There is a nostrum that declares that travel broadens the mind.
Perhaps this may have been true at some time, but these days, for the vast majority, it involves lengthy periods on the posterior and so serves to principally broaden just that.
As far as the mind goes, it can be submitted to such a diverse set of stimulus that it can be a bit troublesome for one to keep track. This has certainly been true in my case recently, as I have been skipping into different time zones; in both the geo-astrochronologic and the virtual sense, as when one is faced with one’s past.
The first step was taken to this enhanced state of consciousness more than a week ago, when, along with a prayer that it would come to no harm during our absence, my OH and I locked up our home and set off on a long house-swap holiday with a couple that we met during one of our frequent reconciliation’s that followed some international peccadillo’s that I had made, and, escaped the consequences of. Namely partner swapping in mezo America a while back.
Having left some friends of ours who had put us up for a few days in order to facilitate getting the house ready for our swappers, the first leg of the journey was to Gatwick airport where we were to be met by a taxi that was to whisk us effortlessly to the room in The Swan in Windsor.
My OH had the good sense to pre-book both beforehand, thereby obtaining a reduced fee for the cab and the certainty of finding a reasonable place to stay in an area that has always been known for its dependence upon tourism (at least since Prince Albert’s death) and the elevated prices that follow on from such a source of income.
Feeling a little smug when I saw the rates for the hire of a cab at the Airport Booking Centre, after collecting our luggage from the conveyor belt in Arrivals, and, having waited in the area in arrivals that one would logically think taxi-drivers would make for to pick up their fares, I began to feel both increasingly vindicated, but also disconcerted, as the minute hand ticked from ten before the appointed rendezvous time to ten, twenty and thirty after it became more apparent that the taxi was not going to turn up.
I became concerned that we were obviously going to have to succumb to a regular taxi.
After several enquiries and telephone conversations that culminated in something I rarely see; that is, my OH raising her voice to pitch loud enough to make anybody within 60 meters turn their head to see what the racket was about as she loudly explained to the controller of the cab company via her mobile(who, if the same character that I had spoken to ten minutes previously on a fixed line at the airport Help Desk) sounded like some Rasta in the throes of imbibing profoundly in one of the habits that the culture is famous for, that she and made the booking with the company and received confirmation that the taxi would be there via email, and, that it would perhaps be more profitable for the company concerned if they were to send an email informing people whose payments had not cleared that this was the case, rather than a confirmation of the pick-up.
Any vindication that I felt was probably due to a profound belief that I have of ‘Don’t buy a pig in a poke’ principles that I had voiced to my OH when she had booked the taxi being demonstrated. Sort of a misdirected Schadenfreude.
What can you do?
Eventually, after much consternation, we ordered another taxi. Although I noted that it was nearly double the price of the one previously ordered, it did in fact get us to our next destination (albeit with the aid of a sat-nav) where we would be spending the next week.
For myself, the journey to Windsor (where I had spent some early formative years of my life) was a weird experience. Although it was dark, and, nearly forty years separated me from the time when I knew the area we were in like the back of my hand, I was well aware of our position, but something extraordinary seemed to have happened.
Large tracts of land that had once been open countryside, were now covered with new constructions. These were connected by freshly built motorways and upgraded main roads. What on earth had allowed such a thing to happen? The driver took us via some new road that looked just like all the rest to me. Was this the road to nowhere?…
Eventually we reached Stains, where years ago, one would have got on the A308. It was at this point that I regained some sense of normality as we left the surreal landscape; my recognition of my surroundings having returned. I suppose that this was when I saw that the river was to the right of us at about the position the virtual map in my mind told me that Egham lie some miles to our left. As we drew into Old Windsor, I could see that it had morphed into something larger and more flashy than it was and I thought that perhaps the powers that be should rename it. Seeing as they seem to have renamed half the world that I grew up in.
After living with French hospitality for nearly half of the time I since I had last seen the area around us,about 15 years beforehand, it seemed as though it might be The Recession, a term that I seem to hear more these days, or something else that I couldn’t put my finger on.
It might have just been me being locked in a time warp.
The taxi dropped us outside The Swan at Clewer. It was a cold night, and, due to the lack of normal business procedure being adhered to when my OH had first booked a taxi on-line,vis-a-vis confirmation of booked taxi when it was not, we were left without sufficient cash to cover the additional cost of hiring the cab. Luckily, we did not have to take out a mortgage but it was essential that we find a cash dispensing machine. The town centre was more than a mile away but the driver told us that there was an ATM at a garage just around the corner to where the pub was.
My other half went of in search of said machine and I chatted to the driver, who although an immigrant, had been in the UK for over twenty years. I seem to remember that the subject of the conversation that we had been the recent influx of people from former regions of what had been part the so-called Soviet Union. I was overtaken by a certain sense of wryness as I listened to the way the driver described the hard times that the Poles/Lithuanians/Rumanians/Hungarians etc. (pick your own target) were causing by their undercutting the market and in doing so were ruining the economy.
On my OH’s return she paid the driver off and we made our way to the entrance of the pub just in time for us to meet the sole occupant of the Public Bar of The Swan staggering merrily down the pavement.
We entered the bar that he had just vacated to find it empty even though it was only about 21.30. It appeared that Business was not booming. The landlord’s son showed us to our room and the landlord’s partner told us that her husband would take our suit-cases up later.
Although our room was larger than many I have stayed in and its tired décor did not bother me, it had all the ambience of a cold-meat store, but, our options were severly limited, in fact there was no viable option, and so we returned to the bar for a nightcap.
The landlord, who had by now returned, asked us what we would like. I think I ordered half of bitter and my OH had a whiskey. Before I was able to remark about the temperature of the room the, barman, who was also the landlord, explained that there were problems with the central heating but he would put an electric heater in our room as an interim measure. With that assured my OH and I engaged a spot of conversation about what we would do on the morrow.
To be continued.
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