Day Tripper.

 

 I love day-tripping, and I have a particular penchant for coach day trips abroad. You know the sort of thing. You drag yourself out of bed at some unearthly hour of the morning, before even the sun has bothered to get up, sling a few coffees and some toast down your neck, and stagger to the coach stop. You are then herded and squashed into a coach, and driven to the continent where, when travelling from Leicester, you have about four or five hours to potter about in before being crammed back in the coach and bussed back to good old Blighty.

 This sort of day trip was amazingly popular, except with my friends, who having discovered the joys of car ownership had all sworn solemn vows that the closest they where coming to a coach in the future would be honking at them at the traffic lights. Consequently I often went on little adventures to the continent on my own. Aah! I hear you cry. Bollocks, I reply. I could catch up on my reading, write poetry, and of course fantastic pieces like this one, wander where I liked and not have to worry about anybody or anything else.

 This particular day trip was to Brugge, apparently a beautiful Belgian town which has remained virtually unchanged since medieval times, except for the lack of the plague, rats and the development of sanitation that is. So armed with my itinerary of buy beer, buy chocolate, and then consume same in vast quantities I staggered out of bed at four thirty in the morning. Yes, I can assure you that four thirty in the morning does exist. I have seen it from both sides, and believe me staying awake till four thirty is infinitely preferable to waking up then. I would probably do some sight seeing I thought, but I have to admit that the beer was a great attraction.

 I love walking through Leicester city centre in the early morning. Leicester is fairly laid back about mornings, as a city it doesn’t tend to bother waking up till about seven, and you can wander through the city centre without seeing a soul. (On coffee less mornings I like to pretend that I have shot everyone else in the whole world.)  Due to the parks in Leicester there is also a lot of wildlife wandering around in the early morning. You can almost picture the foxes looking at their wristwatches and double checking the time because they are just not expecting humans to be up that early. OK, I know that foxes don’t really wear watches, it was just a picture in my mind.

 I had actually got organised and booked early this time in order to get a window seat. Partially for slumping against whilst sleeping, partially for the view. So I settled down to peer out the window until I dozed off. Having the ability to sleep anywhere, possibly my greatest gift, I was fully expecting to be asleep before we hit the motorway.

 This was not to be. Unfortunately I happened to have booked a seat next to a larger lady. Normally this isn’t a problem as the coach seats are quite large, but this passenger proceeded to squash me up against the window as she sat halfway across into my seat. No amount of hinting would persuade her to move over into the empty six inches of seat on the other side of her, and being English I haven’t got the ability to complain. Perhaps I was particularly attractive through the glazed eyes that everyone has at that time in the morning, perhaps she thought she was six inches fatter on the left hand side, I didn’t know, all I knew was that she was driving me batty.  Fortunately when I mentioned the problem to the driver, yes, I admit it I will grumble to anyone who will listen, he pointed out some empty seats down the coach and suggested I moved.

 Not wishing to be rude and just move, I popped back to tell this lady I was moving to give us both a bit more room, pointing out that we would probably be sharing our seats with masses of cheap Belgian beer on the way back.  I thought she looked delighted. She certainly shifted over on to my window seat pretty sharpish. Little was I to know that she would proceed to exact a painful psychological revenge by transforming into the ‘Tutting Woman.’

 As we stopped at the Shuttle terminal I passed her on the way out. ‘Tut, tut, tut,’ I heard, or at least I thought I heard. Checking my flies and my face in the mirror to make sure I hadn’t committed the terrible faux-pas of ‘Ribena mouth’ or ‘Gapping fly’ I decided that I had imagined it, or that it wasn’t directed at me. After all everyone knows that I am perfect in every way and never err, not even in the slightest.

 I pottered around the Shuttle terminal aimlessly whilst everyone stocked up on cheap fags in the duty-free shop. As I got back onto the coach I heard it again. ‘Tut, tut, tut,’ no-one was looking at me, and I couldn’t see who had tutted, or why, so I carried on down the coach. Back in my seat I developed a mild form of paranoia and checked my flies, and my face in the mirror again. Believe it or not I even checked my back to make sure no-one had stuck a ‘Tut here’ note on it.

 Passport control was a laugh. After having my passport thoroughly scrutinised, often by a smirking passport official at the airport I was expecting the same inane grin on a passport official here. The young passport official bounded onto the coach. The young ones are the worst, their sense of humour hasn’t been bound up in years of red tape and sealed in a room labelled ‘Power Crazy’ yet.  At this point I was frantically rooting round in my bag, feeling the usual sensation of panic as visions of being sent home in disgrace and full body cavity searches ran through my mind.

 ‘Would everyone please hold their passports in the air,’ boomed the official. We  did. ‘Thank you.’ He boomed again, and bounded off the coach. The axe-murderer, illegal immigrants and gun wielding terrorists poked their heads up from behind their seats breathing a collective sigh of relief, they were safe till the next drugs run. Here I was worrying about forgetting my passport, a maroon piece of cardboard from a cereal packet would have sufficed.

 I hate going into the Shuttle, I much prefer the ferry. This is no fault of the Shuttle designers, it’s just that I’m slightly claustrophobic. Once the coach is stationary I can bury myself in a book and pretend that I am not in a long, thin train, in a long, thin tunnel, underground, under a heck of a lot of water and with no way out. Driving into the Shuttle train I can’t. It excerpts some sort of morbid fascination and I just can take my eyes off it. I suppose it’s like people with arachnophobia freezing when they see a spider and being unable to move. Driving into the Shuttle train vaguely resembles the scenes in seventy’s space programmes when you see the little fighter spaceships hurtling down long tubes building up speed in order to take off. As the Shuttle is a quarter of a mile long, these are very long tunnels. To a claustrophobic they are extremely long tunnels. When you combine this with the slight swaying motion of the coach as the Shuttle moves through the Channel tunnel I think you can see why I’m not so keen on the Shuttle.

 It doesn’t matter if I have been to the toilet immediately before getting onto the coach. The minute the Shuttle sets off I need a pee. Not a problem I hear you say, the Shuttle is bound to have toilets. It does. It also has airlocks between each coach. There are, I think thirteen coaches on each journey. This makes thirteen airlocks if you are at the wrong end of the Shuttle. Unfortunately the sadistic designers of the Shuttle have decided that it will take almost a minute for each airlock. That’s thirteen minutes to the loo, and thirteen minutes back folks. Oh, at this point I feel that I should point out the journey only takes twenty minutes or so. I will leave the maths to you. Fortunately we were in the second coach this time.

 Usually when the Shuttle arrives you just drive off at the other end. Not today. We had all got back into the coach, and had been sitting around for twenty minutes or so with nothing much happening. Glamorous thought of drugs raids and terrorists flew through my mind. A small French official wandered alongside, and calmly asked us to reverse. ‘How far?’ Asked the driver.

 ‘All the way please sir, the coach in front has broken down.’ All the way! All the way! That was a quarter of a mile worth of reversing with only six inches worth of manoeuvring on either side. All the way indeed. I’ll give the driver credit though, he managed it first time, at a reasonable speed, without swearing and without pranging the coach.

 Then we were off, through Calais, past Dunkeque and onto Brugge, beer and chocolates. I sat looking out the window at the scenery waiting to doze off. The north of France and Belgium are tremendously flat. You can see for miles without any inconvenient hills or scenery getting in the way. It is also tremendously relaxing to watch as you are being driven along. Not surprisingly I fell asleep.

 Brugge itself was beautiful, even the coach park wasn’t as hideously ugly as most of them are. Town planners please take note, railway stations, car parks and coach parks are the first view us tourists get of your town. Make them nice and maybe we will come back. We trooped off the coach and set off on the mile and a half long walk into Brugge. None of us minded the walk as most of the route was through a gorgeous park.

 Just before I left the park and hit the main part of Brugge one of the girls from the coach asked if she could tag along. Apparently this was the first coach trip abroad she had been on. Being a complete fool who is totally unable to say no, I said yes. I had already worked out a little itinerary in my head, a little sight seeing till five when the museums closed, a little beer and chocolate shopping till six when the shops closed, a quick meal in Brugge then back to the coach laden with cheap beer and choccies. Easy, I thought, nothing can go wrong, I thought.

 Katie, that isn’t her real name, I’ve changed it as I don’t wish to cause her any embarrassment, after all she may not want the general public to know that she has been seen with me, and of her own volition too, was a real scream. Katie, and you know who you are, if you read this drop us a line and we’ll go out for a beer some time. However she did have the mildly annoying habit of stopping every hundred yards or so to take photographs.

 We decided to stop and get a cola, and try tackling the three hundred and sixty-six steps of the Belfry first. The plan being that we would be able to see all of Brugge in one go, take some fantastic photographs, burn off some calories and disappear to drink beer. The last part of the plan, I confess was mine. Katie had nothing to do with it.

 It always amazes me the amount of people on the continent that have taken the time, and considerable trouble to learn to speak english. Belgians are fantastic, many of them speak french and german as well. This, I feel beats the traditional english approach of shout a bit louder and I’m sure they’ll understand.

 Katie and I had no problem getting served, as the waiter greeted us in german and switched mid sentence to english as soon as he realised we were english. I was really enjoying my cola, but was becoming mildly disconcerted by the amount of tittering and giggling going on amongst the male waiter behind me. To my utter horror I suddenly realised that I had developed a terrible case of builder’s bum! Every time I leant forward the gap between the top of my jeans and the bottom of my T-shirt exposed an inch wide expanse of blue cotton panties. All I could think of, apart from crawling under the table and dying quietly, was thank goodness I wasn’t wearing my emergency pants. You know the type, the grey holey ones that should have been retired three years ago, but you always seem to end up wearing because it’s six weeks since you forced yourself to go to the laundrette. Realising that I couldn’t run off and hide I resorted to leaning right back in the and furiously trying not to blush.

 Coke finished, and paid for, we made our escape and wandered over to the Belfry dodging tourists, horse drawn carriages and bicycles, with Katie snapping happily away with her camera. Katie then decided that she did not want photographs with people, just buildings, this meant standing around for five minutes or so waiting for a gap in the crowds. Anyone who dates, lives with or is friends with a cameraophille has my greatest sympathy.

 Eventually we bounded up the twenty-four steps to the entrance to the Belfry. Only three hundred and forty-two steps to go. We had missed last admission by three minutes. This, I thought mentally, was one photo by Katie too many. I suggested another museum nearby, and we ‘stop, click, started’ all the way there. We were five minutes late this time. In desperation I suggested a lace museum. I have no particular interest in lace, but I was now determined to take in some culture and this was the only museum still open.

 This time I actually saw the curator shutting the door as we turned the corner. Katie took a photo of the now closed museum, whilst I restrained the urge to dash her obviously expensive camera out of her hands.

 Working on the premise that due to photographic problems, the problem being too many photos and not a technical problem with the camera you understand, we were missing everything in Brugge by an average of five minutes I opted for a pre-emptive strike. I insisted on stopping at the next available shop in order to buy chocolates for my other half and beer for me. This was fairly tough for me, usually I just tag along seething quietly without saying a word.

 A mere five minutes, and thankfully no photos later I had managed to grab two bags of choccies and ten bottles of beer. Katie however couldn’t decide which chocolates she wanted. I watched ten minutes tick slowly by on my watch, this was indecision at its finest. The shop assistant was looking more and more harassed as the line of customers built up behind Katie. In desperation I suggested that as Katie couldn’t decide what she wanted, that she tried one of each chocolate. The shop assistant rolled her eyes skywards. Picked up her scoop and wandered up and down the line picking up the chocolates that Katie pointed at. I could see her urge to implant chocolates up Katie’s nose increase as she started changing her mind and trying to get the assistant to put the chocolates back. I went to stand outside. I saw enough violence on television without watching it here to.

 As there was just over an hour left till the coach left I suggested stopping in a pub, grabbing a beer and trying to work out how to get back to the coach. This idea went down well, and Katie’s idea of finding somewhere a little less touristy sounded good at the time too. Katie suggested a road and we ambled along down it. By now the beer that I had brought earlier was getting quite heavy, and I was definitely getting a little hot and bothered as we wandered down.

 I kept looking at my watch and making beer and look at the map noises. Katie kept walking, and I quickly discovered that map reading, walking and beer carrying is impossible. Added to which the colour on the blue plastic bag that I was carrying had started to run all over my hands. Yuk! With hindsight I probably should have said ‘Sod off’ and gone back to the coach on my own, but like most people I can’t do things like that. I can’t say no, I can’t be rude, and I am absolutely unable to stand up for myself. Eventually I managed to get Katie to stop, partially because we could see the end of the road and it looked like we were running out of Brugge to get lost in. We got out the map that the coach driver had given us and discovered that we were no longer on the map. I’m afraid that I accepted this piece of news with a quiet sigh and proceeded quietly to get everything out of my rucksack in order to get out the slightly larger map that I’d brought from home, which of course was right at the bottom of my bag. This map had got the street we were on, however it hadn’t got the coach stop on and we wasted several valuable minutes trying to piece the two together. It didn’t help much anyway as we appeared to be on the wrong side of Brugge with fifteen minutes to go until the coach left.

 In desperation I opted for the ask in a shop technique which has lead me into so much trouble in the past. After an animated discussion with a shop assistant who seemed to think we wanted to go to Zeebrugge I turned around expecting to see Katie engrossed in the map. Wrong, she was reapplying her eye make up. Did she think that some handsome film star, say Mel Gibson, was going to come along and whisk us off to the coach park in his limousine. It was the first time that day that I had been glad that I was carrying my beer. If I hadn’t got ten bottles of beer clutched in my arms I would have stabbed Katie repeatedly in the head with her eye liner before reapplying her mascara to the inside of her left nostril. I bounded out of the shop at a run thinking ten minutes, three miles, well I’ll only be a bit late.

 ‘Hold on’ came a little cry, and out tottered Katie. I looked at her feet in horror. Platform shoes! We set off at what I’d call a quick walk but Katie was having to run to catch up. Clack, clack, clack went her shoes. I almost felt sorry for Katie in those shoes when I realised that mast of Brugge is cobbled.

 I started looking out for a taxi or one of those horse drawn carriage things with nappies that Brugge is famed for.  It’s an offence to let your horse foul the streets in Brugge, dog owners take note, so in order that the driver doesn’t have to keep getting out and shovelling they have low slung leather nappies stretched under the horse’s bum. This neatly collects all the poo, with only a distinctly smelly side effect to show for it. Despite the large quantities of taxis and horses around earlier there weren’t any now as all the offices and shops had closed. With the words ‘kill, kill, kill’ going through my mind I marched back through Brugge with Katie belting alongside. We stopped at regular intervals to check we were heading the right way, and for me to show off my gloriously blue and embarrassing hands and arms. Fortunately the blue marks on my T-shirt were hidden by my precious cargo of beer.

 At three minutes past coach departure time, we stopped to ask a small, rotund nun for directions. Big mistake. I quickly established that the nun didn’t speak english and switched to the little french that I can mangle. I also discovered that by pushing my hair back off my face I had developed a blue forehead. Now my french is pretty bad, but I can just about do directions. I tried asking in french, Katie tried shouting louder. I realised at this point that we weren’t doing as badly timewise as I thought, and that Katie hadn’t complained once about her shoes. The now terrified nun managed to convey that she was going that way and would show us. Hallelujah! I thought, someone up there likes me today. Oh hell! I realised that our dear old sister was not that fast on her feet. Shouting ‘Desole, vite, vite.’ And hoping it wasn’t a ancient french insult a grabbed Katie and we belted off.

 We came running into the coach park just as they were preparing to leave. A mere twenty-five minutes late. I got on the coach apologising profusely, and looking fairly blue, hot and bothered. Katie got on with immaculate make up and hair. As I walked down the aisle to my seat I heard faintly in the background ‘Tut, tut, tut.’  I think I might have deserved it this time.