July 2022

‘You have to stop this nonsense and hire a bloody car,’ said my friend Rhaiza, when I told her of the onerous journey we took between Perpignon and Girona. I’d like to be able to say that it started auspiciously enough, but it didn’t, except perhaps in my head. Despite being a miserable auld bastard, I can be stupidly optimistic at times and had been excited about taking the famous TGV. I had visions of sipping a chilled Sancerre whilst being whisked along at terrific speed, before being deposited at a gleaming platform at Girona. Damn the French though, because after numerous attempts to book train tickets,  LSB saw that their rail workers on strike. Pro-active gent that he is though promptly found a solution and discovered the comically named ‘BlaBlaCar’ which could have us whizzed across the border in just over an hour. ‘Grand,’ says I.

Anxious not to miss the coach, we took a taxi to the station; a short trip, which nevertheless cost almost 40€. I thought taxis were cheaper on the continent, but have been swiftly disabused of that notion. Such was my keenness to be on time, we were there an hour before we were due to depart. The kids’ faces were a picture. ‘Sure never mind, we shall have a lovely lunch,’ I told them. My optimism again was ill-founded as my salad of limp lettuce and burrata was not improved by an astringent dressing, reminiscent of Jif lemon. Stevey’s mediocre burger deal came with a beer, which he was pained to discover was a Budweiser. I believe he has since contacted the French Department of Agriculture and Food for such flagrant abuse of drinks standards on public transport.

Prior to lunch, the Older Child and I sought the toilet facilities, handily located two escalators down in the basement at the end of a corridor. I was unnerved to discover that it doubled as a refreshment spot for local prostitutes, one of whom was having a wash at the sink, frock around her knees. ‘In we go now!’ I said breezily to the child while I bundled her into a cubicle. Her wee eyes were out on stalks, ‘Try not to touch the seat when you sit down!’ I advised, as it was none too clean looking. We washed our hands to the sound of the street walker yakking loudly into the sink, before removing a set of dentures and giving them a good rinse.

When we headed out to catch the coach, the departures board said that it was 37 degrees and I was feeling every one of these, especially when I burnt my thigh against a metal railing. On the appointed hour there was no sign of any bus. LSB’s phone chirruped as he received an e-mail to say it running forty minutes late. ‘Toujours en retard,’ They’re always late, said a French lady, fanning herself with a copy of Hello magazine. She still managed to look refresh and unruffled, in contrast to myself who resembled a tomato left to languish on the barbecue. ‘I suppose I’ve time to have a pee then,’ said LSB. I advised him to proceed with caution. The Small Child announced that she needed to go too, and the Older One thought she might as well tag along. ‘Don’t let them touch anything!’ I warned. I continued to stand at the pitifully unsheltered terminal, ankles throbbing from the hot tarmac.

They weren’t away five minutes when a BlaBlaCar drew in. The crowd surged forward. I rang LSB, worried we’d have endured all of this for naught if it sped off.  He sounded a bit peculiar on the phone, but I assumed that he was otherwise engaged, trying to chat and pee simultaneously. It wasn’t our coach anyway., so I sought the shade again. LSB emerged looking a trifle perplexed,  his tee-shirt even more sodden than before. Turned out, some auld fella had suddenly appeared, lad in hand, while he was at the urinal. LSB was shocked to see that he was vigorously pleasuring himself and clearly wanted a spectator, if not an active participant in the act. I had rung at precisely the moment LSB was trying to discreetly urge the kids to stay in the cubicle while he warded him off. ‘Did they see anything?’ I hissed, but he reassured me that he managed to look threatening enough to get the reprobate to scarper before they emerged. It could only happen to us.

Happily our coach arrived shortly after. We were beyond to find it had air-con and a friendly driver who sunk his foot on the accelerator.  It wasn’t too long before I was sipping a splendid Verdejo in a Girona bar while the girls munched Nutella crepes. Meanwhile LSB had a much-needed siesta. ‘It’s going to take a lot of beer later to blot out that journey’  he said as he closed his eyes.

You may have missed it, what with Boris and his crackpot cabinet dominating the headlines recently, but over here Stormont may be contemplating doing something decent for a change. I know it’s quite unlike them to bring in sensible legislation, but they want to increase the legal age for getting married to eighteen, in line with the rest of the UK. By some quirk, as is often the way here in NI, sixteen and seventeen year olds are legally allowed get married, provided they have parental consent. I was incredulous to read that about eighty couples did tie the knot in 2019, with one or either parties under the age of eighteen. I’m a teacher for flip’s sake. I hear teens talking pure mince day in day out, and to think that the same youngsters might be considering marriage, makes me feel a wee bit ill. I was trying to imagine how I’d react if this scenario were to unfold with some of the kids I’ve taught. I’d be all, ‘Well Michael, have you any nice plans for the summer? and he’d be like, ‘Yeah Miss, I’m taking Lucy to see Tiësto at Belsonic, then we’re down the City Hall on Tuesday to get hitched.’ I’d be like, ‘hold on a minute til you tell me that again.’ “Tiësto?”

Anyway, I was on U105 taking about this very issue with John Daly on Wednesday morning, and I fear I may have come across as a curmudgeonry old git about marriage as a whole. ‘Why would anyone want to shackle themselves to another person so young?’ I fumed. When Daly asked what I might do if a teenage daughter of mine came home and announced their intention to wed, I went full-on Dickensian and said I’d lock her in the house until she talked sense. Seriously though, what possible life experience can a young person have to make them contemplate that level of commitment?

So I was all doom and gloom, citing divorce statistics and  saying how marriage is tough, yadi-yadi-ya, but then listener Yvonne rang in, saying she’d met her husband at the local youth club when she was seventeen and they got married the following year.  They’ve just celebrated their forty-second anniversary, which makes me look like I’m talking out of my backside.  She sounded well pleased with her lot and said he’s a great fella who gives her no bother at all and even gets the hoover out sometimes. (Sounds like a keeper to me Yvonne. LSB took the hoover last week to suck the ash out of the wood burner and I had to hose the flipping thing down out the back and the house still smells all ashy and sooty and horrible. When it comes to housework, LSB should leave well alone.) They seemed like a really happy couple, which goes to show that you never know how things are going to work out, and who on earth am I to pass judgement on anyone else?

I do maintain though, that if you fall hard enough for someone when you’re only eighteen, then why rush into marriage? If you’re so very taken with them, then the chances are you’ll still be together when you’re twenty-one, at which stage the marriage won’t seem quite so Old Testament.

Happily, this issue never arose for LSB and myself. If I’d been sixteen when we first met then he’d have been twelve, which would have been a different sort of a business altogether. On our first date he told me he was twenty three when actually he was twenty two and when I found out and realised he was almost four years younger than me it was quite a shock. ‘You’re an embryo!’ I recall telling him, with some vehemence. When we did take the plunge I was thirty-one and he was twenty-seven, which was still younger than the average age to get married in Ireland, which is between thirty three and thirty five.

That’s enough of the statistics for now. What I want to get across, is that at heart, I’m a huge romantic. I love hearing about how couples met and when and where and all the pitfalls which befell them before they hoofed it up the aisle (or indeed if they did at all). Do you want to know my favourite bit of the movie ‘When Harry Met Sally?’ It’s when they show the interviews with all the elderly couples who share their stories. Sometimes they’d been together forever, or maybe they’d fallen in love as teenagers and been reunited in later life. Each one is priceless, and all of them make me a bit teary.

What I’m trying to articulate, is that everyone’s story is different, and they’re completely entitled to it. And if you met your partner when you were both very young then I’d love to hear it. You know where to find me!