Life's A Journey, Just Don't Travel With Us

As my friends will testify, there are two types of story that I consider my specialty due to extensive experience in both areas.

1. Navigational Nightmares
2. Soiling Situations

Today will focus on the former and was also the day of Accountant’s Uncle’s 75th Birthday Party in Kent. My last words to Accountant before we left were, “print a map off”. Accountant’s last words to me before we left were, “I don’t need one. I know where it is”.

Seven years of multiple misplacements have taught me that his confidence was just the first misplacement of this particular journey. Seven years have also taught me to keep quiet and pack for the long haul. As I nestled a bottle of water into my survival pack, next to the motion sickness pills, emergency flares and toilet roll, I wondered how long I'd be trapped in the car this time.

It was doubtful it would beat the 5 hours we spent driving up and down the same road trying to locate our accommodation in Spain which we’d selected for it’s close proximity to the airport. Or the 4 hours that it took me to cover the 45 minutes it usually takes to get from Tunbridge Wells to Crawley. Or the time Lauren and Lee followed us to Brighton, as we were local, taking a fun filled 1½ hours to travel 11 miles.

Yes, when it comes to getting lost, Accountant and I are brilliant. When it comes to bickering, Accountant and I are also brilliant.

That’s why a fly drive around New England on our honeymoon was especially ridiculous. It was all going swimmingly until the day we drove from Cape Cod to Vermont. A journey anticipated to take five hours. A journey that took ten.

Accountant was dubious in the face of my claims that the dirt track we had to switch into four wheel drive to negotiate was in fact the interstate we were looking for. Adamant that I was right although slightly unnerved by the burnt out cars and Blair Witch style surroundings, I prayed we weren't off roading to our chainsaw induced deaths. After half an hour of repeated checking of my wing mirror to ensure the sinister looking jogger we passed wasn’t clinging to the bumper wielding an axe, I was beginning to accept that I may have made a slight misjudgment. On closer inspection of the map, I did happen to notice that the ‘Goshen’ I’d directed us towards was actually in a different state.

That said, it’s not always me. There was the time Accountant arranged a surprise trip to France. The arguments began the moment we arrived and I discovered Accountant was travelling map-less opting for complete reliance on his finely honed navigational intuition. Each subsequent wrong turn, of which there were many, provoked loud huffing, tutting and muttered insults.

When we finally arrived at our accommodation, via Belgium, communication stopped. The rose clad, quaint French pensione with wrought iron balcony and black shutters that I had imagined awaited our arrival and would give Accountant the necessary brownie points lost for forgetting the map, was replaced by a concrete multistoreyesque monstrosity. Glancing at Accountant through slitted eyes, we and our luggage deposited ourselves into the foyet.

Two French ladies looked up. Accountant, now in a foul, foul mood, spared the niceties and shouted loudly, “Reservation Ruby”. Two confused French ladies looked back. Accountant, highly skilled in the art of international relations, repeated and shouted louder, “R-E-S-E-R-V-A-T-I-O-N R-U-B-Y”. Two French ladies smirked back and said, “Non Monsieur. C'est l'hôpital.”

Accountant looked confused. The two French ladies could hold back their mirth no longer and neither could I. “It’s the local hospital” I explained slowly and ever so slightly smugly to a scowling Accountant. Finding it difficult to walk for laughing, I sat on the steps outside watching Accountant’s embarassed silhouette stomp off into the distance. Lucky for us, our hotel was positioned right behind the hospital. A dream location. More arguing followed.

Accountant felt I should be grateful that he had arranged anything at all whilst I felt staying at a Hotel Ibis on an Industrial Estate behind the local hospital on a motorway was testament to the fact Accountant didn’t know me at all and our whole relationship needed immediate re-appraisal.

Thankfully, it was a short trip despite being made hours longer when Accountant drove through the biggest pothole in France whilst gauking at another motorist on our way home. When the tyre went pop, whilst another nail in the "weekend from hell" coffin, we thought it was just a case of putting the spare tyre on. That was until we met the locking wheel nut that required a special, yet absent, tool to remove it.

Not covered by international roadside assistance, Accountant spent the next hour shouting at the French lady the British RAC had put us in contact with trying to explain that we were on a roundabout somewhere near the Eurotunnel.

Another hour passed of which I had spent a frenzied 20 minutes trying to position various pieces of newspaper and clothing around the windows of the car to create a now desperately needed private toilet area. Thwarted at every turn and increasingly worried about the curious glances of other motorists using the roundabout and my pulsating bladder, I was forced to seek refuge down the adjacent embankment. I chose to ignore the busy motorway just 300 metres away, hoping the passengers wouldn't notice the girl squatting in the grass with her tights round her ankles.

An hour and a half after our puncture, help arrived. A French mechanic, despatched by the lady on the phone, who had obviously been told an Englishman had got a puncture and was too stupid to fix it (not far wrong). French mechanic didn’t have the special tool to remove the safety nut either. French mechanic left, grunting that he’d return. A further one and a half hours passed - no F.M.

In the meantime, a fellow Englishman stopped to offer his assistance. Explaining our predicament, we waited for him to leave as all the others had before him. Instead, he reached into our glove compartment, where it transpired locking wheel nut removers are kept. Feeling that Accountant should perhaps have known this little gem of information about his vehicle, my mood darkened, crossing from severly pee'd off to simmering, stewing fury.

We didn't speak on the journey back to Eurotunnel Terminal to catch our much later than planned train home. Armed with a hot drink and bubbling resentment, we sat in silence in the car awaiting our departure and an end to the relationship.

When called to embark, Accountant shifted into first gear, driving forwards out of the space. The only problem being the big, fat dividers intended to stop people driving forwards out of the space. As we ricocheted backwards, the jolt was such that my very hot, hot chocolate leapt out of it's cup landing in my lap, burning both thighs and leaving an attractive, steaming wet patch in my crotch. That's when crying seemed like the only thing left to try. And cry I did, most of the way home, which took an hour longer due to the spare wheel restricting our speed to 50mph.

I also cried when Accountant arranged a special weekend away for us in Cornwall.

St Ives actually - a 7 hour drive when you arrive home late from work on a Friday night despite saying you were taking a half day. I took the pre-agreed half day and spent it waiting for Accountant. Another bad start to a long, long journey.

We arrived in St Ives at 11pm Friday night.

We left at 10am Sunday morning.

A 12 hour round trip, whilst pregnant, for one day's sightseeing in St. Ives. I should mention, I've been twice before.

Oh, and we were half an hour late for John’s Birthday. “This looks like the right road”. “May be not” “Let’s try this one”. “No, not this one either”.

That said, his heart is always in the right place despite our always being in the wrong one. x