Euro cows

The following is by the boy. It's his homework but North and South thought it deserved a wider circulation. So we doubled the readership by putting it here. Matt is away.

Memories are like movies. For me the ones from last week and the week before are mostly as clear as glass. Much like the HD movies of today. Older memories become cloudier and cloudier the further back you go until you can only get tiny snippets of them, such as your 4th birthday when your Granddad bought you a bike or when you first went on a plane to Spain. These are the memories that make us as people. Everyone has different memories, so everyone is different.

Holiday 2003
Eight countries in a week. Well, eight days to be exact. Eight years old as well. Me, my older step-sister and my younger brother are all eight years in age apart. My siblings didn’t go on this holiday. It was just me, my Dad, and his best mate.

We took the Euro-tunnel from Folkestone to France. My dad and X had several hours driving ahead before the next stop. They both used to work for Euro-camp. The tales they told of French girls and Pastis were the cause of much side-glancing and laughter. But they are experienced drivers, they know the language and they know the roads well too.

I’m here now looking at the old photos of this trip. I'm much smaller, of course, cuter, if that is the word and Dad; he’s not grey.

I'm thinking back to the time in Germany, a petrol garage. Just a routine stop. I specifically remember this because it was very strange. Mega-Bubble Bum-Bum was the name of the chewing gum. I called X and Dad over, they laughed aloud. We bought a pack, still laughing all the way to the till. The German lady looked at us funnily; I remember that well, the eyes, questioning what we were all giggling about.
The gum was shaped as a cigarette. The hilarity increased. “What sort of gum called Mega-Bubble Bum-Bum is shaped like cigarettes!” was the question we were asking. I remember this maybe too well as it probably doesn't mean much to somebody reading this. But for me this was one of the defining aspects of this holiday.

Switzerland, the best hotel we’ve stayed in so far. I had the Playstation Portable with me. ‘Abe’s Oddesy’, a game that you could play for hours, was the game I was on. I remember the sounds from this game much better than the images. “Yo yo yo yo yo” was what the avatar would say when you wanted to move an object with telekinesis. ‘Abe’, the protagonist moved back and forth across his futuristic landscape.

My room looked out on the beauty of the Alps. The slopes, crags, rock faces and snow covered peaks were stunning. The mountains could see everything. I remember looking to these mountains before I went to sleep, they compelled me. The sheer difference between this and what I was used to in Ipswich and London was the thing that got me. Clean and fresh, yes, a toothpaste ‘ad’ spectacular.
Luxembourg. People laugh at Luxembourg. Dad and X didn’t. They already knew the city. I reckon if you grew up there you would always be OK. Not a great recommendation I know. Even though Luxembourg is an incredibly small country, it’s a wealthy place. Safe and secure. It fits snugly between France, Germany and Holland. We’d crossed those borders before.

For some unknown reason there were cows everywhere. Not real ones, but big, life sized ones painted in seriously bright colours. They were just stood around the city randomly. You could touch them but there were signs in French and German saying ‘Do not sit on this cow!’ I remember dad and X laughing. They were always laughing. That night we stayed at Victor’s, X’ friend’s house. He never explained the cows. Thank God. Really nice chips and chocolate. It’s true about Belgium. We indulged there, especially on chips, and high on carbs we took the motorway back through to France, heading home.

Austria and Poland are snippets that are missing from this memory. I know we went there, but like the bits of movies that disappear.......

Guêpe

Luxembourg isn’t famous for much. It is the world’s last ‘Grand Duchy’ and, when I was working in Europe, was the place to go for cheap fags. It has no air force or navy and the army numbers a mere 800. I reckon I could take them on given the help of a few mates. It might be worth thinking about actually.

I ran the fuel right down whilst on the way up to Luxembourg so that I could take advantage of fuel prices that are a bit lower than France. I pulled into one of those massive motorway service stations where you fill up, get back into the car and then drive through a payment booth. Since I was on the wrong side we had got into a routine where my girl paid as I pulled up as close as I could so that she wouldn’t have to stretch her little arms too far.

I got out and waited for the fuel to be released and stood at the back of the car generally minding my own business. I was only vaguely aware of my girl getting out of the car and stooping down to pick up the squeegee in the bucket that Europeans actually fill up for drivers’ convenience. The next thing I heard was an ‘ooooh’ and went over to find my girl holding her hand and looking like she’d picked up some crap or something. “What’s up?” I asked, expecting her to say that she’d got a splinter from the handle. “Boooooooooooo Hooooooooooooooo waaaaaaaaaaaaaaa” was accompanied by lots of pointing and the phrase “Bastard wasp”.

Now, I know I should have sprung into first aid mode but the car was empty and we had to drive through the payment queue anyway so I figured that I ought to fill up and then sort it. That was my first mistake. My second mistake was to assume she’d be able to pay. “ How can I pay?” she cried, through gritted teeth and moans so loud that everyone around was sure we’d had a row and I’d hit her or something worse. I paid while she asked between sobs “Am I going to die?”

We went into the service area and I found the first aider. I tried to explain what had happened but my French doesn’t stretch to the word for 'wasp' or, for that matter to the word for ‘stung’. So there I was trying to explain that she’d been “hit on the hand by an insect which is yellow and black” but this was taking too long. “WASP,” rasped this person that I n o longer recognised “Fucking WASP….why don’t these people understand English?” The women started to pour vinegar on the sting while the patient sobbed uncontrollably.

A moment later I swear I saw a shaft of sunlight shine through a gap in the clouds as an indistinct but melodious choir of angels did that ‘aaaah haaa’ thing they do (supposedly). A woman appeared, trailing four angelic, almost identical blond children. She claimed to be Dutch but, of course, we know that she had come from a better place. “I have an anti wasp and sting removal kit,” she said. From her bag she produced this odd contraption and sucked the poison from the sting. “You are not going to die.” The sobbing subsided and my kudos rating improved as the day wore on and the pain wore off.

Luxembourg maybe an inconsequential anomaly but, for me and my girl, it is Europe’s seat of infamy, forever to be associated with pain and panic and an insect that is black and yellow.