Planes, Trains & Automobiles

My Dear Princess & Dear Fellows,

Today was Cazza's birthday. I am the most rubbish husband ever because I did not buy her a present. I was just OUT of ideas. She told me that this was okay because I get her nice stuff all the time but still. I felt bad.

Then LouLou and Tiger sort of came to the rescue and invited us out to a Malaysian/South Indian curry place for Cazza's birthday treat. 

This made me feel like an even WORSE husband! Stupid LouLou & Tiger! Stupid thoughtful friends!

However, it was a lovely fun evening and it sort of developed a theme all on its own. Transport. You see, Tiger had been attempting to buy a car that evening. This was after they'd had a car rental debacle, taking Lulu the cat from Wellington to their caravan in Ohau.

"We found out she doesn't travel well," they explained. "Just two miles into the journey and she did a squirty poo everywhere. We tried to clean it up but when we returned it to the rental place it still smelled a bit funky."

"We told the car rental guy it smelled like that when we got it," said Tiger.

For some reason this started a whole series of travel debacle stories. Cazza told everyone the story of when we were taking a small plane from Catalina Island to San Diego.

This was when we were travelling the world, and Cazza added Catalina Island to our itinerary purely on the basis that they used to go there on The Love Boat. But actually it turned out to be one of our favourite places, just beautiful and relaxing. Still, we were looking forward to San Diego and made our way to Catalina airport, which the locals refer to as "the airport in the sky" on account of it is up a big hill.

I found this a bit unnerving. It is like something you'd hear in a WW2 movie. "Oh bad show, Algy got shot down by a Jerry and has gone to the airport in the sky."

Like that.

So anyway, we got our taxi to the airport in the sky and were being escorted to a small plane by our pilot. However, I had left my hat in the taxi. I am terrible with hats. I never can retain one for more than a week without leaving it somewhere. And this was a Diesel hat. Cazza loves designer labels and she was DAMN SURE I wasn't going to lose THIS hat. So she went scurrying back to get it from the taxi and then legged it back to the plane. By now, the pilot and I were off in the distance, blissfully unaware that she'd gone off on her own. Cazza sprinted to catch us up and - WHAM!!

- She ran right into the wing of another light plane. 

I still don't know how she did this. I mean. Planes are not small things. But the wing of this plane knocked her flat onto her back and seeing stars, with her prescription sunglasses broken and an expanding bruise on her cheek.

I was very apologetic. I felt really bad that my hat-losing habits had caused her pain. But I paid for it doubly when we went to the optician in San Diego the next day. I remember browsing frames idly while she went to the counter to ask the staff to fix her sunglasses. 

They looked at the broken sunglasses. They looked at her black eye. They looked at me. "How did you get that?" they asked.

"Oh I walked into the wing of a plane," she explained.

The counter staff were concerned. "You know girl, you don't have to stay with him," one woman said. They glowered at me. I think I waved.

As it turns out, LouLou and Tiger had a similar experience when they were on the Eurostar. They were halfway to France when LouLou got a text that her beloved cat had died. She snuffled and bawled her way to Paris. People started to look.

"Stop that crying!" said Tiger through clenched teeth. But one of the other passengers heard him and that just made it worse.

LouLou's plane debacle was worse than ours though. She took a light plane which experienced such bad turbulence that only her seatbeat stopped her hitting the top of the cabin. To make matters worse, she was sat next to a nine year old girl who screamed, "WE'RE GOING TO DIE! WE'RE GOING TO DIE!" the entire journey.

Mind you, when Cazza was on a turbulent flight from London to Edinburgh she had to put up with her manager CLUTCHING at her the whole trip. "Ooooh god!!!" she whimpered at every big bump.

The pilot came over the speaker to calm down the passengers. Doing the normal pilot professional chat. "Well-ah... ladies and gentlemen... it's been - haha - just a little bit bumpy up here, but I think we're through the worst of it now and JEEEEEESUS CHRIST!!!!!!!"

The speaker went dead. There were screams and prayers from the passengers around Cazza. But as it turned out, the pilot had just got caught off guard by another big bump.

My train story is equally dramatic, but in another direction. This was my first ever train journey to Edinburgh. I was coming up from Scarborough for an interview with Scottish Widows. I was making good time and the train was just past Berwick. The Geordie conductor was on the speaker, telling us that -

"And at thee back of thee trayyn there is a boo-fay car, complete with a selection of sandwiches, cakes - "

WHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAM!!!!

This giant explosion seemed to ROCK the whole train. The lights flickered out. I could hear people screaming in front of me and behind. The train SCREEEECHED to a noisy halt. It seemed to take minutes, but I expect it was only seconds. The lights flicked back on again. There was a dramatic pause as the whole train sighed with relief.

" - soft drinks, crisps and chocolates," finished the conductor. 

He never did acknowledge the explosion*. I have to kind of admire his stoicism.

So anyway, the four of us had a good laugh. It was lovely to spend time with LouLou and Tiger again. But with that, we were at the end of our curry.

Cazza and I caught an Uber home. Without incident, I might add.

S.

* A power cable had broken loose and WHACKED into the side of the train. We were about 2 hours late into Edinburgh.