In which we road trip and there are too many characters: the Cub, Badger, Bunny, Bunky, Powerjam, brother, sister, as yet un-nicknamed cousin, Nakiska, Flipper and friends. And, unsurprisingly, too much drinking.
Have I said this before? How wonderfully disorientating I find it to land in a foreign place after dark, not knowing what to expect when you wake the next day…
Today we step out into the bristling heat of Menorca, palm trees helping to set the scene. How did I get here?
Mostly, what these otherwise unconnected stories — unconnected save in that they all happened to me — have in common is me being awkward or uncomfortable. Sometimes both. Enjoy.
Long overdue tales of whisky and water from the Inner Hebrides.
The setting was best described by Joey in her WhatsApp briefing message to me: ‘Get off at Chuisi. Ask for La Foce Villa. It’s huge. It’s ridiculous. It’s like an Agatha Christie novel.’
“D’you speak English?”
I turn around. Before me is a stereotypical American guy, about the same age as my dad, in a baseball cap and an Italian soccer shirt. I’m really very tempted to retort with a gallic shrug and a, “Non, je ne parle pas l’angalais,” but I don’t. I’m very clearly reading an English book and what if we’re stuck in this line for the gallery for ages and I need to ask someone something and have to do it in French?
A train to Tuscany, Neapolitan mermaid donuts, some mild self reflection.
In which I crush on rainy Italy.
I panic. We panic. I swear a lot. It’s basically what you’d expect a scene with two Aussie girls in a little Italian town to look like. There are impatient Italian drivers yelling and gesturing furiously, an old man watching as he smokes from his balcony, horns bleating, lots of nervous sweat, a dog.
An unsettlingly big place 