Nothing (much) To Report

OK, so it’s high time I wrote about just how the hell I got out of Russia on a *very* expired visa. I was scouring the internet when I was in this predicament, and couldn’t find anything of any use other than “you’re fucked matey”. So…for anyone in the same boat - this is how I did it:

First of all - I should mention that I *did* go through all hoop-jumping process of applying for residency permission - it’s just that the system is such an arse there that it’s practically impossible to actually get anywhere with regards to submitting paperwork of any kind to your local friendly police station. I’d also overstayed a previous visa and had to get an exit visa and so forth, so when I approached them for a second exit visa they told me to naff off - the only way out of the country after over-staying a visa by such a long time (a number of months *cough*) was to be deported! And I should count myself lucky that they didnt start deporting procedures there and then. (Basically they were going to count to 10 and hope I wasn’t still in the office, nice bloke really Mr Shtompel)

Shit. This was my first thought. An expired Russian visa is not a good thing to have. There must be a way out without getting deported from Russia and then subsequently banned from re-entering for 5 years. So my thoughts then turned to other countries surrounding Russia - because if you can just get across the border - you’ll be OK I thought to myself.

Belarus seemed to be the most simple option to get out, but of course I’d need a Belarussian visa to enter Belarus. This would have been impossible as it would mean taking my passport to the Belarussian embassy who I thought would take one look at it and have me booted out of the country. Finland also seemed like a good option, but it was a far too busy route and by that I mean it was popular and likely to have well-guarded border crossings. Then it came to me: Ukraine! It was almost poo-pooed because of the need for visas there, but luck would have it that they won the Eurovision Song Contest and would be hosting it during the summer of 2005. They’d suspended visas for that time for EU Nationals. Ohhhhhh yes. The plan was starting to come together.

So I queued up, booked my ticket on an overnight train to “Chop” on the border of Ukraine and Hungary (much cheaper than booking a ticket straight through to Budapest - Russia doesn’t class Ukraine as abroad). At first I bought just a standard ticket - but on the recommendation of a friend I queued up again and changed it to “soft class” becuase the guards are less likely to go in the posher carriages, apparently. They usually just hassle Ukrainians in the normal carriages going home for having no registration etc etc.

The day finally came. It was a Saturday night - which I thought would be the best night to cross the border (visions of guards being too drunk to care or what not). I packed up my stuff, not knowing if or when I would be coming back to Russia. That was very hard deciding what to take - this was a very unexpected need to return to Blighty. I changed about 200 quids worth of roubles in to dollars (just incase the guards needed “persuading” to let me go) and headed for Kievsky train station.

Tears were rolling down my face as it hit me that this could be the last time I see Moscow for a very long time, but I had one last hurdle to get through - the line of Moscow militsia checking people getting on the train. Luckily, a group of dark-skinned people caught their attention and they hassled them instead and I slipped past without notice (unlike the first time my paperwork was out of date, and I spent a happy half hour in the cells denying that I spoke any Russian)

The next few hours on the train were painfully tense and incredibly hot. The carriage was nice and in it already was a very nice Ukrainian chap who I asked not to tell the train supervisors that I wasn’t Russian. And when they did come along the train asking for nationalities - Ukrainian and Russian came the reply from our carriage…somehow I got away with it. I don’t know what they do with this information, but I did think that it would draw the attention of the border guards if they found out that there was a Brit girl on board.

Whale was sat back in Blighty getting a torrent of texts as I was heading towards the border, on the top bunk trying to stay calm. I think she may well have been as tense as I was, as the train guard banged on all the carriage doors to wake us up for the border crossing.

Looking out of the window at the display outside I saw that our train wasn’t due to leave the border for 45 minutes. This was bad news. 45 minutes, I thought would be plenty of time checking the whole train. On the next platform was a Ukrainian train, waiting to enter Russia and I could see guards in *every* carriage. This did not help my already fast beating heart. 45 Minutes felt like forever and there were all kinds of banging and shouting from the guards…at one point I heard guards entering our train carriage at the far end. That was it - the game was up I thought. And then - silence. Followed by the train very very slowly moving.

I didn’t even dare look out of the window as we left the border, as the Ukrainian guy said that there were in fact 2 stops on the border - once for customs, and once for passports. I just led there, in the dark waiting for the train to stop again. I think at least 1/2 hour passed and the dark landscape gave no clue as to where I was.

In fact the next time the train stopped, I looked out of the window and saw……….border guards wearing yellow and blue! Now *this* is when I jumped off the top bunk, and starting woo and yaying - I was definately in Ukraine! I was free! If I could have bottled that feeling, I could sell it for thousands. Finally - no more looking over my shoulder. I was no longer an illegal immigrant

When the rather dashing Ukrainian border guard entered our carriage - he did a double take on my passport and called out to his mate “We’ve got a British one in here!” He looked through all my Russian visas and stamps, looked at me, looked at the visa I entered Russia on, looked at me again and it was then that he knew just why I was on that train. He asked if I knew about Ukrainian visas - so I repled that I currently didnt need one. Thank the lord for the Eurovision! He then decided to take my passport off the train and disappeared with it. I knew there was nothing they could do - I was on Ukrainian soil, not Russian. He returned 10 minutes or so later and stamped my passport with “3 days only” which was fine, as I’d be out of Ukraine by the next day. Not sure of what reception I’ll get if I go to Ukraine again, but I will never forget the joy at seeing the colours yellow and blue

If anyone is currently stuck in Russia in a similar position, please contact me and I will try and offer some advice!

[edit - Ukraine scrapped the need for visas for all EU citizens in Sept 05 (I think) following a sucessful pilot during the Eurovision. *cough* Not entirely helped by Moosh using their country to sneak through ]

-moosh

Tags: Russia, Russian visas, Russian trains, Expired Russian visas, Border crossing

One day last November, I was asked if I believed in ghosts. I answered no, but I’m kind of willing to investigate the possibility of them, so I got given a “ghost hunting” voucher for my birthday/Christmas present. I’d eventually booked the event for this Saturday night past; I’d put it off due to not wanting to freeze my arse off in some remote part of the country, no danger of that happening anywhere at the moment. Everyone I spoke to beforehand was very excited for me, those same peeps have sounded somewhat disappointed with my report back to them. Clearly I have friends who are believers. And that’s the thing about the whole phenomenon. If you are a believer, then nothing in the world is going to dissuade you from thinking that that sound was something paranormal, or a spirit is in contact with you. And likewise if you happen to be sceptical about it all. Absolutely nothing happened to change my mind, thus I’m still highly sceptical.

I don’t know what I was expecting apart from something suspicious being emitted from the mouth of the medium, which I definitely got. And as I knew about the Fox sisters, I have never bought into the whole “please knock once for yes…” thing. I’ve had to put some of experiences into context of how I was feeling: I’d only had approx three hours sleep in the last twenty-four; I had several large mugs of coffee during my waking hours proceeding events, including a very strong coffee shortly before arriving at the location which caused unnerving heart palpitations; the ambient temperature was very warm in all the rooms we went into, also, when you stuff a number of bodies into fairly small rooms it’s rises a little more, as do the carbon dioxide levels - stuffy rooms and I don’t mix. (Many years ago, I had to be helped out of chemistry lesson in which we were only sat down copying stuff off the blackboard, as I was loosing the plot and about ready to faint. If someone had opened a window I’d have been fine and wouldn’t have gotten sent home.)

There were eighteen of us in all, twelve peeps doing the thing and five “staff” members. They were all mostly believers, so anything and everything was automatically paranormal for them. A couple of those taking part could be described as “sensitives”, and there was even one guy from Gloucester! Pah! If I’d known that I could’ve gotten a lift off of him, and not from my friend who’d given me the voucher. Instead, we spent quite a while getting lost trying to found a pub that served food at five-thirty in the Oxfordshire countryside. It stated on the booking letter that I was sent, that I had to turn up by quarter to seven. At six forty, I rang the number on the ticket to inform someone that I was going to be a tad late, my friend and her friend had decide they wanted needed pudding, and I had my final coffee of the day, really wished I hadn’t later on. We found the farm at ten past seven, and lo and behold! I’m the first there! No one else turned up till at least seven thirty, so I took some pictures and made a friend of a cat. Didn’t once talk to the guy from Gloucester - when I mentioned this bloke to my friend when she picked me up in the morning (she got at five to drive from Stonehouse to Waterperry, yes, she’s a very good friend!) she made the sorta noise she usually does when she smells the possibility of a match-making opportunity, so I had to very quickly add about the non-communication.

We sat around, introduced ourselves and how we came to be there before the medium gave a physic workshop, in which we first had draw someone in the room. I haven’t done any drawing for a long, long time which was self-evident from my attempts, the face I kept trying to capture of the girl sat opposite me repeatedly starting turning into something of a alien face, so I gave up and kinda cheated by drawing the person behind her, the fact that I could only see his baseball cap, ear, top of his hoodie and nothing of his face had nothing to do with my decision. Then we meditated, with the help of the medium, to become aware of the spirits and to open up our minds. She was telling us to imagine travelling up in a lift and then walking out into place before meeting with and communicating with anyone we met. I didn’t even “travel” up. I kind of relaxed a bit and sunk into the comfy chair before abruptly stopping relaxing and letting my very concious mind question what on earth I was doing, and how tired I was feeling, if only she’d shut up I could properly relax. When we “came back”, we had to either draw the same person, or someone else, or whatever came to us, be it writing or drawing. Obviously nothing came to me, so I sat there and let my eyes unfocus on the ceiling and then the piece of paper. The paper stayed blank, as did my head. Others drew faces and doors and sensed red brick fireplaces, which just oh-so-coincidentally, were in the main house. During my zoning out, as I’ve often done when watching tele when knackered, the medium came over to me and said I “had a lot of people with me right now”. My aura was full of colour and she explained that I was possibly a good candidate for trance channelling. I nodded and said ok, and suppressed the need to laugh.

After this we got a bit of a walk around, first going upstairs to the bedroom of the cottage, then outside and up to the studio apartment, which was part of the same building. Unfortunately, I didn’t take any pictures of the building, which was clever of me. Those top rooms were baking, so the walk outside over to the main house was much appreciated, but the walk out to the orchard was even more blissful, even in the dark. We stood around a supposedly haunted apple tree - there was once a priory or something built there - holdings hands, whilst someone called out. Nothing happened as far as I could tell. Some felt a “presence” whilst others saw a swirling mist in the centre of the circle. Then after this rather pointless walk around with the medium, we got have a bit of food, as laid on by the owner. As I’d already eaten that evening - a cheese and leek burger courtesy of a local Harvester that we stumbled upon and the only place to serve food to us - I only had a little mouthful of couscous. Then came the introduction to the equipment, the motion detects and emf readers and such. Then we were split up into groups of four with at least one member of staff with us in each of the three locations.

The whole setup of a strange location with strange people sat around in the dark is always going to put one on edge, in my case it was the terrifying thought of embarrassing myself. I kept my mouth shut, not for fear of swallowing one of the many flies or moths in the buildings but because I felt a twit in calling out into the dark. And I resolutely refused to join in with any singing, again so as not to embarrass myself. It’s an even longer time since I’ve sung, especially in public. I didn’t see anything that could be considered anything other than the hallucination’s of a tired brain and eyes. Course, the believers won’t believe that and I’m not going to get into a discussion with anyone about the couple of flashes I saw out of the corner of my eye, nor the image of a skull that my mind created in the dark. And as for the noises in the bathroom immediately to my left, well….

http://pointless-pictures.blogspot.com/ 

On the ghost hunting nonsense t’other day, (of which I will tell all, soon-ish) several times various peeps were convinced they could periodically smell a floral scent in a few rooms, nothing specific apart from one person who smelt lily of the valley. I may have been quiet throughout the night, but I was busy keeping my eyes open and having a good look around me, even in the dark. I noticed many of these plug air fresheners, I’m guessing no one else did, and that perhaps the owner, who nodding and agreed with every “paranormal” sensation experience, had also forgotten what was in her own house.

What is with these horrible things? Why does everyone have to make their homes smell like something else? Ok, so wet dog or eau du fag end aren’t appalling aromas to hit you as you walk into your own or someone else’s home, but is pumping nasty chemicals of artificial scent really the best way of dealing with the situation? What about throwing away one’s hard earned, or not so hard earned, cash on fresh flowers? They look really nice and smell wonderful too, if you pick the right sort*. Far more cheering and environmentally friendly than electricity-sapping plug-ins, whether they puff or not, or sprays.

Air fresheners work in one of, or in a combination of, the following four ways:
1) by killing your ability to smell by way of a nerve-deadening chemical
2) by coating your nasal passages with an undetectable oily film
3) by covering up one smell with another
4) (rarely) by breaking down the offensive odor.

Ewww, this is just nasty:

Benzyl Alcohol — “…upper respiratory tract irritation, headaches, nausea and vomiting, a depressed central nervous system and a drop in blood pressure.”
Camphor— “On EPA’s Hazardous Waste List… readily absorbed through the body tissues…irritation of eyes, skin, nose, and throat…dizziness, confusion, nausea, twitching muscles and convulsions…avoid inhalation of vapors.”
Dichlorobenzene– “extremely toxic, a central nervous system depressant, kidney and liver poison. One of the chlorinated hydrocarbons that is long-lasting in the environment and is stored in body fat. Vapor irritating to skin, eyes and throat. Banned in California.”
Ethanol– “… derived from petroleum and is carcinogenic… toxic to the skin, respiratory, cardiovascular, developmental, endocrine, neurological, and gastrointestinal systems.”
Formaldehyde– “…toxic if inhaled, poisonous if swallowed, skin and eye irritant, carcinogenic…”
Limonene—“ …Carcinogenic, prevent its’ contact with skin or eyes because it is an irritant and sensitizer …always wash thoroughly after using this material and before eating or drinking…do not inhale limonene vapor”.
Naphthalene– “… a carcinogen that accumulates in our waters and marine life. It can be irritating to the skin, alter kidney function, cause cataracts, and is toxic (cardiovascular and developmental), especially to children. It can be poisonous if inhaled, swallowed, or absorbed through the skin.
Phenol– “…can cause skin to swell, burn, peel, and break out in hives … cold sweats, convulsions, circulatory collapse, coma and even death.
Pinene– “…Flammable. Incompatible with strong oxidizing agents. Eye, skin, & respiratory irritant. May be absorbed through skin…very destructive of mucous membranes.

both extracts from: http://www.mcs-global.org/Documents/PDFs/AirFreshenersAndPlug-Ins.pdf

*Course they’re not so great if they’ve travelled many, many miles to get to you, nor so if they’ve been produced in a way that is detrimental to the local environment, workers, etc, as is the case with the vast majority of cut flowers in this country.

“…shocking conditions in the cut flower industry in Africa and Latin America - workers’ health ruined by pesticides on intensive farms, women forced to stand in cold packing sheds snipping blooms for up to 18 hours at a time to meet western demand in peak periods, when everyone must have the exactly the same floral tribute on exactly the same day. It made brandishing a bouquet a worry.”

But then there are problems with the “better” alternative, as the above linked article goes on to explain. Clearly the best way is to grow your own flowers for cutting and enjoying inside your own home. Right, that’s just another ideal I’ve set for myself, another that will be procrastinated about. And now I’ve got another excuse to add to my list as to why I won’t buy flowers for those “special occasions” that are merely a marketing scam, i.e. Valentine’s/Mothers/Fathers/Grandparents/My Best Friend Day.

Righty…I suppose I should pick up where Whale left off I suppose.

But yeah, Brugge was so smashing. Chocolate shops as far as the eye can see, and lovely cobbled streets. And it just had this lovely smell - everywhere you went. I think the people of Brugge just smell nice or something.

So yeah, our limited time in Brugge was up. Much as we wanted to stay and sip Belgian beer - we had a ferry to catch!

Although there isn’t much traffic in Brugge itself there were very little signs to tell you where the hell to go. We were being jiggled all over the place on these lovely cobbles as we found ourselves actually driving towards the town centre. Gaaaah! We got to see quite a bit more of Brugge as we wound our way out (by following other cars that looked like they knew where they were going). We got stuck in traffic because there was a car accident on the main road heading away from Brugge towards the highway. We had Flemish radio on, and it probably told us all about the car crash…if we could only understand what they were saying. I, however was busy being impressed that my car stereo was telling me what song they were playing! Easy amused.

By now, time was ticking and all we could think about was getting our fill of Begian beer somewhere…but could we find a bloody supermarket? Not a chance! Belgium must have hid all it’s supermarkets that day. Not to worry, we thought - if I put my foot down, we’ve got time to nip into the Carrefoure at Calais. So thats what we do…we zip back along that big road between Belgium and France, childishly laughing at the town names on the way (they were funny though) and we left behind the beauty of Belgium and found ourselves back in the grimness that is: Northern France. I was actually hoping for some better “ta-da”ness when you move between Belgium and France…but it’s just one sign. Blink and you’ve missed it. I guess Europe really does have open borders.

Our trip was somewhat spolit on the way back, and to our surprise - the mellow Belgians actually turn into mad idiots on the road. I *assumed* that you couldn’t overtake on the right, so when I encountered someone going slower than I wanted them to, I just tootled along behind them hoping they’d pull over at some point. Aha, what I find to be the Belgian way of dealing with this is: tailgate *me* really dangerously for a good long while, pull into the right hand lane, pull back out into the gap between me and the slow guy in front, brake, then pull back into the right hand lane to undertake the slow guy. Well - I know what to do next time I’m there

We pass back along the road we had wizzed along earlier (past the signs for Dunkerque…me slinking in my seat for wasting so much time there on the way) and we’re soon back in Calais. Time is very much ticking. We (read I) missed the turning for Carrefoure….and we then realise we’re on one long straight road that only leads to the ferry! Gaaaah! We’ve missed the last chance to fill our car up to the brim with beer! We go through passport control, because we have to there’s nowhere else to go…and I notice a sneaky road to the right which would take us back to Carrefoure. I’m very much up for it…Whale looks at her watch, looks at me, looks at how much potential trouble we could be in, wheelspinning out past passport control…and says nah, we’d better not. And for a moment, I was tempted, but even I had to admit that it would be cutting it very fine. So we opted for the sensible option and quietly got in the queue for the ferry. Overexcited at this point, I have to get out, smoke a fag and go take a closer look at the ferry itself. I casually wander past all the port officals with my camera and actually manage to get pretty damn close to the ferry. Bonus! I then see them starting to load the cars onto the ferry and decide that it might be a good time to go back to the car at this point…which I do.

Driving onto the ferry this time was much easier than in the morning…the French guys doing all the pointing had totally fucked up and we actually had to reverse off the boat to try again, not much fun I can tell you! Anway, I figured out where the grumpy looking French men want me to park and we jump out of the car, eager to get a good seat in the bar.

We then proceed to spend a good 15 minutes doing what can only be descibed as faffing and sit down with a nice beer. I then realise I want to buy some “duty free” (my arse) and head off to the shop, which is again, flooded with about 3 coach loads of 11 year olds without the enough euros left to buy anything and completely incapable of speaking French to the staff on the boat. Now, I always like to at least *try* and speak the lingo on holiday. I didn’t have much success in not getting any ham in my omlette, but they could see that we were making the effort! In fact, I didnt hear one English person attempt to speak French on the boat to the staff…which was odd, becuase the staff only ever seemed to speak French with only a few words, begrudgingly spoken in English. Even though we really wanted something to eat on the boat (which is great for me, as I’m usually sick as a dog on a ferry - thank you Travella tablets!) there was not one thing that wasn’t ham or just plain shit….or have a queue of 50 english school children in. So our best option was to stay in the bar and eat when we got back to Blighty.

But first we had to make it back in the country…. Got back to the car, lovely lovely. Drove off the ferry - all good. Drove through an archway with lots of cameras on…ok, must be normal. Got through H M Customs (or so we thought) and had a little woo yay, becuase I’d never managed to get through a ferry terminal without being “probed”. It was then, our woo yay was proved to be premature. There was *another* line of H M Customs officals to get through. Now, Whale says it was my nervous humming that got us pulled over, but I have the feeling that they’re just out to get me. Nobody else from our ferry was pulled over, and we saw estate cars with boxes and boxes of wine stuffed into their boots so much so that the exhust was dragging - but no! They wern’t stopped. Just us. I’ve been stopped quite a few times at airports too, once noticably just before getting on a plane bound for Moscow by 2 strange men in very “normal” suits. Hmmmm.

Anway - the H M Customs guy suddeny yells “stop” at me and comes to ask some questions: “How long have you been out of the country” and “Where have you been”. Answering these seemed to get his suspisions aroused even further, because we were then directed into the (now familiar) side room for probing. Doors closed around us as 2 officals came to search the car and take our passports off us and quite frankly, asking some very nosy questions! I should probaly point out that I do have some quite unusual stamps in my passport due to my naughtiness in Russia (thats for another post) so it must have kept them amused for a little while. Not too much later, and perhaps a little disappointingly they let us go on our way.

My head was spinning so much after this that I ended up in a little car park on Dover docks instead of the main road…but I’m now seriously thinking that they have my card marked! The rest of the evening, passed without as much excitement, particularly as we chose Folkestone as the place to dine. Never have I seen a deader town with so many bouncers! We found the ONE place in town that was serving food and plonked ourselves there to enjoy microwaved bounty. Not being able to take anymore excitment, we skipped desert and went to dip our feet in the English Channel to round the day off. It was *very* refreshing.

I then just had the 3 hour drive back to Gloucester ahead of me. There were many times I had to have the window open and to slap myself in the face as the hypnotic effect of the motorway was taking it’s toll on me. Finallly I pulled up outside Whale’s house and unloaded her chocolate from the boot and tootled my way back to Stroud. There were a number of suicidal bunnies on the way back through the lanes, which did nothing for my jangled nerves as I had to jump on the brakes to avoid them. I think I got home almost 24 hours after I’d left and was so buzzed up when I got home that I couldnt sleep for ages…but when I did it was fantastic deep, chocolate enduced sleep.

The end.

-Moosh

Right, so, we did indeed go to Belgium. For those who have been on tenterhooks waiting to hear about our adventures I’m sorry this has been a while in coming. Not that anyone has been loitering around just to read this, but hey.

My alarm was set for the stupid time of four-thirty am and I woke up at four am. Which nice but also not. I didn’t panic about what I did and didn’t have to stuff into a bag as I’d already done all that the night before - I was brought up to panic the night before, and to pack an entire spare set of clothes, just in case. It turned out Moosh had done much the same thing, in terms of alarm setting and waking and bag organisation. And off we went…..to greet zombie’s along the way. Because they are the only people about on the roads at five am; no normal person would ever consider getting into a car to drive some place at that time of day. We made swift progress to Dover, with two stops, one at Reading t’other at Maidstone. On leaving the Maidstone services building entrance, Moosh was about to walk back to the car where she’d parked it in Reading, which would have meant a long wait beside the real car for me, and I would have never got to see lovely Bruges!

There were no problems with getting on the ferry and no problems whilst on the ferry. Unless you count sharing a hour and fifteen-ish Channel crossing with about four coach loads of first year/year seven, day-tripping school kids as troublesome, which I now do. Somehow, we’d managed to be one of the first vehicle’s off the ferry on the other side, which we got a little excited about, sad cows that we are. We positively zoomed off the ferry, once Moosh had restarted the car after stalling it and said goodbye to the surly French ferry personnel, and sped along that road, whatever it was called, out of Calais and onto Dunkerque. Kinda wished we hadn’t bothered now. The driving around Dunkerque to find the town centre, then to find somewhere to park took a lot longer then is good for a day trip, especially when you haven’t reached your intended destination yet.

For some reason Moosh followed an ambulance for a while, which took us, unsurprising, to the hospital, but not the city centre. But we got there eventually, I think. It’s hard to tell these days where a city centre is, everywhere is redeveloping the space they have to look like every other city centre. After some bizarre choices of turns and lane use we zipped into a multi story car park somewhere near the dock area. I say dock area cos that’s what it looked like, all redeveloped for the new holy gods of tourism and leisure. We soon discovered that our choice of free parking space was attached to a shopping complex. The reason we’d stopped in Dunkerque was to experience a proper French lunch. After a little tootling about in the sunshine and not being entirely sure of ourselves we plonked for a little café called erm, ah, I’ve no idea. Moosh might know though.

It was, now get this, very French. Oh yes! Now you weren’t expecting that. I had flashbacks to first year French - not understanding a sodding thing going on around me so instead I sit and say nothing and try and hide behind my book/desk. Which is pretty much what I did in this café but without the desk and only a very tiny table to perch at and a rather tiny but loud “Look At Me, I’m A Tourist!” book. I found no comfort contained within it, other than hiding form the obvious glares we were getting. Honestly, walking into to the place I could sense each and every one of the people sat outside were marking us as foreigners with no business doing there. I was, to say the least, out of my comfort zone. And cursing my lacking and mostly lost French knowledge.

The menu was a simple affair of mostly chips and/or ham. Once we’d (I lie and say we, cos it was Moosh who did all the ordering) negotiated two small beers, s’il vous plaît, we discussed the little menu. Moosh is a vegetarian, so she was trying to avoid the ham option. She tried to order the ham omelette without ham via not using the French word for without, instead it was a kinda of “Can I have the omelette but not with the ham” sorta thing. It didn’t work and she received a ham-smothered runny omelette. And I had ham and chips, with lots of mayo. French it was, impressive it wasn’t. Afterwards we tottered around in the baking sun briefly looking for a cash machine. Loaded with Euros we made a dash back to the car and out of this less than arresting place. No, we never got to see the beach or anything of historical importance, we had places to go.

We sped a little faster then the law would allow along that road some more. (I’ve no idea what the road is, but it’s dead easy to find on a map, so if you’re really curious or trying to avoid working, go seek.) After some time, we became aware that we might be getting nearer Bruges, the signs were saying so and the amount of traffic had increased significantly. But all around us was still very green; lots of trees as though you’re in a forest with a major road running through it. We kept following the signs for Bruges but somehow lost them and Bruges itself and found ourselves driving away from Bruges onto some other place that we didn’t want to go to. A few quick about turns and we discovered ourselves in the St. Peters area of the city. This was ok, we kinda knew where we were, we would’ve had an even better idea if we had a proper map not merely a really large all-of-Europe one and a teeny tourist-book version of Bruges. Before we knew it, we were being jiggled by cobbled roads and surrounded by old buildings, it seems we’d just stumbled upon it. Which is pretty much how the next parking space came to be, stumbled upon. If you drove too fast past the driveway for these very nice and discreet car parks you wouldn’t know you’ve just passed your opportunity to dump the car. But we had. So we did.

Cameras at the ready, we went and explored the rather lovely little place called Bruges. It’s so chilled out and relativity peaceful that when I pressed her, Moosh said that if she had to she’d definitely like to live there. So would I. We found ourselves at the entrance to St Salvatore’s Cathedral and after standing in the gardening sniffing the beautifully scented air and pondering what on earth that lovely smell was, we went in and had a mooch about. I for one am glad we did. It’s lot smaller then Gloucester Cathedral but it packs a punch in other areas. There are some traces of the original decoration on the stone work and the on walls hang large canvases of biblical scenes. Then I turned around and saw the largest organ I’ve seen in quite sometime. It was black, with gilted twiddly bits, and making a rather delicious sound. I do like a good bit of organ music. I did take some pictures but they’ve all came out rather crap - blurred and too dark. I’m disappointed and am gonna have to learn how to take decent pictures. The silver they had on display was quite tasty too, although none of my snaps do them any justice.

We meandered around, stopping in chocolate tourist traps, feeling cooled by the gentle breeze and soaking in the all round relaxed atmosphere. It definitely needs then a few hours to do it properly. I think camping something in Belgium and then spending an entire day there, riding around on a hired bike would do wonders for the soul, my soul anyway. All too soon it was time to leave, if we where to do some beer/wine warehouse shopping we had to get our skates on. But that’s a whole other story, one that Moosh may or may not tell.

She did. Here

Woooo. I won. I won!

I never win anything, not that I enter into anything to win. I don’t buy up masses of a certain type of women’s magazine and enter the all the competitions going. Maybe I should, just as an experiment, but considering this is my second-only time of triumph maybe I should hold onto my money.

No money was wasted in the taking part of the Da Vinci Code Google Quest, for that is what I’ve gotten rather excited about. I never set out to win any of the prizes that were on offer as a result of completing the quest, I was simply enjoying wasting many hours of time in doing it. I did cheat however, so it’s probably just as well that I didn’t win one of the big prizes and the fact that there were 1000s of prizes does take the shine off of my winner’s status somewhat.

Books, I like books, I’m not sure about Mr D. Brown’s books however, but now I am the proud-ish owner of four of them and all for free. I’m not sure yet if this a greater prize than my first winning moment, aged 7 or 8 - two tickets to some circus or other that was dropping by the local park. Which for a family of five was a bit wank. A family friend gave us a few more tickets and we all went together. There are photo’s of it all somewhere in the house, with my brother’s blond head in most of them. He took to standing right at the front. As to what happened at the circus I remember nothing.

I drew the successful picture of a circus scene, actually I didn’t. It was a scene that had mostly to be coloured in, and my effort of drawing in lots of faces in the otherwise empty crowd space paid off. I do remember a teacher or someone commentating about these faces and the little tufts of grass I’d included as the thing that made mine the stand-out choice. I was very pleased with myself, but I didn’t let it go to my head. I don’t think I actually consciously put any effort into winning, I wanted to make my picture look decent. And because the whole task of picture drawing/colouring in took up an afternoon of not having to maths or something.