Well here we are, it's December already. It's a very wet miserable day outside, no good for doing anything and time to put together a bit of a story, so here goes, get a cup of tea and have a read π:
It was one of those holidays where everything seemed to go wrong. A ‘boys’ trip in the 90s, to France, just me and my old school mate, we were in our 30s at the time, single and still very much young at heart. We’d previously spent most of our holiday trips going to the Lakes and to Scotland, and so for a change we planned to go to France for two weeks where we would spend the first week in the Pyrenees for some hiking and mountain biking followed by a second week ‘living it up’ at a poor man’s version of the French Riviera somewhere on the French Med.
During the holiday, we experienced all the typical types of mishaps that you might reasonably expect on such an excursion, such as almost accidentally burning down the pokey Pyrenean Hobbit hole ‘holiday cottage’ that we were staying in which was only fit for Troglodyte habitation. This mishap only occurred because we’d forgotten about our stew which had been bubbling away on the oven for hours whilst we were getting pi$$ed up sitting outside on the terrace in the sun – doh!
That Hobbit house really was a strange place, it had a weird atmosphere, it was cold and so dark inside it, with very narrow corridors, pokey dark rooms and steep stairs. I think even Gandolf would have treaded very carefully to find his way around in there. And, I had weird crazy, bizarre dreams every night but maybe they were induced by an excess intake of wine.
And also, quite predictably, the car broke down one day on a trip up to Andorra which resulted in a nightmare afternoon spent sweating cobs inside an extremely hot rustic garage whilst attempting with great difficulty to converse with the schoolgirl daughter of the non-English speaking mechanic using ‘O’ level ‘D’ grade schoolboy French to try to understand what was needed to get the car fixed - “la voiture est en panne” was pretty much all we could agree on.
It was the thermostat which was ‘en panne’ (knackered), causing the radiator to overheat and blow, apparently a common scenario for cars traipsing up the long steep mountains in the Pyrenees in summer where we saw numerous breakdown trucks waiting in strategically placed laybys. These breakdown trucks would then rescue stricken vehicles and tow them off down the mountain to garages some 20-30 miles away, where, let’s face it they had you by the bollox. Good job we had RAC cover!
I remember being tremendously disappointed with Andorra once we finally made it there. I hope it has since changed for better, but back then it resembled a far west frontier town as it seemed to be mostly frequented by ‘white van man’ loading up their vans with crates of cans of booze from any number of duty-free booze shops.
And then, annoyingly, my Olympus Trip camera, which was loaded with all our holiday snaps was accidentally knocked into the depths of a deep Pyrenean River. Although, I managed to retrieve it, none of the photos survived.
And, laughingly as we made our way down through France to the Hobbit holiday cottage in the Pyrenees, we stopped over for a night in the town of Vienne which is just south of Lyon, only to find the next morning that we couldn’t leave when we wanted to because the local market had set up all its stalls, during the night, on and around our car. They were selling veg off the bonnet of the car! That took some doing, extricating the car from the middle of the market to get back out on the road again.
The holiday wasn’t a total mess though; we did experience some bright spots. We had our mountain bikes with us, although back in those days our bikes more resembled a farm gate with wheels on it or actually more like a piece of scaffolding rather than a finely tuned beast of a bike. We set off to ride up Pic de Canigou, a massive Pyrennean mountain.
The offroad track snaked its way up, winding itself, loop after loop after loop up the mountain, seemingly for miles and especially given how hot it was we didn’t do too bad in the end. I reckon that we must have got pretty near the top before we decided enough was enough.
Going back down was something else, just how fast we were going, scary, what a thrill, wow! Surprisingly, given that it was offroad we encountered a convoy of German campervans making their way down. We took great delight in buzzing them just like the 633 squadron, it was brilliant! They might have realised we were ‘Englanders’ because we overtook them on their right side.
And, thinking back, even at the very start of our trip in Blighty, we’d totally mis-judged the time it would take to get down to the ferry. In our defence it was way back in 1995, when remember it was a time way-back before Sat-Navs existed other than in Star Trek. Strangely, our ferry was not going from Dover but instead from Ramsgate, the Sally Line. My sister worked as a freight forwarder and she was able to get us cheap Sally Line ferry tickets.
It was all good, but we were miles short of time, and we arrived in Ramsgate far too late and consequently missed the ferry which then meant that we had a considerable wait for the next one. The ferry sailings were a few hours apart not like these days on the Chunnel with trains every 20 mins or so. Have you ever spent a few hours in Ramsgate killing time? Say no more. Then because we arrived in France later than we’d planned, we decided to cut our losses and quickly agreed to find a stopover to spend the night at the nearest town which turned out to be St Omer.
St Omer looked like a fine old French town. We considered ourselves lucky to find a hotel right near it’s centre and then after clocking in we went straight out for a night ‘on the town’. And we proceeded to have a right good night, mainly because we met up with a bunch of friendly ‘Frenchies’ who didn’t mind that I conversed using my ‘schoolboy’ French. It has got to be said that my ability to speak French seemed to improve significantly as the night wore on, to the point where in my mind I was speaking it like a native by the end of the night.
The experience reflected a totally different world for us, this place in France was so very different to being back at home. I particularly remember the toilets in the bar which had a Western style saloon swing door and where the girls would walk past as we stood in there peeing, wow, those crazy French, weird. There’s a point though, incredible to think that back in those days I could have probably easily pee’d 10ft high up a wall, amazing when compared miserably to my today’s dribbling efforts!
By the end of the night, we were all very sozzled, on cheap French or Belgian bier, and we were amazed to see that the ‘Frenchies’ got into their cars and sped off. We sensibly refused all offers of a lift and we left our newly found French friends and then staggered around the cobbled streets looking to get back to our hotel. I’m not sure now if the streets were actually cobbled, but hopefully you get the picture.
When we finally arrived back at the hotel it was shuttered up and very dark with no lights on anywhere. We tried the front door, and it was locked. We tried knocking but there was absolutely no response from within, and it was apparent after what seemed like an eternity standing outside that we were well and truly locked out. Up a foreign creek perhaps without a proverbial paddle. What to do? What to do?
We decided to scout the hotel to see if there was any other entrance and we did have some hope as we remembered the car park which was around the back in a courtyard. Yes, we remembered that there was a door there. And we had some luck when we got to the huge gate/door to the carpark itself as we fortunately found that it was not locked. So, we managed to get in and then we were able to approach the back door of the hotel.
The courtyard/carpark was overlooked by bedrooms of two or three floors of the hotel but at this hour all was very quiet, not a peep or a light on anywhere. We couldn’t believe it when we tried the back door to find that it too was also locked. Our luck was definitely awry on that night which was rapidly turning into a proper nightmare.
Right, it was obvious to us by now, and I don’t know what time it was at that point, except that it was well after midnight, that we needed to get some brains properly focussed on the problem. Looking around the courtyard, it reminded us of Colditz, totally impregnable. Except, except for one possibility, as not far from the back door there was a small square window that looked as if it was slightly ajar, it was perhaps 2-3 ft square and about 6 or 7 ft high above the floor. Anyway, precise measurements aside we reckoned that we might be able reach it and we might just be able to squeeze back in through it. Salvation and thoughts of finally being able get chance to sleep off our drunken stupors in the warm cozy hotel at last within our grasp. Unfortunately, it turned out not to be that easy.
My mate went for it first; I had to give him a lift up and then I had to make like a makeshift ladder as he struggled to reach up and try to squeeze through the small window which he at least found that he could fully open. Let’s be clear, we are not trained circus acrobats, nor in any way did we have any gymnastic ability even if we’d been sober! It was like trying to bung an oversized cork back into a bottle whilst standing on tip toes and I was getting kicked in the head. I suppose we didn’t realise it but we were also making quite a loud commotion, and as you can imagine there were several loud expletives being let out in frustration, not in French but in the purest Anglo Saxon.
I remember looking around and up at the surrounding hotel courtyard windows to find that some of the guests had, as a result, obviously been rudely stirred from their slumbers because several lights were now being switched on. I distinctly remember one window, whilst looking up, to see an old monsieur standing there staring down and pointing at us with an expression of utter disbelief. He was dressed in a long white night shirt with matching nightcap, yes, he looked just like Scrooge, I tell not a lie! You see - that’s what got me thinking about this memory, because today we are in December and near to Chrimbo!.
There was also some chatter noise coming from other guests now, amongst which I could hear exasperated phrases like ‘Regardez! les Anglaises’. Meanwhile we continued with our attempts to climb in through the window and finally my mate’s feet disappeared through it.
Then it was my turn and to this day I don’t know how I managed it. I was somehow able to grab hold of the windowsill and pull myself up, just enough for my mate to be able to grab my arms and help pull me through. It was an incredibly tight squeeze, but I slowly managed to scramble headfirst down the other side, and headed straight into a urinal, literally! I just about managed to avoid planting my face into the inside of it. Yeay! We’d managed to break into the hotel toilets!
I remember us both collapsing on the floor laughing our heads off. And then after composing ourselves we made our way out of the toilets and through the empty bar and hotel lobby area then up the stairs before finally reaching our room.
I didn’t sleep though, too worried that there would soon be a knock on the door by the gendarmes. But no, there wasn’t, and amazingly the next morning even during breakfast and checking out there was no mention by anyone of the previous night’s events. I do remember a few strange and accusing looks though. I can only conclude that this sort of thing must be a regular occurrence at this hotel.
So, anyway, here’s a tip: When checking into a hotel, if there is a chance that you might be going out and returning late then best make sure that you get a key or a code to be able to get back into the hotel.
Post note – A few years later, me and Mrs S revisited ‘the spot’, and we stayed at the same hotel. We found that quite simply, all you needed is a pin code to be able to get in and out. Somehow me and my mate had missed it or probably just didn’t understand as we were more used to staying in tents than hotels in those days. And, we also noted that any hotel access via that toilet window looked totally impossible, so much so that Mrs S doesn’t believe the story.
All the best
Spongebob