling my hand luggage and bags, when I remember.
The Buddha-gold jacket.
Oh. My. God.
The one I bought last night at the second hand store in the night market in Ipoh.
Oh. My. God.
What if the previous owner was a druggie – user or dealer ?
What if the dogs smell something ?
What was the name of that bloody woman ? Simone Corby ? Sherelle Corby ? Shebeen ? Anyway, her. What if that happens to me ?
All this time worrying about stuff being planted in my luggage and whether I should shrink wrap my case or not, and I blithely bring a risky item of clothing in with me MYSELF !
The dogs will sniff it out and then it will be
‘Drop the jacket ! Drop the jacket ! Step away from the jacket ! Assume the position !’
And there will be a circle of guns pointed at my head…..
My heart is pounding.
They’ll know.
I’ve got guilty written all over my forehead.
I stand behind the yellow line and await my fate.
‘Beware the flipper’ says the sign on the plastic gate.
Oh, I’m bewary all right.
It flips and I’m through to the nice lady with the Brahmin caste mark on her forehead.
‘You are only staying one day ?’ she asks, incredulous and suspicious.
‘Y-yes,’ I stammer. ‘I fly back home tomorrow.’
She looks at me, looks at the passport, looks at me, flicks through the passport, holds the passport up to compare me to the photo, me, passport, me, passport.
Okay !!! I’ve looked better ! I’ve just been watching Gladiator ! You try that on an empty stomach after ten and half hours of train travel.
She brings the stamp down on the page and I’m through.
To the x-ray belt.
Everything out of the case.
Gold jacket looming.
If they check my camera and see the shot of the toilet-squatting poster I’m in more trouble than the woman with her leg stuck in the shit.
But I’m not.
When we disembark at Singapore I leave the Buddha jacket in the luggage rack and scuttle towards the exit before the cleaners notice and try to force it on me.
Safely back at the Frozen Food Aisle hotel, I get an up-grade to a ritzy suite on the 17th floor where I order a burger and a Guinness and say goodbye to the last three months.
Time to go home.

Tags: THE ADDRESS BOOK by jane
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The hotel staff are Spanish.
The waitresses are from the Eastern Bloc.
The Russian car-hire man has never heard of County Monaghan and asks me to spell it.
My Thai drink waitress doesn’t know what Angostura Bitters are.
Welcome to Ireland.
The only verbal exchange I’ve had which matched my expectations was when I hopped on a Dublin tour bus, asked the fare and a thick Irish brogue sang back at me “That’ll be one hundred euros”.
I was so deloighted (sic) I almost handed over the money.

It’s all so disappointing.
The sameness.
Everywhere.
I’ve already whinged about the ubiquitous bubble-writing: this is a whinge about first impressions.
Anyone who has stayed in a high class Sydney hotel will have noticed that they are pretty much staffed by Asian-Australians. My hotel at Heathrow was fully staffed by Indians and Pakistanis. Now, here in Ireland, it’s Spanish people.
This is NOT a racist complaint.
Nor is it a complaint about standards.
Communication difficulties notwithstanding, the standards have all been impeccable.
It’s about the expectations of international travel.
About wanting things to be as different as you were hoping they would be.
All the insane people visiting China this year for a smog-choked extravaganza of sporting advertisements, will probably be anticipating a Chinese kind of experience, yeah ?
If they arrive to find their Chinese hotels fully staffed by Italians or Swedish people won’t they feel a bit gypped ? If the hotel restaurant is a Greek Taverna won’t they feel weird ?
Ditto the forthcoming Empire Games in India.
You’d be looking forward to the traditional Indian hospitality I enjoyed at Heathrow wouldn’t you?
Would you buy a ticket to India if you thought all the hotels and services were staffed by Inuit or – goddammit - Queenslanders !

Can you tell that I’ve been on the road too long ?
I’m starting to whine like an American.

My journey’s end sees me finally here in paradise.
At the Tyrone Guthrie Centre at Annaghmakerrig.
Yes, it’s not a name which springs immediately to mind. And it’s not easy to get to.
Hire car or bus, hire car or bus ?
By now I had accumulated the baggage of the Shah of Persia minus the services of the requisite number of baggage handlers.
The idea of a car-boot was tempting.
The idea of wrangling two suitcases, a large carton of merchandise (books and CDs for my Prisoner personal appearance – more on that at another time), handbags, camera, tickets, passport etc., repulsive.
If I could just get the stuff on to the bus, however, I would be all right and it would be a much more relaxing trip.
I deliberated for two days in my Dublin hotel while I tried to squeeze information regarding either service out of internet and phone.
Frustrated beyond words and knowing I had leave the next day, I took a 10 euro taxi ride directly to the Dublin bus station.
Okay, it was 8 pm on a Sunday night, but the bus station was still full of people queuing and catching buses, but no visible staff.
The information booth and all the ticket counters were closed.
There were stands with photocopied (yes, photocopied) schedules for all the different routes. Full to bursting they were, with every possible way out of Dublin.
Except Route 177 to Monaghan.
Mine.
I finally got hold of a schedule via an e-mail the next morning from a friend ‘on the mainland’ and bit the bullet.
Dragged the baggage single-handedly (note to self: must dye hair grey and walk with a cane) and successfully on to the bus.
I’d spent the morning pounding the streets of Dublin trying to buy re-charge for my latest in a line of 5 simcards for my mobile.
The ever-so-well-known Lebara company simcard works in Ireland but you can’t buy top-up for it in Ireland. And you can’t top it up on the net unless you have a UK-issued credit card.
If anything was to go wrong on this bus-trip I was mobile-less.
Always an uneasy feeling when you’re travelling to parts unknown.
The two-hour bus-ride introduced me to a new phenomenon: Irish talk-back radio.
As repugnant as all talk-back radio, encompassing the nauseatingly familiar line-up of tired-old-chestnut topics, the same brain-numbing repetition of the station’s telephone, SMS and e-mail details, the same strident/outraged/congratulatory/condemning/whingeing tones – but in Irish accents !
More of the same.
The radio was blaring full-blast on the coach so I reached for my trusty i-pod.
Neneh Cherry, James Brown and Jimmy Vaughan saved my life for a while.
I was grooving along to ‘Gravity’ and ‘Goliath’ and starting to feel really relaxed when, just like my mobile, the i-pod ran out of pop.
Irish talk-back it was. All - the - way - to - Monaghan.
Hauled the bags off the bus at my destination and looked around for a cab rank.
My hosts here at the TGC had told me grab a Hackney (what ? horse-drawn ? I can’t wait !) cab and that all the cab drivers knew their way out here.
No cab-rank, the nice Irish girl at the tea stand informed me, but only after she had got me to repeat the question five times in my queer little accent.
The baize notice-board near the toilets, however, was studded with plenty of cab drivers’ cards.
No mobile….
Public phone !!!!!????
I can safely say it’s been some years since I’ve used a pay phone.
Apparently they prefer UK-issued credit cards….
I had a few euros.
All the cab drivers with cards had answer phones and there was no way for them to call me back.
5 euros later ‘Mr T’ answered. I told him, in a cutionary tone, where I wanted to go, in case he had to be home for dinner or to pick up the kids or wanted to watch Neighbours. Considerate, me.
He said he’d be there straight away.
‘Mr T’ sounded Italian…
He wasn’t.
Or if he was, he was of the big, black, African, mo-fo variety of Italian. The ones with the big, wide, winning smiles.
We cruised out of the station and I told him once more where I wanted to go.
Ann-agh-ma-ke-rrig.
We pulled over and he pulled out his GPS tracker.
Ohhh… no, I said. If you don’t know where it is, I’m not driving around the countryside helping you to look for it while the meter runs into the red.
No, no, he said, spell it out for me.
Ten trying minutes of ‘a- as in apple’, ‘n - no, not m, n…’ later I snapped, ‘Just give me the thing. I’ll tap it in !’
The ‘thing’ kept stopping after the first five letters and ‘predicting’ street names in Monaghan.
No mobile.
Laptop in one of the suitcases.
No known wi-fi zone anyway.
Hungry.
Thirsty.
Starting to panic for the first time on this trip.
He’s decided to drive me to his base to get directions.
He’s only lived here six years.
Holy Mary, Mother of God ! Why me ?
I feel sick.
I feel hot.
My feet are all swollen.
This is Ireland !
It’s supposed to be cold and rainy !
I wanna go to MacDonalds !!!!
Not to eat, you fool !
To use the wi-fi !! To top-up my phone !!! To get help !
I am sunk as low as it gets.
That salvation should lie beneath the golden arches.
He’s back with the information.
He’s looking confident.
We’re off.
At speed.
Doing 90 through the hedgerows and byways as I scrabble for the seatbelt socket.
‘Don’t want you to get fined,’ I lie, shoving my fist through the back of my seat, scraping my forearm, ricocheting around in the back seat as we swerve past tractors.
Twenty k’s or so later, at the little town of Newbliss, we stop for further directions.
‘Oh, yes,’ lilts the voice through the window. ‘It’s just op the road a moile or two, you cahn’t miss’t. You go op over there, past a lovely little lake, it is. Oh, it is lovvlee, you cahn’t miss it. And you take a turn up a little lane and away on up to the big house on the hill.’
Ah, now, you see if it had been he who had taken my order for a soda, lime and bitters last night, I would have been so content.
On we plunged, past the ‘lovvlee lake’ (it was) and away on up to the house.
‘Tis a miracle !’ I cried as the beautiful buildings and exquisite gardens of the Tyrone Guthrie Centre swung into view.
‘It is !’ hallelujah’d my driver.
Both of us SO relieved to have made it.
He kept apologising for the ’inconvenience, madame’ and I kept congratulating him for getting us there.
It was as if we had discovered America together.
I shook my new friend Thomas’s hand warmly after he unloaded the baggage and charged me 40 euros (about 80 bucks !) for our wild ride.
I stood outside the big stone house, in the full sunshine, listened to the birds singing, gazed out across the loch, past all that green, and breathed in the scent of freshly mown grass.
I’d made it.
I walked away from my pile of baggage, without a care.
I knew I could just leave it there and nothing would happen to it.
The release from the necessity of keeping one hand at all times on each piece of your luggage, of maintaining a vice-like grip on your handbag, was overwhelming.
Muscles in my neck and shoulders started to ‘ping !’ loose.
I walked, unshackled, weightless, towards the house.

Tags: THE ADDRESS BOOK by jane
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Everyone else I know is flying Ryanair to Ireland.
I know I’m not but I can’t remember the name of my airline.
It’s the local one that begins with a ‘c’, I keep saying.
When I do finally land in Dublin and see all the big green planes of Aer Lingus I realise my mistake….
Landing in Dublin was a distant concept when the alarm went off in my hermetically sealed, over-air-conditioned cell of a hotel room at 4.30 am.
The noise from the gambling machines and children’s play area just outside my inward facing window had kept me awake until after 1 am. I felt raw and puffy and cranky.
Re-packed the cases for the twentieth time this month and prayed the big one weighed a little less after my expensive trip to the post office yesterday.
The sun was forcing its way back up again as I spent another 4 quid on the Hotel Hopper to Terminal (never a more apt description) One.
I swear I gave the bus-driver a tenner but he gives me change of 5.
I’m flying BMI. That’s the one.
They calculate your air-fare on your weight divided by the weight of your suitcases multiplied by the distance you’re about to travel.
The smiling hostess icon on the Express Check-in screen informs me that my departure is from Gate 80 which is
A HALF HOUR WALK away….
Thiry minutes of brisk walking is ten minutes more than the recommended amount required for fitness and weight maintenance and usually doesn’t involve dragging two suitcases, plus a 2k handbag slung across your chest and your puffer jacket draggin on the floor.
And even if it meant that I would burn off all the overpriced apalling red wine I’ve been guzzling lately, at 5.45 a.m. I am not in the mood.
What about a bus ?
The Air France flight from Paris to Germany involved a fifteen minute BUS-RIDE from the terminal to the plane…
A HALF HOUR WALK !!!!!?
I set off with a heavy heart and a heavy load.
And that’s before I get to the Baggage Check-in.
A surly young man who refuses eye contact snaps the elastic tape barrier back, beckons me in, and mutters something about having to check the weight of my bag.
So, I wait.
What he means is, I have to put the bag up on to the scales.
Rolling I can do, lifting needs help. It’s not forthcoming.
5.9k over the limit.
Back out through the aisles of elastic tape I lumber. Back to the licence-to-print-money Cashier’s Desk.
Nobody home.
It’s 5.58. Maybe they don’t come on ’til 6.
Oi ! I’ve got a HALF HOUR WALK to do. I’ll need to set out soon !
And there’d better be a caff at the other end ‘cos I ain’t ‘ad’ny breakfast yet, init.
I’m even thinking in English now !
A yoo-hoo yields nothing.
Five minutes later a woman drifts in, doesn’t look at me, charges me 7 pounds a kilo excess, tries to print the receipt for me to take to her surly colleague back at Baggage but the maching breaks down and she has to take the lid off and stick a biro in it, init.
35 pounds stirling.
I should be grateful.
Germany to Paris cost me 85 euros.
I am a woman travelling for 3 months with the barest possible minimum of clothing.
I, the Imelda of Melbourne, am travelling with one pair of trainers (on my feet) and one pair of boots !
I deserve some kind of medal !!!
Not maltreatment by BMI excess-weight nazis.
Back to surly, non-weighing, weight-checker.
On to surly Baggage Check-in proper.
Incomprehensible accent even to a good ear like mine.
I have to ask her to repeat several key questions a couple of times without sounding too much like Marjorie Dawes from Little Britain.
Will I remove the old labels, she asks me through lips of tightly-drawn string.
I give it a go but they’re stuck fast and only get more stucker as I pull.
Do you have any scissors ? I ask.
No, do you have any scissors ? she snaps back. Or any other sharp objects.
No ! Because if I did I would use them to CUT OFF THESE LABELS you dopey twat. I think. To myself.
She stares at me, all open-mouthed disbelief, waiting for me to morph into Edwina Scissorhands.
I glare back at her like a petulant child and say firmly,
‘Can’t’.
We part, mortal enemies For Life.
And then.
My HALF HOUR WALK begins.
Will I eat here, where there is a caff ?
Or will I do the walk and hope for the best ?
With the words of my favourite Eddie Izzard routine - ‘Well, there must have been a canteen on the Death Star, musn’t there ?’ -ringing in my ears, I charge ahead to Security.
By now I have learned not to wear an underwired bra, so, I make it through the gate without a good and proper frisking before breakfast.
An electronic sign looms immediately ahead.
‘Gate 80 - 10 minutes’
It’s like the South-Eastern Freeway.
‘Warrigal Road - 40 minutes’
‘Toorak Road - delays’
Ten minutes ?
So.
Not a HALF HOUR WALK ?
Or did my exchange with Mrs Bitchface Baggage Hag count as 20 ?
Ten minutes ?!
I can do that.
In fact, I can stop for breakfast right here and now.
I start to feel really good, until I realise I have NO MONEY LEFT because the thieving, crooked bus driver fleeced me of my last fiver.
Chip-and-pin it is then, because, Lord knows, cash or no cash, you need a credit card to buy breakfast at Heathrow.
After my Bacon and Egg Toastie and mug of beige swill I’m ready to take on the world and its wife.
The ten minute walk goes by like 5, and I’m standing at a T-intersection in front of another sign.
There’s an arrow pointing left below the words:
‘GATES 70-78′
and an arrow pointing right below the words:
‘GATES 82-90′.
Can youpick what’s wrong with the sign ?
‘Excuse me,’ I say to the top of a desk, ‘there are two gates missing and I need one of them’.
‘No, no,’ says the desk. ‘Through that door. Gate 80 through that door.’
But.
‘I know. I know.’
Through the door to Gate 80, Brigadoon, into a lounge full of green chairs.
We are going to Ireland.
It’s 6.15 by now and an Irish voice is shouting over the P.A. that my 7 am flight to Dublin is boarding NOW and that everyone should just be getting a very big move on, if you don’t mind.
No-one moves from the green chairs.
A woman doing a customer survey for BMI Airlines with a woman opposite me, looks towards the ceiling and makes disapproving noises and reassures us all that this is indeed Gate 80 and that that announcement is just so wrong it’s embarassing.
Oh, Miss ! Pick me ! Pick me to answer your survey !
Please !
I know ALL the answers !
They’re not the answers you want to hear but it’ll fill up your sheet.
Sensing my eagerness, perhaps, she tries to slip away but the security door has snapped shut and we are all TRAPPED FOR EVER in the ghostly gate-lounge on the green chairs listening to piped misinformation.
Irish jokes aside, it’s almost funny.
Almost.
Half an hour later, safely on the plane, the captain announces that there will be a slight delay of HALF AN HOUR due to traffic out of Heathrow.
The rest of the crew, perhaps, doing the HALF HOUR WALK ?

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I’ve been motoring through Nether Wallop, Middle Wallop and A Clip Across The Ear – known to its more groovy residents as Sock It To Me.
A town called Abbot’s Ann…?
So…there was an abbot with someone called Ann at his disposal and the locals built a town for her ?
What then to make of the hamlet of Little Ann ?
Was she Ann’d Over ?
Oh, yes, droll, me.
On the long trail from Cardiff to my last port of call in Andover, by way of the not-so-scarey-after-all Severn Bridge.
(Hard to know how high above the water one is with all that low-lying smog…er…fog).
Motoring, like Toad, along the highways and byways of Somerset and Wiltshire and Hampshire.
A flash of setting sun on the Great White Horse, and yet, nowhere to stop for the photo opportunity.
So un-American.
Hedgerows.
Miles of hedgerows.
So many bustles (see Stairway to Heaven).
Speed signs read 50 and 40 and 30.
50 ? I don’t know whether to slow down or speed up.
(Miles, Jane, it’s miles, and you’re doing 80k !)
No stopping and no overtaking on English hedgerows.
You’re stuck behind someone like me, you’re stuck there ‘til bathtime.
Ah, Bath…..
The untold joy of Bath !
I knew I wanted to go to there but wasn’t sure why.
Something about taking the waters….
I tried to book a stopover but the prices were too steep.
I could not, however, resist a little peek.
As soon as I drove in off the interminable M’s I fell for the city’s Georgian charms.
I came over all Pride and Prejudice.
Oh, Mr D’Arcy ! I simply must buy a fridge magnet with your – or is that Colin Firth’s ? – face on it !
Parked the vehicle with ease at the top of the magnificent Great Pulteney Street and hopped on an open-topped, double-dekker bus for a guided tour around the magnificent burgh.
Whiled away a whole hour in the blazing sun listening to ambient, crystal-shop music, interspersed with wry commentary on the headphones.
Did you know they built a castle on a hill overlooking the town just to give it a bit of gravitas ? Not a real castle, just an edifice. It’s known as Sham Castle.
My kind of town.
I wish one of my addresses had been in Bath. I would have justified at least a week there.
But, no, it was back to the schedule and on to Andover.
I spent the night in Salisbury – a stone’s throw from the Henge.
So close I had to drop by the next day and pay my respects to the Druids.
(You just never know who the real Gods/Special-Invisible-Friends might be….)
Is it before Amesbury or after ? I wondered aloud….
Oh, look ! There it is !
No.
A pedestrian walkway over the A303.
Look at all those big white stones… must be getting close !
Sheep.
Finally, there it was.
And it was so…Spinal Tap small…
I knew you couldn’t actually wander around the stones, that there was a fence and a walkway.
Should have known it would cost.
About $15.
Shopped for trashy souvenirs instead – Stonehenge socks, a miniature Stonehenge just like Spinal Tap, a pencil with a henge on the end – and took photos through the fence.
Decided to visit the lesser-known Woodhenge, a couple of miles down the road.
There it is ! I cried.
No.
Wooden sound baffles on the A303.
No, there !
No…. Those are clearly someone’s stumps for a new house. Like you’ve seen on ‘Grand Design’.
But there’s a carpark….
And a sign….
‘Welcome to the Woodhenge…. Bronze Age c.2000BC.
The concrete posts…”
Ah-hah…
“….mark the position of the original timbers, evidence for which was obtained by excavation.”
So….
Concrete-henge.
Concentric circles of concrete posts with different coloured tops, plus a small clump of what looked like left-over concrete – or is it an old rock ? - just near the middle.
No-one about. (No, really ?).
I take many self-timed shots of me among the buttercups and the …wood…concrete…henge.
A sudden urgency reminds me that the closest toilet is away across the paddocks and the tour buses and the retail outlets of the fancy-pants henge that boasts its own road-sign.
I walk towards my car but then curiosity about the clump of left-over concrete gets the better of me.
What’s that got to do with the henge ?
I move in for a closer look.
It looks like a gravestone.
No mention of what, or who, lies beneath, but there’s a tiny bunch of buttercups fastened with intent amongst the clotted stones.
Lying askew on the grass next to the slab is a small wooden cross with a union jack pin and a remembrance ribbon attached.
The wood at the base of the cross is frayed, like it was planted before and has come loose.
The wind began to pick up through the concrete.
Back to the open road.
Poop-poop !
view photos on my Facebook site at:
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=573908245

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May Day ! May Day !
I pulled out of Paris on the Eurostar and glanced at the station clock.
It said 9.11
Hurtling towards the Channel Tunnel, white knuckles gripping the armrest of my window seat.
Window seat ? Point ?
The rational and the irrational going at it hammer and tongs in my frontal lobe, stomach doing cartwheels.
Why did I get on this train ?
Which is worse, I ask myself, 36 thousand feet up or a couple of thousand feet down?
Nothing but empty sky between you and the ground or a huge body of water and hundreds of tons of ocean floor bearing down on you ?
Blocked ears from being in a pressurised metal tube hurtling through the sky or blocked ears from being in a metal tube far too deep underground ?
No escape from either….
Unless you stop thinking about it and read the paper.
Ah, here comes breakfast.
I was in first class and assured that breakfast was ‘compris’, so, I hadn’t bothered to buy my last genuine croissant or brioche at the Gare du Nord. Not even a café crème.
Which, in hindsight, was a mistake.
Breakfast was just like on a plane – only worse.
Cold, stale croissant, which - like all souvenirs of Paris – was probably made in China. Aeroplane coffee with France’s favourite milk – UHT.
(In case I haven’t mentioned this before, the French all drink long-life milk. Not sure why. No-one seems to have an explanation).
I ate like a woman who is about to die in a train accident.
Had seconds.
‘How long do we actually spend in the tunnel ?’ I asked the beautiful Christine, ‘cabin supervisor’.
About twenty minutes.
Oh. Well, that’s manageable, I thought.
‘And do your ears hurt ?’ I asked.
‘Not when you’re in the tunnel,’ she said. ‘But later, quite a lot.’
Aaaaagggghhhhh !!!!!!
I want to get off this train !
I have very sensitive ears ! I’m an artiste ! I need my ears for my important work of listening to myself talk and sing ! I don’t want to have any pain !
I decided not to ask if anyone had ever had a heart attack brought on by the pressure of being underground in the tunnel.
Twenty minutes, I kept saying. I can time that.
Maybe if I go to the toilet now – which by the way I would really like to do – I won’t even notice us going in to the tunnel because there won’t be any lights on in there.
Excellent idea. Even though I was fully loaded up with the breakfast tray I manoeuvred my way out of the seat, squeezed past the trolley and into the loo.
Was I just imagining that everyone was staring at me ?
Or were all their eyes popping out of their heads with fear.
Once in the loo I suddenly thought, well, yes I might not notice the fact that we’re in the tunnel because there’s no windows in here, but what about the excruciating pain in my ears !!!
Back past the trolley, back under my breakfast tray.
We seemed to still be in the country.
Oceans of non-drought-stricken green, punctuated with those annoying psychedelic yellow fields of canola were swishing past the window.
An occasional tunnel and you thought, here we go ! This is it ! And your ears popped and everything…But then you were out the other end and surrounded by more greens.
My ticket said – depart Paris 9.15, arrive Ashford 10.05.
Forty-five minutes minus the twenty in the tunnel - we should be in it by now.
I take another look at the ticket. Maybe it’s ‘arrive 1.05’ – as in p.m. ? 4 hours of suspense. It was gonna kill me !
Then suddenly the train began to slow, ever so slightly.
My lovely hosts in Hildesheim, Ben and Sabina, had related to me a horror story of being stuck in the chunnel on the Eurostar. The train had ground to a halt, all the lights went out, people were screaming and crying. Another train had to be summoned to pull it back out again…and….
The train was definitely slowing.
Oh. My. God.
What was worse than hurtling towards the chunnel ?
Hurtling towards it only to stop just inside it or….half….way…
We were definitely in the chunnel now.
Moving along at a steady pace.
It was kind of quiet.
Gee, The Guardian was running some good stories that day.
You could ask me anything about the local council elections and the battle for the job as Mayor of London and I could tell you everything.
And, just as suddenly, we were out the other end.
And my ears weren’t hurting.
They didn’t even pop.
It was a totally painless experience.
Apart from the breakfast.

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Twenty years and twenty kilos ago Paris could be a little dangerous for a single woman like moi
‘Don’t make eye-contact,’ my French friends would warn. ‘Don’t smile’.
I’m invisible now.
It’s a great way to travel.
Lucky to get anyone’s attention, frankly.
It took a while for the old Paris magic to kick in.
On previous, more salubrious visits I’ve cabbed in from the airport or caught the train direct from Calais to the Gare du Nord.
The architecture never failed to score a direct hit, right between the eyes.
An exquisite, elegant, romantic city with turrets and slate roofs and real French windows with balconies.
Wide tree-lined boulevards, art-nouveaux Metro signs, rows of cane chairs outside café after café.
Wow.
Ca me fait a bout de souffle.
This time around, in the city of love, I feel like I came in through the servants’ entrance.
I caught the train in from Charles de Gaulle airport to the Gare de L’Est and waited for the show to begin.
I don’t need to be in Paris. I took three days here - between the rigours of Germany and the ongoing work in England - because I wanted to.
It’s a luxury I can’t afford but I was too close to forgo the pleasure.
Le Bourget, Drancy, the suburban stations rolled past the window of the RER.
No magic happening.
Droves of Naomi Campbells, Macy Grays, Fela Koutis and Kofi Anans got on board.
I seemed to be the only trailer-trash going to town.
I kept my eyes fixed on the window.
Waiting.
The world-wide association of bubble-writers, it seems, has wreaked its usual toneless, boring havoc on one of the most beautiful cities in the world.
The taggers (great concept in AFL: rubbish with a spray-can) hard at it, systematically erasing all traces of individuality in every town, city and hamlet.
From Broady to Clichy, Frankston to Frankfurt, Melbourne to Milan, every available wall, railway siding and rooftop is covered in bubble-writing.
AND IT ALL LOOKS THE SAME.
There is not one trace of individuality on display. No shred of protest.
No-one, it seems, imagines that perhaps copperplate might be an option. Or even hieroglyphics.
Nup.
Just tubular block caps in the dozen colours available at the local equivalent of Bunnings.
Just wanna look like the other bruvvers, init.
Big fan of Banksie , me. The graffiti genius. Love yer work.
But bubble-writers ?
Bor-ring !
I want to apply for an Arts Council grant to initiate a
GLOBAL DAY OF RAMPANT INDIVIDUALITY.
Everyone gets a tin of paint and a roller and is allowed to paint over all the bubble-writing around them.
A day on which we can restore the individuality of each city.
Erase the glum, prosaic, UNIFORMITY of the world-wide bubble-writing scourge.
Don’t misunderstand me, I don’t give a tinker’s that bubble-writers deface property or appear to be engaging in anti-social, anti-private ownership rights.
I care that it’s so TOTALLY LACKING IN IMAGINATION !!!!
Just writing your name ?
What’s THAT about ?
France led the world in freedom, liberty, egalite, democracy. They smashed the monarchy and stood up for the poor in a revolutionary fight to the death. They built monuments to their achievements.
So, the most revolutionary thing you can think of to do today is write your name/number/tag/signature on a wall ?
Sacre bleu, fair suck of the sav, bloody hell !
How DULL AND UNIMAGINATIVE.
Paris rolls past the window of the train and I could be anywhere.
It’s only when I finally lug my case (which just cost me 86 euros in excess to bring back from Germany even though I hadn’t put anything extra in it) unassisted, up three flights of Metro stairs and emerge onto the beautiful Boulevarde Richard Lenoir and gaze towards the Colonne de Juillet flying high above the centre of the Place de la Bastille that the magic finally happens.
I’m in Paris.
And it’s raining.
And it will keep on raining all the time I’m here.
Even after I finally succumb and buy a ‘Paris, Je t’aime’ souvenir umbrella, it keeps raining.
I don’t care.
I’m sitting here with a 2.50 euro bottle of 2006 Bordeaux and thinking about tomorrow, and how I will ride my ‘velib’ bike all over town and drink in the unique gorgeousness that is Paris.

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So, I can ask where the toilet is in three different languages now and that’s got to be useful.
The ‘servicios, por favor ?’ in Spain, ‘ou est les toilettes ?’ in France and ‘vo ist die toilette ?’ in Germany.
When a girl’s gotta go, a girl’s gotta learn the lingo.
This morning on the TGV – le very fast train - from Lyon to the Charles De Gaulle airport and my flight to Germany, I didn’t need the lingo I just needed to find one of those drawings of a person in a skirt.
It was a two-storey train with the loos, buffet car and mobile phone area on the upper level.
Signs everywhere ask you, in the politest possible French terms, not to disturb your fellow train travellers with your mobile phone. There is a picture of a mobile and the words ‘Cabine Silence’ written next to it.
Your boring, shouted exchanges about stocks, bonds, soup recipes and what you really think of Auntie Jan must be carried out in the noisy space between carriages, where they belong.
The buffet car was packed and the loo occupied so I sat on the comfy couch provided on the upper level and watched fogbound France rush by the window.
An elderly man emerged from the Ladies some minutes later with a sheepish look on his face and ‘Sprung !’ blazoned across his forehead.
Entering the Ladies with proprietorial hauteur my foot felt something underfoot.
Paper towel perhaps ? Tissues ?
I looked down to see a black leather wallet stuffed with euros.
Had to be his.
There is always that moment of ‘finders keepers’ - which passes quickly when you place yourself in the loser’s position – Ladies loo defiler or not.
But where to find him on this huge train jammed with strangers ?
His flustered, beige-suited image was still fresh in my mind’s eye.
May as well start with the buffet car.
Spotted him straightaway and tapped him on the arm.
Instant recoil.
Made worse by my clumsy attempt at asking him in French if he’d just been in the toilet.
And ! Using the familiar ‘tu’ !
His face was a flurry of - ‘is it an offence to use the Ladies ?’
- ‘what does this weird creature want ?’
- ‘is she from the police ?’
- ‘what will I tell my wife ?’

But mostly, ‘Go away, infidel’.
I asked him again if perhaps he had lost something.
Relief. Patting of pockets.
I proffer the wallet and all the blood drains from his poor old French face as he clasps my hand in gratitude.
Didn’t stop him having just a tiny peek to see if all the dough was still there.
Then we do ‘merci’s and the ‘de rien’s and go our separate ways.
Full deposit in the karma bank please.
I may need it on the small plane I’m flying in through rain clouds to Germany…

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‘I am taking the train to Toulouse. Does it leave from this platform ?’ I ask the female guard at Narbonne.
‘Ah, oui,’ she replies. ‘D’ici. Quinze minutes.’
‘Do I have time to go and get a coffee ?’
‘Non, non. Restez ici,’ she says shaking her head emphatically.
We are both speaking French.
We understand each other perfectly.
Phew !
I’m out of Spain and able to communicate once more.
Such a relief !
Mine is the business of verbal communication. Being unable to converse is, for me, almost physically unbearable.
I managed in Spain, but in a very limited way. Here in France I may stumble and stutter but I’ll get there.
On the train from Narbonne I rock and roll my way to the dining car for a snack and make my first French mistake.
There is a list of available ‘sambweedges’. The chicken, lettuce and mayo one is called a ‘Fermier’.
When the snack bar man finally permits eye-contact I say,
‘Je voudrais un Fermier s’il vous plait ?’
All perfectly correct, except that I have asked for a ‘farmer’ - as opposed to the ‘farmer sandwich’.
With a huge grin he asks me if I would like a big one or a small one. His mate from the rail company who is leaning on the bar joins him in the joke as they look at me and crack up laughing.
I finally twig and tell him I would prefer a small one, thanks very much, and in a sandwich.
If this had happened in Spain I would not have had a clue what was going on.
All my romantic notions of train travel have finally been put to bed.
On board the train from Barcelona to Narbonne the first thing you notice is the overpowering stench of toilet disinfectant. It’s like travelling with your head in the men’s urinal.
The second thing you notice is that there is a guy in the seat across the aisle who is already snoring quite loudly even before the train has left the station.
He did not stop snoring all the way to Narbonne.
I believe he is still somewhere snoring.
All praise the i-pod !
Although you could still hear him between tracks.
The train is a marginally more relaxed mode of travel than flying and you do get to see a lot of very pretty scenery out the window. But you have to heft your luggage everywhere with you. Up and down stairs and escalators.
Bump, bump, bump down the steps goes the one, heavy suitcase I have restricted myself to on this 3 month trip.
Lug, lug, lug, up we thump again.
‘C’est ma maison entiere,’ I say to the one or two kind people who have helped me.( ‘It’s my whole house’).
‘Comme an escargot,’ one replied. (‘Like a snail.)’
Then you have to stuff your case into the luggage rack and watch it like a hawk for the rest of the trip.
If you’re lucky your seat will face the way the train is going, if not you travel backwards.
My three days in Toulouse were great fun.
I stayed with my Australian friend Tory McBride.
Her Frenchman (Tory hates the word ‘partner’ with good reason), Lionel (pronounced Lee-oh-nel - which is so much nicer than the way we say it), speaks about as much English as I do French but we did really well.
Toulouse is a charming town with a great history, a beautiful basilica, several universities plus hordes of students, a wide river and a canal which is a great marvel of construction.
Tory and Lionel treated me royally. Taking me out to dinner to a Morrocan restaurant for cous-cous on the first night, and a Catalonian-style restaurant on the second. On my final night we ate in, feasting on foie-gras and divine cheeses from the local market.
However.
I learned that it is a very Australian thing to go overboard and exaggerate in praise of things.
Only God is ‘divine’ maintained Lionel, as he endeavoured to teach me the art of French understatement.
If you think something is really-o, trully-o, fabuloso it is sufficient to say that it was ‘pas mal’ - ‘not bad’ - and this must be articulated with the minimum of passion and a flat inflection.
This was hard to put into practise in Toulouse where everything is pretty special.
Strolling through the market gazing at displays of fish, cheeses, wheels of sausages, skewers of frogs’ legs, mountains of weird and wonderful crustaceans, was like strolling through an art gallery !
My camera was going off !
In a glass case display opposite ‘La Maison d’Agneau’ – the House of Lamb – my eye was caught by a dish of thick, dark red, slices of liver.
I won’t eat calamari or tuna mornay but I love liver….
But this was horse liver.
This was an entire stand of horse meat.
You know that expression ‘I could eat a horse’ ? Well, in Toulouse, you can.
Jars of the local speciality, ‘cassoulet’, tubs of duck-fat, mounds of ‘rillet’ (duck pâte) and then the mustard-coloured vacuum packs of the famously controversial foie-gras itself.
‘Betty’s Creamerie’ displayed case after case of different kinds of cheeses - big wheels and small mounds.
Hard for me to resist a heart-shaped Neufchatel the size of the palm of your hand.
Hard to resist any food at all in France.
I kept saying, ‘There is no bad food in France. Even the fast-food is exquisite’. French folks beg to differ, but they haven’t eaten in a truck-stop on the Hume lately.
I didn’t use the computer much in Toulouse. Partly because the ‘wee-fee’ on my laptop wouldn’t work, but mainly because the keyboard on French computers has the letters in a completely different configuration !!!
It was like learning to speak Russian !
The numbers and the full-stop require the shift-key. The @ sign requires a science degree to execute.
I’m in the little town of Fitilieu today, just outside Lyon. Staying with my cousin Caroline Vignard and her French husband Michel.
Once again poor Michel, like Lionel in Toulouse, will be forced to sit politely while two women gasbag in English for hours on end.
Their rambling farmhouse is in a beautiful part of the countryside, surrounded by the snow-capped French Alps.
Tomorrow I go in to Grenoble where Caroline works occasionally.
The speed limit is 130 kph on French freeways.
This could be my Last Post….

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I wish I knew how to pronounce ’Rioja’ – Spain’s most common red wine.
Is it ‘Ree-oh-hah’ ? ‘Rye-oh-jar’ ? or ‘Roy-ah’ ?
Hopeless, me.
I wish I’d done the Berlitz Spano as well as the Frog and Hun.
Anyway, when you hear lines like:
‘Girls, before you tuck into your next glass of Rioja’,
you realise it must be the Englishwoman’s version of ye olde Aussoise cab sav merlot, so, I guess it doesn’t really matter how you pronounce it.
I have somehow managed to eat eggs 3 times today.
I really thought about toast and marmalade at breakfast this morning until I saw the platter of poached and thought, well, you are going to be walking a lot again today (Fatso) why not have a good breakfast.
Then, round midday, when I lost my ($A450) reading glasses and went into a manic-depressive-spiral I, notwithstanding the fact I couldn’t read anything on the menu, ordered the only thing I recognised: quiche.
All of which was acceptable.
Not losing the reading-glasses, of course.
That was devastating.
I know where I lost them.
In a magic shop.
I was attracted to the window display of myriad versions of tarot packs you could buy – Klimpt, Harry Potter, Fairy, Gummy Bear, erotic, evil etc.. - but settled for a pack of Jazz Legend playing cards. When I paid for them with my credit card it was the last time my glasses graced the end of my nose.
I went back to the shop immediately – less than ten minutes later – but they had clearly already sold them on and couldn’t remember me or my small jazz-like purchase.
Lesson: never mess with the tarot – even on a straight commercial basis.
But ordering eggs a third time tonight was just a mistake.
I cased a pizza joint across the Placa de Palau earlier today and thought, ‘You’ve pigged, you’re over-budget, I know it’s Barcelona but have something light tonight.’
Intrepid me, I trudged across the platha at 8.30 and entered the pizza parlour.
Fully staffed by Chinese.
So. I’m in Gothic Barcelona eating Italian-via-America food, served by orientals.
Multicultural ? Betcha life.
How hard can a pizza menu be to read, even with limited espagnol ?
‘Tomate’, ‘jambon’, ‘mozzarelle’,’olivio’ – I know this stuff. My kids would have no trouble.
My waiter says I can’t have wine by the glass, I have to have a half bottle at least.
Can I take the leftovers away ? Sure, he says, in Chinese Spanish.
Leftovers.
It’s a 300ml bottle.
I order the Monterosa and sit back to enjoy the sound of my Chinese waiter singing along with Rick Astley.
No, really. This parlour has been ‘Rick-rolled’.
You can tell they’re hip. They’re all wearing those stupid, low-slung, I’ve-shat-my-pants style jeans as if they were designed for them.
When a new waiter appears in a tee-shirt with the words:
‘Ain’t no cure for the rock ‘n roll’ written white on black on it - with two crossed band-aids after the word ‘cure’ - you are feeling cooler than El Jay Cool.
Two glasses down and the Monterosa arrives.
Is that a fried egg in the middle ? I ask.
Yes, is Monterosa, he replies.
I am looking at a pizza with ham, mushroom, Spanish olives and a fried egg on it.
I feel so…..Australian. A bit ….yish !…American.
Who orders fried egg pizza ? It’s an abomination.
Particularly as the dough is so crisp and delicious and would have been exquisite with some capsicum and anchovies and hot salami.
I carve my way around the yoke and wish I was dead.
A man selling long-stemmed scarlet roses comes into the parlour.
(What ? No cellophane ? No Baby’s-Breath ?)
I know he will ignore me – single, old, woman – and I am almost determined to insist on a purchase.
I pour the last glass of Rioja.

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‘Malaga ?’ I ask.
The ticket seller gives a sharp flick of her hand towards her left.
No words – Spanish or English – not even a facial expression.
It 6.45 a.m. on the Spanish side of the Gibraltar-Spain frontier at La Linea.
The Spanish have no love for Gibraltar. The road signs on La Linea have paint-ball splotches on the very name of the Rock. You are on your own once across the border.
You don’t speak Spanish ? Tough titty.
There is no-one at the window to her left.
I roll my cases around to where the coaches are waiting.
The dismissive ticket-seller is out the back having a cigarette and a chat with another woman. The coaches are lined up, warming their engines.
No. They don’t sell tickets there.
Nothing for it but to roll the cases back inside, sit down and wait.
It’s half an hour before the bus leaves.
On a whim I turn around and the left-hand window is open for business with the ticket-seller’s buddy at the till.
Ten euros and small change later and I’m legal.
Estapona, Marbella, Torremolino, Fuengirola and finally Malaga.
At some time in the recent past Malaga must have undergone some kind of blitz.
The entire city is under reconstruction. Whole streets have been torn up. Traffic is restricted to one lane and crawls at snail’s pace.
Have they won the Olympics franchise or what ?
What is going on ?
The whole Costa del Sol is in a frenzy of construction.
Cranes block out the skyline. Everybody’s buying in.
Malaga is a city in progress.
Malaga Airport is CHAOS.
It’s like Beirut. Or the Gaza Strip.
When they re-directed our Gibraltar flight the other day they must have forced us to land at some distant outpost runway of Malaga Airport. That terminal had no shops or cafes or duty-free. It was like Coffs Harbour or Mount Gambier.
Malaga Airport proper – Pablo Ruis Picasso Airport – is bigger than Houston, Texas.
I’m flying Spanair to Barcelona today.
Why do I keep thinking Spamalot ?
Spanair has four classes: Business, Avant, economy +, and economy.
I’m in ‘economy’ where in-flight refreshments consist of:
‘Would you care for some water ?’
and
a mint.
A Smint, in fact.
During my hour or so in the departure lounge I had a chance to observe some of my fellow travellers. My favourites were a very cosmopolitan, middle-aged couple of indeterminate nationality.
He was busily flicking through a porn magazine while his wife read a novel.
No, really, they were sitting directly opposite me and I couldn’t help notice that he was looking at a full frontal nude woman. Then at some cars.
I had to look away in case he thought I might like to share. When I looked back he was deep in contemplation of a double-page spread of a male nude with the hands clasped over the interesting bits.
He spent a lot longer looking at him.
What a wonderful relationship, I thought. He with his porn, she with her novel. And off to Malaga. With me.
Spanair’s in-flight magazine is, of course, called Spanorama.

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