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Published: March 5th 2011
Tuesday 21st December, 2010 to Monday 17th January, 2011 They say that time flies when you’re having fun and if that’s the case then I guess I must be.
When I last blogged the decorations were being hung in preparation for the fast approaching festive season which now only eight weeks later seems but a distant memory. Was it really only eight weeks ago ? Apparently so and no sooner had the sprouts and stuffing digested themselves in the inevitable haze of toxic rectal mustard gas than I found myself digging the spare mattress out in preparation for my final visitor of 2010 and first of 2011.
Jamie’s visit was a whirlwind that encompassed a new year’s eve on which he bizarrely opted to stay home alone proffering the grand fatherly advice “you go out and enjoy yourself” and a new year’s night apartment block party at which one charitable guest decided goodwill to all men was last years’ message and that they simply had to start the brand new year with a brand new camera, unfortunately choosing mine ! His departure six days after arrival came around all too soon and allowed me just forty eight hours
to get my breath back before it was off to the airport again to collect my next temporary flat mate.
Such is the conveyor like regularity of my visitor’s these days that it’s becoming almost second nature on approach to LAX’s Checkpoint Charlie for me to mistake the uniformed policeman’s steely eyed wave through for a friendly smiling doff of the cap and wave of the hand, supremely confident he’s completely oblivious to the fact that the scallywag threat to national security that has just ambled by will be departing within the hour over laden with illicitly tasty contraband.
Smuggling is a punishable offense wherever you are in the world but in my experience only the Australians outdo the Yanks in their over zealous determination to keep undesirable elements off their land. The consequences of detection remains a mystery to me but bearing in mind the bewildering sense of justice that prevails in this fair land (think O.J.Simpson as a prime example) it could range from anywhere between a slap on the wrist to an eternity on death row.
Whatever the punishment may be it remains immaterial to me if not to my mules who deliver the
Sleepless In Seattle.
Milford Sound with a rare break in the clouds.goods to order with unerring regularity. Some things are more important than being denied your freedom or slapped round the chops with a hefty fine, a few blocks of deliciously creamy Cheshire cheese, a couple of jars of Branston pickle and some Cadbury’s chocolate to name but three.
My sister Helen told me days after Mother Superior’s arrival that having wished her mum safe travels with a large hug and a kiss at Manchester International airport she’d watched aghast as the little lady had grabbed her bags and strode off into the distance without so much as a buy your leave, not even stopping to turn and wave as she disappeared out of view.
I could relate to that when she emerged sixteen hours later through the arrival gates of LAX. Still striding and showing none of the signs of nervous apprehension that could be expected from someone of her advanced years who’d just arrived in a strange land completely alone she seemed in pretty much the same frame of mind, a woman on a mission, so much so that I was contemplating halting her progress in much the same way a cowboy would a wild eyed calf
when she thankfully spotted me.
To all intents and purposes though she was on a mission. This wasn’t a holiday, this was a working assignment and like a gunslinger in the old wild west she was a hired hand with a job to do, her air fare having been paid by her new employers The Leng’s whose six month old son Henry James was going to be entrusted to her care three days a week for the next five.
She seemed to explode with excitement when I’d first put their proposition to her over a trans-atlantic phone call some months earlier and now d-day had finally arrived. I wondered to myself if she knew what she was letting herself in for and I’m sure she did too but one thing was for sure, there was to be no turning back now.
Having had a week to acclimatize we arrived at Henry’s bright and early on the morning of Monday 10th January and as father handed his pride and joy to my mother I immediately had cause for concern. Dan, at 6’ 5” and 250lbs is a mountain of a man and Henry, even though not even halfway
to the first anniversary of his birth is showing every sign of following in his father’s footsteps. In short he is simply a big bonny baby boy and as the loveable lump was passed to Margy she instantly resembled an Olympic power lifter who’d gone one extra weight too far, legs bowed, cheeks puffed and every sinew in her neck standing out in a simple attempt to remain upright !
When I returned ten hours later I was very relieved to see no small crowd of onlookers or flashing red lights in the street outside, even more so when I entered the house to see her still standing albeit looking as though she’d just survived five rounds of grappling Klondike Kate. Her last journey to collect Henry from his afternoon nap had seen her return down the large circular staircase that dominates the hallway step by step on her backside and when we got home she drifted into an instant deep sleep that was still going strong when I returned home from the gym two hours later.
Marg’s visit and impending birthday gave me the opportunity to kill two birds with one stone by combining her present with
my desire to visit places anew. Seattle, or the ‘Rainy City’ as it’s otherwise known exists quite literally ‘under a cloud’ and boasts the undeserved reputation of being not only one of the wettest places on the planet but also of having the highest suicide rate in America. I say undeserved because in terms of average rainfall it doesn’t even come close, surprisingly ranking as only the 44th wettest city in the whole of the country. Likewise suicide, in the league table of taking your own life Washington State lies only 16th.
Apart from these unfounded rumours however I’d heard nothing but good good things about the place and so putting the prospect of a weekend spent hanging wet socks on radiators and stumbling over rotting corpses to the back of my mind I booked the flights with the idea, never before having set foot in Canada, of sometime during the weekend catching a train north and across the border to Vancouver.
I’m fully aware of where the thrifty side of my nature that draws me like a bee to honey towards any ‘sale now on’ sign originates. My mother. I wish it didn’t, there really is no
Sleepless In Seattle.
A grey Milford Sound. need for me to be so frugal when buying clothes, books, groceries or anything else for that matter but it’s something that has been deeply ingrained since birth.
One of my earliest childhood memories is of bursting with excitement climbing stairs to view the cheap plastic toys on offer in downtown Ellesmere Port’s Thrift Centre harnessing hopes that one of them would soon be mine and ever since there has seemed very little I can do to resist the draw of a bargain bin.
I know mother operates in much the same way but it was her birthday after all so it was with a deep intake of breath that I booked a room for our first night in Seattle at the Best Western close to the cities Pioneer Square. Not that Best Westerns are particularly expensive, at 110 bucks a night plus taxes in the scheme of things they’re certainly not, but compared to our usual lodgings when travelling together which have ranged anywhere from clapped out motel rooms to clapped out hostel rooms no bigger than a safety deposit box with soiled sheets to boot this was still a text book case of pushing the boat
out.
Although I considered this act of extravagance a lavish expression of maternal respect and love my American colleagues obviously didn’t agree. Despite commenting that the idea to take my mother away for her birthday was ‘so sweet’ all that asked where we were staying were incredulous at my answer and gob smacked that I wasn’t housing her for the night in one of Seattle’s most regally expensive hotels.
In a feeble attempt to mask my penny pinching ways I attempted to explain that much like myself she wasn’t in the least bit material and that she’d be just as happy, as would I, to be spending the night in a budget motel room as we had done on our travels around New Zealand. As long as there wasn’t shit on the sheets of course! I could see from their reaction that I may have well stood pissing into a hurricane.
Consequently I was more than a little relieved when we stepped out of the drizzle into the oak stained, book cased foyer of The Pioneer Square Hotel, the only working one in Seattle’s same named historic district, a restored Victorian boutique hotel containing many of its
original features and complimented by the friendliest hotel staff I’ve ever come across. We concurred and agreed we were happy, a great start to the weekend.
After squeezing ourselves into Café Bengodi, a nearby Italian diner with the décor of a transport café, the seating arrangements of a ‘how many people can you get into a Mini Cooper’ challenge and food fit for the Gods (amazing how the lack of a tablecloth and the drinking of wine from mismatched tumblers can dramatically reduce prices for simple yet super food) we were returning across Pioneer Square when a large group of twenty something’s emerged into the cold night air from a door beneath a sign that read ‘Underground Tour’.
At the end of the nineteenth century following a fire that decimated 25 blocks of it’s timber built city centre Seattle’s chiefs made the decision, and I still have trouble picturing exactly how they managed it, to rebuild the city ten foot above its existing streets. What were roadways and sidewalks in a previous life became cellar bases in the brave new world and to all intents and purposes forgotten, that is until the mid nineteen sixties when some bright
Sleepless In Seattle.
Checking the lottery. spark with a dollar sign twinkling brightly in his eye restored a small area beneath Pioneer Square, in the process heralding the birth of the tour, now one of the cities foremost tourist attraction’s.
It didn’t take us long to realize as the group formed a large circle on the Square that this was what we had stumbled across. A tall rangy man with an east coast whine that resembled a blitz era air raid siren and who quite obviously for reasons still unknown fancied himself as something of a comedian was addressing the group from the center of the circle and when he suggested all follow him to the hidden world beneath the city streets Marg and I, sensing an opportunity to save the eighteen dollar fee, looked at each other, nodded and tagged on the end.
We emerged into what would have been at the turn of the nineteenth century a bustling saloon bar populated by whisky slugging prospectors and lace adorned hookers that brought back memories of my dear Sea Horse in its prime. I was so reveling in the nostalgia of it all that it never even occurred to me how a middle aged
man and his silver haired mother must have stood out like sore thumbs, that was until the air raid siren announced it was time to move on, gesturing to the door at one end of the room and taking up a position hands on hips alongside it as his charges formed into a single file and shuffled further into the unknown.
I was behind Marg and just a couple feet from the door when that very fact dawned on me and I braced myself as mighty mouth, looking straight at us wearing a face like thunder and with a voice tinged with sarcastic vitriol spoke;
“So nice of you both to join us”.
Crikey, we’d been rumbled.
It had all happened so quickly that I had no time to prepare a response and as I passed him I screwed my face in cringed embarrassment as the words “you’re welcome” crawled through my lenched teeth. Half expecting a hand to appear on my shoulder accompanied by the words “You’re nicked and furthermore you’re not welcome” I was still cringing ten seconds later as I explained all to Marg who fortunately had been totally oblivious to the whole
incident. We fled and ran all the way back to the hotel the moment we returned to the streets.
Having thoroughly researched matters on the world wide web prior to departure our plan was to take what was apparently a stunningly beautiful four hour rail journey north to Vancouver on Saturday morning. The internet, for all the wealth of information contained within its wonder walls however is not a soothsayer and upon arrival in Seattle we were confronted with the news that a landslide had caused the temporary closure of the Seattle to Vancouver railway track, that as a result the ferries were booked full to capacity and that the only remaining means of public transport to Vancouver was bus, sadly neglecting to mention that the only available seats would be adjacent to a festering cess pit of a toilet that hummed like a Bangladeshi landfill site.
With mountains, ocean and more within spitting distance of it’s downtown hub Vancouver is by all accounts a wonderful place to live, the world’s best according to the chatty young bar tender in the towns oldest bar where we’d adjourned for a beer whilst sheltering from yet another particularly heavy Sunday
morning shower. Bearing in mind our relatively short time in the city, all thirty six hours of it, we were determined to see as much as physically possible which involved a full day of on foot exploration and a couple of short ferry rides to boot.
Such is Margaret’s zest for life I often forget exactly how old she is, this was after all just one day before her 74th birthday but as the afternoon wore on and we trudged relentlessly towards our mecca of Granville Island, the cities renovated waterside public market surrounded by restaurant’s, shops and galleries I heard the first murmurs of fatigue.
Granville Island is separated from the downtown area by a huge arched suspension bridge that looked steeper and more daunting with each step we took towards it. I was feeling travel weary myself but had no prior warning as to exactly how bushed my mother was until we reached the foot of the bridge and she suddenly, like a puppy on it’s first outing dropping it’s ass to the floor, dug her heels in and decided she was going to walk no further. A taxi was hailed for the final push up
Sleepless In Seattle.
welcome sustenance after a long walk. and over the bridge where we were thankfully finally able to rest up with a bite to eat and a glass of claret in preparation for the return hike to the hotel.
My seemingly uncontrollable impatience and fondness for the ‘do exactly as you please’ nuances of living alone means, and it pains me to admit it, that I’m occasionally prone to moments of bad natured snappiness with my poor undeserving mother on the receiving end, something that every now and again will be pointed out to me in no uncertain terms with a short sharp “shut yer mouth” response!. One such occasion was the eve of our return to Seattle.
With bellies full and legs still heavy from the days trekking, the rail track open again and our train departing at the ungodly hour of 06:40am we retired for the second time in three nights prior to ten thirty whereupon I slipped instantly into a deep and much needed sleep.
A couple of hours later I awoke to a thin shaft of blinding white light slicing through the darkness from the narrowly ajar door accompanied by an tunefully enchanting humming sound that painted pictures in my
Sleepless In Seattle.
The silver ball goes underground. mind as I lay attempting to gather my senses of the sirens of Homer’s Odyssey.
With blinking eyes struggling to adjust to the laser beam and mind racing to realize whether I was in fact in the midst of a beautiful melancholy dream the humming suddenly ceased and was replaced by a female voice that I instantly recognized to be of my mother.
“Cooey, it’s all yours”
My eyes instinctively closed again as I struggled to grasp some modicum of reality at the same time questioning whether the beautiful dream had just slipped seamlessly into a horrific nightmare
“What is?” I mumbled in reply
“The bathroom”
The powers of human recovery never cease to amaze me and in the matter of a couple of seconds I’d gone from a deep semi conscious slumber to what was now total awareness of my situation. My mother was up and about and shuffling around the suite in her nightie like a modern day Wee Willie Winkee. I blindly reached across to the bedside cabinet where my alarm cum phone was sitting and opened it, squinting again as the lcd came to life.
“It’s ten past fuckin’
twelve” I announced somewhat sternly causing her voice to adopt a slightly defensively reasoning tone,
“Well your alarm went off”
My thumb danced across the keys as if possessing a mind of it’s own and confirmed my suspicions,
“That was a fuckin’ text”
She’d obviously had enough “Well it sounded like a fuckin’ alarm”
I rolled over and closed my eyes, smiling as I did so on hearing my mother rueing the fact that “Ooh, and I’ve gone and put my face on now as well”!
We laughed about the incident in the taxi to the station just a few hours later. It was still raining. We filled out our immigration papers and progressed to the customs desk for our return journey to America, a journey that as it turned out I was fortunate to not be making alone. Today was Margaret’s special day and keen to let all and sundry know I wasted no time in telling the custom’s officials that “it’s her birthday, she’s seventy four today”.
Considering the time of day and the fact that it was still dark and raining outside they were almost unnaturally chipper and as one
Sleepless In Seattle.
Due to some t**t nicking my camera this is the only memory I have of my old mate and me. wished her many happy returns, a fact not missed by Marg who responded to their best wishes by letting them know that “You’re so much nicer than the American customs people”.
The smiles disappeared instantly. “We are US customs mam” came the stern faced reply prompting me to escort her by the arm to the waiting train before they’d had chance to slap on the cuffs and throw her in the slammer.
A couple of hours into the journey Marg came back from a toilet visit looking slightly bemused and informed me that the guard, a tall thin black man who’d been standing alongside the customs officials in Vancouver when she’d made her faux had stopped her en route and asked her name. With pictures racing through our minds of a welcoming party of paddy wagon and officials waiting on the platform at Seattle the reason became apparent when the ring of a bell signified a imminent PA announcement.
“This is a message for Miss Margaret Roberts, 74 years old today. Have a great birthday Miss Roberts” How nice and what a relief.
Having spent the following morning touring the rest Seattle had to offer which
involved a couple of hours going back to our roots in the magnificent Seattle Library and a skytrain trip to the eye needle we returned to Long Beach the in the afternoon having once again quenched the thirst to travel. I was pleased with my choices as both destinations were super cities, Seattle’s people and architecture a refreshing change from Los Angeles, Vancouvers’ proximity to mountains and oceans dictating that it just couldn’t lose.
We’d had a great break and would both have loved to stayed longer. Unfortunately we couldn’t, someone had a job to do !
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waymo
non-member comment
That customs thing made me LOL dude