It was never going to end well. And it didn't.
Long ago when I first mooted this idea to my lovely wife, Joanie thought I was talking rubbish. I have a lot of half-witted ideas that never come to fruition, which I think she thought this was one of them.
Then I got the Vespa, I saw alarm bells in her eyes, oh well everything will be OK. She originally suggested a scooter to minimise my commute to central London since we moved to suburbia, so I took this as a green light to buy a scooter and do what-ever-I-bloody-well-like on it. I underestimated this green light by just about completely. Oh dear. Joanie had calmly and rationally explained that driving across Europe after having just bought an 11 year old example of a notoriously unreliable 40 year old design, after only about 500 miles in the saddle, with two young kids at home, that I'm self employed and thats 4 non-earning days extra, riding on the wrong side of the road, dealing with Italy's special approach to traffic safety. Was indeed slightly foolish. I'm paraphrasing here. It was actually 'I don't want you to go'.
So being the caring, sharing, new age guy I am I chose to ignore this polite request. Something I now wish I had chosen to explain why I wanted to do this, and justified it until Joanie gave in to shut me up. But I didn't. I am a fool, and a terrible husband. When Tim said that we have to book now, I said "that's fine". Tim said it's non-refundable, I said "I'll just check with Joanie". Actually I didn't. Instead, like a complete arse I said "that's fine". I now see the error in my ways.
Also for the record I would like to say that thinking Joanie wouldn't read this blog, and I would have time to broach the subject gently was also stupid. I emailed the link to my family in New Zealand, and my sister replied with one of her pithy comments, and cc:d Joanie in. D'oh. I admire Joanie for not telling me she had seen the blog and merely stored it up as ammunition for later. I have taught her well!
So to cut a long story short, when I got knocked off the scooter, and still in shock, and not thinking straight. I told Joanie about the crash. She said, "well that stops the Silly Boys Scooter to Sestri Adventure™ then", I said "Of course, you are correct my love. It was a silly idea anyway", except I didn't. The power of hindsight is amazing. Instead (like an eijit) I said "No, I have to go, I've paid already, and it's non-refundable" I still blame the shock. But I have a sneaking suspicion that it's because I'm more than a little bit of a dick.
So to my lovely and long suffering wife, I take this opportunity, publicly, on a rather esoteric blog, to whole-heartedly apologise for being a terrible husband. I would also like to thank you for putting up with me, and resigning yourself to the fact that I'm going on this silly trip. You are one of a kind.
There is a moral to this story/grovelling apology if you are planning an adventure across a large distance on some dodgy Italian engineering, tell you significant other everything. Or you will get rumbled, and you will feel awful about it. End of moral. Back to scootering.
While all this smoke and mirrors was going on in Scottys world I was blissfully unaware of how fragile this planning was. I was having excited email and txt messages with him and we were spending money on ferry and train bookings.
ReplyDeleteIt wasn't until the day of Scotts bump that the truth began to unfold
While Scott was recounting the details of his accident to me, I asked how Joanie was about it.
“Fucking furious” replied Scotty
“Do you think she’ll be OK with the Italy trip?” I asked
there was a pause at the other end of the phone, and finally a sheepish
“ah..... I haven’t told her about that yet”
and then quickly “But it will be alright! she’ll accept it!”
This is what I love about Scott - He lives life on the edge.... and being the lovable sort of chap that he is, manages to get away with it
From what I know about Joanie, Scotty is a very lucky chap - many wives may not be so tolerant and understanding.
Thank you from me too Joanie. I promise to look after him for you.