Road Trippin'

My Dear Princess and Dear Fellows,

Today was Tiger's 50th birthday and he's planned his celebration in grand fashion. What this meant for us was that we got picked up at 10am by Loulou and Tiger, to drive us over to The Wairarapa. 

It's about 90 minutes drive from us, but more importantly, it is WINE country. 

You see Tiger's plan coming together now, don't you?

I slid into the back seat of Tiger's car, next to Loulou. Because it is a hatchback, and because our driveway slopes steeply up and because I am me, I slid backward and my knickers slid forward and wedged right up my bum.

"Are you comfortable there?" asked Loulou, who is very nice.

It was pointless lying. It's not like I could fake it, with my nads forcing themselves upward into my colon, so I admitted I had accidentally wedgied myself. 

Tiger and Loulou kindly looked elsewhere and talked loudly to each other while I disentangled things. 

"It's called 'pucking'," added Tiger. "The act of removing things from your bum."

It's always educational, being with these two. 

Apparently there are even 'pucking' videos for those inclined to want to see such things.

Sometimes TOO educational.

Loulou explained that there had been some confusion between them as to when Tiger's birthday actually WAS. She knew the date, naturally, but for some reason just assumed it fell on the Saturday. As a result she had forgotten it was his birthday TODAY. 

"I nearly woke up and demanded breakfast and coffee," she admitted. But fortunately Tiger had reminded her.

"So I remembered to wish him happy birthday first," she went on. "And THEN I demanded breakfast and coffee."

The drive was lovely, although the weather was awful for most of the way. Then we went over a massive hill and things brightened immediately. Tiger was very thoughtful and took the switchback road as gently as he could. All the same, Caro went very white. Poor lamb. 

Tiger pulled over and she managed to calm her stomach. She has always been slightly motion-sick. It dates back to her days as a kid driving with her dad, who would put on his "Drivetime Mix" and FORCE her to sing along in order to prevent her spewing on him during long family road trips. 

To this day, "Help Me Rhonda" makes her feel mildly unwell.

Tiger distracted Caro by telling her tales of his time working as an extra on "Lord of the Rings". He played a number of roles, and can be spotted as Rider of Rohan. He said that when he was an Orc, it was strange how all the Orcs stuck together and ate together and would elbow Elves out of the way. He also ended up being late for an appointment after one engagement and had to drive home still covered in fake head-wounds.

"I got some funny looks when I stopped at traffic-lights," he said. 

We arrived in a little town called Featherstone where Loulou got very excited. "We should stop at the weird freaky shop!" she said. 

It's not like we could say no after an introduction like that. See extras of the freaky shop. It was loads of fun. Lots of lovely old books, surrounded by stuffed animals, all of which had been given names like "Ramesh" and "Carlos".

The next stop on our trip was the lovely little town of Greytown where Tiger and I had a cheeky pint while Caro and Loulou went off buying artisan things. Caro came back with a tiny pair of gold scissors. They were still in the packaging. She has no intention of ever unwrapping them and just sat there stroking the packet.

Sometimes I do not understand Caro at all. 

Finally, we got to Martinborough where Tiger had booked an Airbnb. It was a lovely house with a beautiful garden. "I live here now," said Loulou. "I'm never moving out."

We were joined by two more friends of T&L and we sat around having more chats and getting to know each other. For some reason, this involved Caro telling the story of how she and I attended a special "healing" event with her mum, 20 years ago.

Janette had booked all three of us to go on this thing. As I recall it was a "birthday present" for Caro. I can't recall Caro's exact words, but I'm guessing that "sake" and "f*ck's" might have been in there somewhere.

The event was run by a Native American named, "Flying Bird" who went around giving us all our own Native American names. Janette was "White Whale", which delighted her. Caro - naturally as the daughter - was "White Dolphin". 

He came to me and conferred upon me the title, "White Beaver". 

Yes, yes. I'm sure it was VERY HIGHLY BLOODY EFFING appropriate. Look, just shut up about it. 

Tiger LOVED this. As a result, beavers kept coming up all day.

After this enlightening chat, we had a lovely meal that evening before finding a bar that played nothing but 80's music. It is like they knew we were coming. Caro surmised that the bar owner, a man with a greying mullet, had peaked in the 80's and was refusing to move on. 

"This is probably his mum's place," said Loulou. "He's probably out the back saying, 'Mummmmm! Turn your telly down! I've got FRIENDS in!"

Caro related the tale of another road-trip we took, along the coast road of Australia, back in 2001. We were on a bus full of backpackers, but we were the only couple. So when we stopped at an out-of-the-way hostel deep in the bush, the rest of the bus took bunk beds in the hostel itself and they gave us THE CARAVAN.

"Eh? Eh?!???" said Rosco the naughty bus driver, elbowing me in a not-at-all subtle way.

But it really wasn't romantic inside, unless FILTH is romantic to you. It was all cobwebby and horrific and made me think of stories I'd heard of Aussie spiders that can take your arm off. 

Caro and I didn't get into the bed. We just laid on top of it, with our sleeping-bags pulled up over our noses. I fell asleep but was nudged awake about 10 minutes later. 

"Symon! Symon! There's a noise outside!"

There was too. Like asthmatic wheezing. Or a big pervert having a Jodrell Bank right outside our window.

"Oh my god! Oh my god! It could be a PSYCHO come to murder us!" said Caro. "You go and look."

I'm not joking by how much of a horror movie trope this was. I blearily got up just as our caravan door crrrrrrrreaked open on its own. I turned my torch on, and the BULB IMMEDIATELY DIED. 

For eff's sake, I remember thinking. I'm going to be murdered, and it's going to be in a really badly-written cliched way. 

However, Caro's torch continued to function, and I went to look, but there was really nothing there. I grumpily came back to bed, but the noise didn't go away. If anything, it got louder. 

The next day, Caro and I bumped into Rosco again. We looked exhausted after zero sleep. "Eh? Eh?!??" he said again. We explained that not much sleep was had, but not for "Eh? Eh?!??" reasons. 

"Oh that'll be the koala bears," he told us. "They're just coming into season. They're frisky little buggers this time of year."

We were telling this story to Loulou, but Tiger turned around just in time to hear me saying, "So we were kept up all night by a W*nking Koala."

"That's my new Native American name!" he announced. "I am W*NKING KOALA!"

I think Tiger managed to have himself a fine birthday today. But, as far as I understand it, it will be his birthday again tomorrow. 

Eh? Eh??!??

S.