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Europe
2004
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On our way to St
Omer - we stopped to say hello to some friendly cows, but they turned out to be
a load of bullocks!
The
run up to St Omer for our last nights stay was pretty
unmemorable...............Except for the fact the GPS took us to the wrong St
Omer! We had to laugh....no really we had to - it was hysteria! Bleedin'
GPS! When
we arrived at the Hotel Buffet du Rail
in the real St Omer, we wished we'd stayed at the other
one. Let's just say it was "Basic". There was a sign in the bog of
each room, written in French ( well, we were in France so we'll forgive them for
that ) It roughly translated as:
"Please do not put your used bog paper into the
pan. Wipe, then wrap what's left of the turd that's hanging from your arse on the bog paper and put it in the
cheap plastic bin provided".
Now this
was all very well, but I couldn't help wondering how the hell anyone would cope after a good
Chicken Jalfrezi the night before. Not terribly hygienic really. I didn't
give a shit (no pun intended) there was no way that my bodily waste products
were getting wrapped in paper and then sitting festering in a plastic pedal bin
all night. Nope! I did what all civilised people the world over would do
( t'was gonna get lobbed out of the window but I thought better of that) I
flushed it down the pan. .............!!
............Jeez was that a mistake? The waste pipe was
obviously too small to take anything bigger than rabbit crap, and yanking the
chain was the start of a race as to whether the bowl would overflow before the
bog stopped flushing, and believe me it was touch and go for a while. I only
just got away with it, one size up on turd dimensions or another sheet of
paper and I've have needed a snorkel, mask and flippers.
There was a pattern beginning to emerge here, I mean just how much hard luck can
one bloke have with the toilets of the world? I suppose really this hotel was probably the worst one we'd stayed in on the trip, in fact I think it was
the worst hotel I've ever stayed in full stop. It was just a bit....well, mucky really!
Our hotel at St
Omer, which also doubled as the station buffet & bar -- and local
knockin' shop!
After
dumping the bikes and luggage the hotel, we went off in search of some food and
beer - but not necessarily in that order. Big mistake! With riding all day
and ending up at the wrong St Omer we were quite thirsty, so the lure of a small
bar selling ice cold lager was just too much for us to bear and we toddled
in. After several beers on an an empty stomach I think it's fair to say I
was getting pretty well pished when Dez decided to get up and go look for some
pressies to take home for his lads. 15 minutes later he was back with a couple
of BB pellet guns, so Jack and me thought what a great idea - we'll go get some
BB guns too for our lads! Now to tell you something about myself - I hate
guns with a passion, so I must have been pretty well oiled to actually out and
go buy one. Also, the mogies in our neighbourhood rued the day I ever did
- there weren't many that escaped a pellet up the arse when I got home and gave
my lad his nice pressy! There's another gun story I'll tell you about
later!
Happy Jack in the square at St Omer - there's guns in them there
bags. Men, we attack Rock
Ridge at Dawn.....Here are your badges"
"Badges? Badges?.....We don't need no stinkin' badges!"
Dez was chuffed to mintballs to find a drink with the same name as his bike. He's easily pleased is our
Dez.
So
that's it for our Euro trip, Tomorrow we head for
the ferry at Calais to take us back home to the land of bad service,
potholed roads and traffic jams - sigh!. And next year we head for....................What?
Oh!
The gun story? Pete didn't
come with us to St Omer, instead he went off to spend the night with his brother and family who live somewhere nearby. That meant he knew nothing of the guns.
When he turned up at the ferry terminal the following morning, we asked him if he had any room in his top box for the pressies we'd bought our lads. Being a kindly obliging sort of chap he said, "Sure loads." So we put the guns in his top box and he brought them through customs for us. I'm sure he'd have seen the funny side of it if he'd been caught.
When he came to passport control the guy asked Pete if he was British, "Of course I'm British" he said (think of a slightly more camp Dale Winton with a cob on and you'll be about right) "Can you take your helmet off for me then please?" Pete takes off helmet, guy looks at him and says , "Yewach, put it back on again mate"
Next year: Spain, Scotland and Europe. Still to come this year, Andorra and yet another run North of the Border.
Back at the Ferry terminal at Calais - just realised how sexy those pipes looked
on my old Beemer!