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Thursday 2 April 2009

caught in a storm

Hello, I’m back. I’ve been around the world (literally, I lost a day of my life, for me there was no 3rd October) but there’s no place like home, ooh baby. And if I’ve learnt anything, it’s firstly not to quote East17 lyrics in the opening paragraph of your return column and secondly that wherever you go the weather is insane. I don’t know whether it’s global warming, El Nino or the presence of me but it’s been weird.

I managed to get a tan this year for the first time in my life. I know they say that you should let a tan build gradually I just never knew they meant the best part of thirty years. It’s fading now, which is probably a blessing, with the tan skin and orange hair I was beginning to look a bit like a 70’s carpet. However in between bouts of tanning I also enjoyed some mental weather.

I haven’t really fallen over in years. I have various scars which are the result of a childhood running around and falling over. But as I have grown older and come to the realisation that I am built for comfort, not speed, my tumbling incidents are few and far between. Until this summer. And I can trace it to two things. When these things meet incidents occur, sadly usually in public.

Factor number 1: Flip Flops. Very comfortable. They are my shoe of choice for the summer. However the minute it rains you must start walking like a geisha as any large strides will cause your foot to slip against the sole of your flip flop sending you shuttling forward (usually whilst emitting a “werrrrppp” type sound). My favourite place to do this is when entering shops. The majority of the time you manage to stay on your feet though.

Factor number 2: Tiled pavements. In the UK we are built for rain. We may not enjoy it but damn it we are good at it. Tarmac provides good grip as do paving slabs. However in Australia (where I went on holiday) they see fit to tile the pavements and occasionally place a shiny manhole cover as an obstacle. Fine in the dry, lethal in the wet. The roads are full of people sliding to their knees and then pretending that they meant to do that.

Anyway. Here is a story of when factors combine and unleash hell.

I was in Brisbane. Only being there for 3 days I had jam packed my days full of activities and pretty much left the hotel early morning not returning till late evening. That particular day I had been at Australia Zoo. The zoo that Steve Irwin ran and is now devoted to his daughter’s rather bizarre show business career. Annoyingly my camera batteries started to fail on the way round the zoo. Wishing to see animals and not Bindi Irwin dancing around and deciding that buying a Steve Irwin posable action figure was in bad taste (I won’t deny that I was tempted) I headed back in to the city early with the idea of twatting around until I went to see a play that evening. I was going to see “The Importance of Being Earnest” at a theatre situated across a very narrow (tiled) bridge.
As I sat in a glass walled café it started to rain. And by rain I mean it lashed down. It was like someone was pouring a bucket of water down the walls. It then started to thunder. For those concerned with the details I will tell you that I was wearing a vest top, a white skirt and flip flops as it had been 30 degrees when I left the hotel. According to news reports the next day this had been a major tropical storm involving 2,200 lightening strikes in 6 hours. All I can tell you is that every 10 seconds the sky lit up and was followed by thunder so loud people couldn’t talk over it, trees were being blown horizontal and everyone in the café was there for life. On my fourth pot of tea I made the executive decision that I was not going to see a play that night. Walking across the bridge would lead me, I feared, to certain death. However I did decide that I would make a dash for the taxi rank. So I ran outside and immediately slipped, did the splits, banged the underside of both arms on to a step, sent my skirt see thru and finished the manoeuvre by sitting down hard on my bag smashing my camera to bits.

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