24 hours of hell..
Oh, God...

Here's what should have happened. Lift to London, train to Newhaven, ferry to Dieppe, a train to Paris, then another to Chartres.. All pre booked. Easy, right? Not.

Reading Festival, nineteen ninety something, I was about 16. I'd gone with nearly ex boyfriend, and he'd agreed to take me to London afterwards so I could get across to France and meet my mother. I knew he was nearly ex as my eyes had finally opened to the dodgy undercut and ponytail, inflated ego and tiny back up, if yer get my drift.. Plus he'd been shagging my mate. Nyeh.

So anyway, after the festival, nice and muddy, he drivies me up to Victoria station. Except he gets lost, even though he says he's driven in London 'loads'. Hyde Park Corner is not a place to discover you're going the wrong way and London cabbies aren't very sympathetic to people who obviously haven't a clue where they are going... And so I missed my train. And with it my ferry connection.

So, we decided that rather than me get to Newhaven straight away and wait all alone for the next (12 hours later) ferry, we'd hang out in London and I'd get a later train. Groovy - calls to family, all sorted.

'Cept the nearly ex took it upon himself to use a period of silence at the Serpentine to declare undying love, and profess abject repentance for his sins. Guilt trip a go-go. It was almost as if he knew he was days away from single life. His words were not received well - I went to Newhaven early.

So, thinks I, on my way now... Nice little coffee and a sit outside in the sun, before a lovely voyage by sea. It was a night crossing on the ferry, and I was looking forward to a bit of a kip, to getting to France and having a shower - remember, just come from a festival. So I wasn't best please when a chap who apparently styled himself on the man from Del Monte sat down next to me. He proceeded to alternate between chatting me up (many comments about, 'not minding a bit of dirt' - shudder) and refusing to tell me anything about himself, other than to waggle his eyebrows and say he was 'in business'. Convinced he was a slave trader, rapist or both, I didn't dare sleep, and spent a fitful night, awaiting Dieppe. Arriving there, I thought, and getting away from him, would be the end of my troubles...

Silly me. Foot passengers disembarking the ferry were shoved into the night with nothing more than a grunted set of directions to the train. It was dark, I was on the edge of a deserted town, being stalked by a madman in a panama hat, and the train pulls up right in the middle of the docks (no platform, y'understand, just some rails for it to handily squish people onto) like some sort of spectre. I found my seat, the stalker, fortunately, disappeared, but by this time, I was so wired on adrenaline, that sleeping was impossible. I barely remember getting Paris, as my youthful brain, devoid of the narcotics it was used to, created it's own chemical cocktail. Sinking onto the train to Chartres, after only a small amount of running like a mad tramp through the station, was a blessed relief.

I don't think any teenage girl was ever so pleased to see her mum as I was when I finally arrived, half a day late, covered in festival grime and the lingering scent of stalker. Compared to that, getting taken to a small side room by Customs at an airport, was a peach...
(ancrenne met a soppy dog instead of an armoured bear, Thu 7 Sep 2006, 13:21, closed)