Moments in time in the life of LB

After crying our tears for Pannayiotis and Georgos on the ferry from Crete to Brindisi, Katrine and I still had to make our way back to France with not much money left in the piggy bank. We were young, penniless and always ready for adventure!!

Just outside the Port area of Brindisi we were picked up in a combi with 3 gorgeous olive skinned dark greasy haired Italian studs; those kind that wind the windows down, stick tanned elbows out rested on the window sill of the car and half the face hanging outside to allow the wind to blow their hair back in the breeze!! We needed a lift out of Brindisi to the main highway on the road aimed for the north. It was already late afternoon and we didn’t have money to stay in the centre of town. These hunks drove us around stopping every now and then to chat and definitely some wheeler dealing was taking place. As it got darker we started getting a little nervous and eventually in our scarred voices we insisted that they drop us off with our bags. We were not into nonsense you know!! They drove around a while longer and dropped us on a large grassy patch with our bags. Headlights blazing all around and lots of traffic noise!! Ohh for a quiet sleep on a beach with only the sound of waves!!

We took out the ground sheet, slept in our sleeping bags and woke up in the morning in the middle of six highways and pantechnicon trucks going every which direction!! We jumped up very quickly and had our thumbs out in no time. Chewing gum as teeth cleaning facilities were non existent!! A big truck stopped and this time a kindly gentleman did take us 100 km’s out of town and put us on the right highway headed up north!!

In no time our thumbs out, a zooty black Alfa Romeo skidded to a halt to offer us a lift. He was going to Monza way up north and was happy to give us a lift. This Italian was afflicted with short shit syndrome in a flashy car and drove us 900km’s in half as many hours. If that car exists today you will definitely still find teeth marks on the dash board and finger nail marks on either side of the leather seats on the front passenger side. Unbeknown to us it was the weekend of the Monza grand prix and this young man did not want to miss out on any action. In fact I think he thought at times along that road that he was practising for his debut ride!! We did get there in one piece and alive to tell the tale. I don’t remember how we got in without paying. Maybe our Italian stallion had something to do with it!! We watched some rounds being raced on the race track, scored a checkered flag and late afternoon after an African wash in the basin in the toilet we decided that it was time to move on and continue with our journey to France. This time we kept our thumbs to ourselves and used the checkered flag to grab the attention we sought and a lift out of town.

You would have thought we had learned our lesson by this time. Once again we got into a car with a few young Italians and asked to be dropped on the road to France. Once again these young men drove around and around gesticulating as only Italians know how and talking loudly amongst themselves and even stopping a few times in the streets talking to different people. In times like these I often wondered if I disappeared at that point would there be any one who would recognise a picture of me and be able to tell someone where and when they last saw me alive!!

Katrine and I obviously had a talent in those days and it was to sound convincing enough to get these drivers to drop us off with our bags unharmed.

This time they drove around and eventually dropped us off in a dark secluded place with no lights or buildings in sight and dirt roads. We walked a little way feeling in the dark but decided it was just no use. Out came our ground sheets and sleeping bags and that little pen knife to ward off the attackers later!! We heard cars come and go in the night and really thought that our car load of Italians would come back to do us harm. Maybe they couldn’t find us in that maize. In the morning we woke with the first suns rays and realised we were in a quarry type come rubbish dump area literally in the middle of nowhere and no idea which way to start walking out!!

Once again the good always comes after the bad and an old man driving a tip truck picked us up. He took us to a garage stop and bought us a coffee and croissant before dropping us on the highway headed for France.

We got a lift to a border town and after an hours haggling at the border post between Torino and Grenoble the French Gendarme finally let me through. My Visa for France had expired and I had to convince the good looking French officer without sexual favours I might add that my Irish passport was waiting for me at the Irish Embassy in Paris and that once obtained I would not have to worry about the visa in the South African passport I did not have!! He finally believed me and let us through!! In Grenoble Kathryn phoned her mom who organised a train ticket for us back to Paris where we arrived after our 2 month summer ordeal? Tanned, worn out and lucky to be safe and sound back home!!

I want a Shirley Valentine Holiday to Greece

My relationship with Shirley Valentine started long before they even realised they were going to do a movie!! It all started many many…many years ago in Paris early one morning. Armed with backpack and train ticket I made my way down to ‘le pressing’ to fetch my friend Katrine Boutillier ( she has apparently since married into the Manoukian fashion family!!). I knocked on her door and that woke her…she was not ready to leave!! I saw a packed bag and a few things on the floor and she asked whether I could fit them into my bag? You can imagine my response…
“Absolutely no ways, if you can’t fit in your bag you just leave it behind!!!”

We had an exciting train ride to Brindisi. Katrine fell madly in love twice at first sight with Italians she could not understand and cried buckets each time at her loss when they left the train!! I had to ask always for “toilette” and cigarette” for her because she couldn’t say it in English. These are the French words written on the page just for your info!!! Of course by the end of my train ride my French had improved by double after spending a year ‘au pairing’ in France. I had the joy of translating every conversation that we had in English into French so Katrine could understand!!

We had much fun on our island-hopping-on-a-shoe-string-holiday. We slept mainly on beaches with a little knife down the side of the sleeping bag just in case!!! We fell asleep to the sounds of the small waves hitting the sand and sometimes that sound on pebbled beaches. We took a donkey ride up Santorini and enjoyed the night life on Ios. We laughed at the English girls who were always bright pink at the end of their first day in the sun and laughed at the Irishmen who wore socks on the beach. Those were the good old days when you woke up in the morning, went for a beautiful swim, changed into something light, left the back pack leaning against a lone tree or bush somewhere and you wondered into town for the morning to find breakfast and shop and returned to find your back pack just as you left it!!

We finally made it to Crete, the large island to the South of all others!! We found Panayiotis and Georgos very quickly or they found us!! This time we both fell in love madly – sun, sea and sex were the order of the day in that order I might add!!!

Sometimes Panayiotis and Georgos would have a day off work and Katrine and I would jump on the back of their 125cc’s and be driven to exciting places around the island. Sometimes we hitched ourselves around the island and that did leave us once in a compromising position – on a beach who knows where down a long windy lane with an old man!!! We no speak Greek and he no speak English but a common understanding of “take off your clothes and come swim with me” – had he been a Greek Adonis – who knows but he was just a dirty old man. Katrine and I looked at each other – absolutely no ways – we shook our heads vehemently and he promptly dropped our bags out his car - thank you very much for your thoughtfulness - and left us standing there with a long walk back to civilisation!!!

We finally had to leave Panayiotis and Georgos and make our way back to France. Buckets were cried of course from both of us this time as we caught the ferry back to Brindisi with absolutely no more cash and promises to return soonest!!!

I did return to Greece the following year much to the horror of the now ex boyf who had taken me 24 months earlier to Mykonos restaurant in Durban to break plates before I left!!! I of course had to go back and find Georgos who was now spending a little time in Northern Greece just after my Christmas trip home. I went to Khalkidhiki and skied in Mount Athos. I think it took me three hours to ski down my first slope without a lesson and no clue what I was supposed to do. I spent most of that time with bum in the snow and legs in the air – now I know what you are thinking but it wasn’t that at all. The only way to zigzag down the mountain and turn that corner was plop down in the snow and swivel me legs in the air to the right direction before getting back on my skis till the next turn.

We returned to Crete at the start of the summer and I found a job on a tour bus accompanying tourists from French and English speaking countries and a few Italians on a 5 day tour round the island of Crete each week. I loved that job and the people I met. I worked with Georgos the bus driver. I partied hard and worked hard but by the end of the summer I realised that lots of other girls had also come back to find their Georgos. Sometimes he was my not so dark Georgos and sometimes he was another Georgos but yearly visits from European and Scandinavian girls leaving husbands and boyfriends behind to find their Georgos seemed to me the norm. I laughed when I heard young foreign girls stop Greeks in the street and they would plead.

“I’m looking for Georgos. He has black hair and a moustache. I met him last night!!!! Half the males on the Island were called Georgos, they had black hair and a moustache!!!

This time when I do my Shirley Valentine trip to Greece I will most definitely not be looking for Georgos but hey what about Yannis… Dimitri…