This is turning out to be quite the year for Mrs E. Although her birthday falls in May, the fact that it’s (whisper it gently) a milestone birthday means that she’s demanded a treat each month, to make the most of what has become her ‘special year’.
There is a pattern to the months already. Each one has been marked by a trip to an airport, where she can be whisked away to some exotic location, ideally one that has a good supply of cold water and ideally bottles of cider. If we were still the generation that took phrasebooks on holiday then we’d have marked very specific pages in our books. As it is, we now know how to ask for wild swimming directions and cider in five different languages. if only we could understand the answers.
Anyway, this being May, the demands were amplified, with the actual birthday specified in some detail as follows:
A) a trip to Hatton Garden to buy the ‘ultimate bracelet’
B) a couple of celebratory ciders to admire said bracelet in the sunshine, with an occasional dip in mood because that she loved it so much that it seemed a shame that she’d only get another twenty years of wear from it
C) a trip across London for a further cider with BFF
D) a further pre-Theatre cider ahead of…
E) …a truly awful production of David Hare’s Teeth and Smiles, only really rescued by the appearance of Rebecca Lucy Taylor. Mrs E is something of a RLT superfan, she’s seen her twice this year already as Self Esteem and is coming to Camp Bestival for the first time this year, specifically so she can ignore the band I’m in, as we play (on a very small stage) while SE plays at the same time (on a very big stage).
F) a quick curry at the wonderful Dishoom in Covent Garden, complete with sparkling birthday cake
G) a race across town for the best ever (and eye wateringly expensive) G&T at the Cafe Royal
Quite the day, really, and it really wouldn’t be a celebration for us if we didn’t try to balance that light debauchery with a little hard work. And May’s hard work came in the form of a little trek in Provence. The plan was to take the train to Paris and then on to Avignon, while still nursing the birthday hangovers, then head out from Avignon and make our way towards Arles over the next four days. There’d be a bit of hiking, using the bags we were planning to use for July’s big trip to Sweden, maybe a bit of river swimming on the way, some nice places to stay, and ending up doing some cultural stuff in Arles.
In the event, our hiking plans were limited as temperatures in Provence started to knock on the door of 40 degrees. Our first warning of this came on the TGV to Avignon, which broke down about 20 minutes outside Paris with an electrical fault that knocked out the air conditioning. Three hours later, the train was on the move again, unfortunately this time in the opposite direction back to Paris, where we’d have to board another train, which seemed to have everything working, and we headed south again. We reflected on the passenger reaction to the whole episode, in which several hundred people were sweating like pigs in a hot tin can but in which there was no over-reaction, no outward annoyance; no swearing; just a few Gallic shrugs at the time and a nice orderly and polite transfer once we got to Paris. I’d like to have had the same experience at home to compare (obvs ‘I’d like’ is a figure of speech).
Anyway, we got to Avignon, where it was very hot, and started walking the next day, when it was even hotter. Apart from the challenges of hiking with heavy bags in +36 degree heat, we had another particular issue. Regular readers* will recall that our rucksacks were last used for the Portuguese Camino, and were christened Beast One and Beast Two, on account of their weight. You know when you were a kid and you saw a beetle on its back, legs flailing away because it didn’t have the strength to turn itself over? Well, if either of us had fallen backwards while strapped to B1 or B2, that would have been us. B2 has the added disadvantage of having a squeak, and the added added disadvantage of being strapped to Mrs E. Mrs E is intolerant of many things, often things that to you and me might be quite innocuous. Examples include anyone who whistles, people who think they’ve invented cold water swimming, children with pretentious names and insufficient wiping down of kitchen surfaces. And to that list, we can now add Things That Squeak. To be fair to her, it was quite annoying, although at least regular, even and relatively quiet. So it didn’t really interfere with the quiet reverie of the beautiful Provence countryside. But the irregular outbursts of ‘For f***’s sake’ coming from Mrs E did. These shouts cut through the reverie like an air attack warning, and always managed to take me by complete surprise. We tried repacking the bag, adjusting straps, bending the plastic frame and anything else we could think of, but to no avail. Eventually after about three hours in the heat we gave up, sweltering, and decided to get a bus to our next hotel.
The same pattern for the next couple of days – set off in beautiful sunlight, get overheated, react violently to the squeakiness, then find a way to get to our destination before Mrs E kicked B2 over a cliff.
I’m hoping that I’ve not given you the impression that hiking in Provence is anything but glorious fun – challenging and astonishingly beautiful countryside, excellent footpaths, not much traffic from cars or hikers. Just ridiculously hot,with a constant squeak, and occasional Tourette’s outbursts from Mrs E.
On our return home, Mrs E had a final shout at Beast 2 as it was kicked into the spare room. I researched ‘ways to fix a squeaky Osprey rucksack’ and the internet was as helpful as ever, suggesting a variety of silicon oils and restitching patches, but in the end I asked Osprey for help. Well, who knew that every one of their rucksacks had a lifetime guarantee? Send it off to us, they said, we’ll fix it or recycle it and we’ll hurry a repair or replacement back to you. After a couple of days, where I like to imagine that the Osprey trainee technician was sent out on a long hike with a tape recorder and a profanity dictionary, they just sent back a replacement. Just like that. And it arrived. And (so far) it doesn’t squeak. Quite frankly, the best birthday present ever.
As I write, we’re just embarking on yet another hike with Beast One and Beast Three. We’re going to the arctic circle, but if B3 starts squeaking and the wind is in the right direction, you should be able to hear Mrs E’s reaction wherever you are in the world. Wish all four of us luck x
*Hi, how are you doing? We should go for a drink some time. How about the smallest pub in Norwich? We won’t need much space.
The Emu 