Wanderlust: The Plan

I was bored with life at home. Bored with my job as a junior clerk in a very well-known building society which basically meant filing; sorting the mail; lugging the heavy franking machine to the post office; making coffee for the boss; buying cakes when it was someone’s birthday. I could have done the job half asleep. And despite the fact that I was very good with numbers, because of my age I wasn’t allowed to be on the front desk dealing with customers.

Having to work Saturday mornings interfered with going to gigs on a Friday night, though there was one occasion where I actually slept in the railway station waiting room in Huddersfield after missing the last train home and having to go straight to work. Bored with the same old pubs each weekend. The same boring blokes.

I dreamed of white sand and aqua water, sunshine and olives, even though I had never eaten an olive. My best friend was also bored with her office job and with a little persuasion she agreed to come with me and explore Europe.

There was the sticky issue of getting a passport. I wasn’t quite eighteen so had to get my parent’s permission. Mum was dead against it, but catching dad back from the pub one evening it was easy to get him to sign the form. He had no idea what he was signing, but I am sure once mum found out he would never hear the end of it.

We didn’t have much money. Originally we had reckoned on saving up for a couple of years before embarking on our trip. In fact I had saved around eighty quid, but Cathy only had forty. But we reckoned that would get us to Greece, as long as we hitchhiked as much as possible, and camped.

My mother was very angry when I told her I had handed in my notice. She thought we were a pair of day-dreaming idiots. At the time it hadn’t crossed my mind that she might just have been worried.

A few weeks later, resignation letters handed in, backpacks chosen, a two-man tent purchased along with tent pegs, a wooden mallet* , camping stove and gas cylinders, pans and tin mugs and plates, assorted dried food and coffee and we were ready for the off.

Oostende here we come.

*(important)