The Lost Morning.Ok, I’m on holiday with the family in the South of France, its early in the season and no one around, Laila wants to do some jobs around the house and Max wants to be with his mates.
FANATASTIC, I have 4 hours to do what I want, and do what I’m good at: sunbathing on the beach!
I have to go by bicycle as Laila may need the car, no problem it’s only 5 km or so, plenty of time to get some peace and solitude and a tan!
As quick as I can, I collect the necessaries and off I pedal, the Beach is calling me.
It’s mid morning and it’s already getting hot, I take the track off the road and pedal through the undergrowth to my spot! My personal bit of beach, its perfect, not a sole around, just me, the sun and the blue Mediterranean.
In a flash my towel is out, the sun cream on and I’m in the crucifix position, perfect to get the even tan.
FANATASTIC, I have 4 hours to do what I want, and do what I’m good at: sunbathing on the beach!
I have to go by bicycle as Laila may need the car, no problem it’s only 5 km or so, plenty of time to get some peace and solitude and a tan!
As quick as I can, I collect the necessaries and off I pedal, the Beach is calling me.
It’s mid morning and it’s already getting hot, I take the track off the road and pedal through the undergrowth to my spot! My personal bit of beach, its perfect, not a sole around, just me, the sun and the blue Mediterranean.
In a flash my towel is out, the sun cream on and I’m in the crucifix position, perfect to get the even tan.
I can feel the beads of sweat on my forehead and I can hear the waves gently hitting the beach, but hang on there’s something not right, can hear a sort of dragging/brushing noise, it’s very quiet but I can definitely hear it and its getting closer and closer.
I have to open my eyes, I look to the left and nothing, I look to the right and nothing, there’s no choice I can’t lie there any longer , so my wonderful 5 minutes was coming to an end. Sitting up I could see nothing different to when I lay down, golden sand, blue sea , blue sky and ‘hang on’ in the peripherary of my vision I can see something sort of grayish white in colour , the size of a small dog perhaps. I slowly turn to my left and three feet away from where I was lying stood a seagull!
Now I don’t normally like seagulls but I’m not going to shoo it off or throw anything at it, after all I’m a sucker for animals…….then I see it has a problem……possibly a broken wing! Bugger. Bugger. Bugger.
The South of France must have hundreds of km of beach and even this time of the season thousands and thousands of people so why oh why did this bird decide to come to me for help! Bugger. Bugger. Bugger.
OK, so I’m 5 km from the car, if it’s still there, I’m 25 km to the nearest Vet. I have a small rucksack. It looks hungry. It looks too big for the rucksack and what happens if someone suddenly appears on the beach to find an Englishman trying to stuff a live seagull into his beach bag. Not looking too good is it.
So I sit down and try to think.
It has def singled me out and is basically now standing on the towel holding out its damaged wing, you see if it had been a Disney film I would have known what to do and made a splint out of a…you know what I mean….but Walt wasn’t around …….
I checked my bag, all I had was an orange, and it looked hungry, hungry enough to eat an orange? No! Of course a seagull is not going to eat an orange it’s a carnivore!
Time is pressing and its getting hotter and hotter and I can already see my carefree ‘time on my own’ disappearing.
Then I have an idea, the first thing s to make sure it’s fed after that I’ll sort out the vet. I know there’s a shop on the main road, just a few km from the track. I’ll get it some food.
I didn’t even consider the thing would walk off, I just packed up as quickly as I could and jumped on the cycle and off I pedaled as fast as one can in thirty three degrees of heat. Sweating and smelling like some wild thing, I got to the shop, then the question. What should I buy? There isn’t a big demand for seagull food, whether it’s canned or fresh so surprisingly the French shopkeeper with no English whatsoever just thought I was a total looney trying to explain I wanted to buy food for a seagull. Anyway, I decided ‘dog food’ , unfortunately my French is limited and all I could think of was the word for dog ‘chien’ and the word for meat, which I forget but think it’s ‘carne’ or viande’, it doesn’t matter because then the shopkeeper thought I wanted to buy dog meat i.e. meat from a dog rather than for a dog! He didn’t sell either so in the end I settled upon two large tins of braising steak in jelly or something….and a bottle of water for me.
I am now carrying all this extra stuff on an old heavy bike and thinking it’s too hot, I’m going to die and how will Laila take it that I was carrying two large tins of steak in my bag when I have been a vegetarian for thirty years, a closet carnivore!
I eventually get back to my little patch of, what was heaven’ and is now becoming my personal little patch of hell. Then I realize that the bloody bird has probably walked off, trying to find a better ‘good Samaritan’ than
the stupid Englishman that fed me orange!
But needn’t have worried, I didn’t even have time to put my towel down and it re appeared. I was now feeling rather smug, Laila would be so proud of me and then I realized I didn’t have a tin opener. Bugger. Bugger. Bugger.
I have to open my eyes, I look to the left and nothing, I look to the right and nothing, there’s no choice I can’t lie there any longer , so my wonderful 5 minutes was coming to an end. Sitting up I could see nothing different to when I lay down, golden sand, blue sea , blue sky and ‘hang on’ in the peripherary of my vision I can see something sort of grayish white in colour , the size of a small dog perhaps. I slowly turn to my left and three feet away from where I was lying stood a seagull!
Now I don’t normally like seagulls but I’m not going to shoo it off or throw anything at it, after all I’m a sucker for animals…….then I see it has a problem……possibly a broken wing! Bugger. Bugger. Bugger.
The South of France must have hundreds of km of beach and even this time of the season thousands and thousands of people so why oh why did this bird decide to come to me for help! Bugger. Bugger. Bugger.
OK, so I’m 5 km from the car, if it’s still there, I’m 25 km to the nearest Vet. I have a small rucksack. It looks hungry. It looks too big for the rucksack and what happens if someone suddenly appears on the beach to find an Englishman trying to stuff a live seagull into his beach bag. Not looking too good is it.
So I sit down and try to think.
It has def singled me out and is basically now standing on the towel holding out its damaged wing, you see if it had been a Disney film I would have known what to do and made a splint out of a…you know what I mean….but Walt wasn’t around …….
I checked my bag, all I had was an orange, and it looked hungry, hungry enough to eat an orange? No! Of course a seagull is not going to eat an orange it’s a carnivore!
Time is pressing and its getting hotter and hotter and I can already see my carefree ‘time on my own’ disappearing.
Then I have an idea, the first thing s to make sure it’s fed after that I’ll sort out the vet. I know there’s a shop on the main road, just a few km from the track. I’ll get it some food.
I didn’t even consider the thing would walk off, I just packed up as quickly as I could and jumped on the cycle and off I pedaled as fast as one can in thirty three degrees of heat. Sweating and smelling like some wild thing, I got to the shop, then the question. What should I buy? There isn’t a big demand for seagull food, whether it’s canned or fresh so surprisingly the French shopkeeper with no English whatsoever just thought I was a total looney trying to explain I wanted to buy food for a seagull. Anyway, I decided ‘dog food’ , unfortunately my French is limited and all I could think of was the word for dog ‘chien’ and the word for meat, which I forget but think it’s ‘carne’ or viande’, it doesn’t matter because then the shopkeeper thought I wanted to buy dog meat i.e. meat from a dog rather than for a dog! He didn’t sell either so in the end I settled upon two large tins of braising steak in jelly or something….and a bottle of water for me.
I am now carrying all this extra stuff on an old heavy bike and thinking it’s too hot, I’m going to die and how will Laila take it that I was carrying two large tins of steak in my bag when I have been a vegetarian for thirty years, a closet carnivore!
I eventually get back to my little patch of, what was heaven’ and is now becoming my personal little patch of hell. Then I realize that the bloody bird has probably walked off, trying to find a better ‘good Samaritan’ than
the stupid Englishman that fed me orange!
But needn’t have worried, I didn’t even have time to put my towel down and it re appeared. I was now feeling rather smug, Laila would be so proud of me and then I realized I didn’t have a tin opener. Bugger. Bugger. Bugger.
The seagull just looked at me then the can of braising steak, I could tell it was famished, it would probably eat both tins and then want more. This could be an expensive rescue…..
After what seemed like hours and yet still wasn’t mid day, I managed to smash open the can, the jelly flew everywhere, and I was covered in this horrendous goo, a vegetarian with a marrow bone face pack…awful. With a little more prizing, I managed to get the steak out of the tin , collected it all on a piece of paper and happily presented it to the seagull , who had patiently been waiting and wondering what exactly the mad Englishman was doing.
I placed the food in front of the bird, it stared at the steak and stared at me, it hobbled forward dragging its injured wing. Thank God it was going to be ok, at least it was feeding…… but no. It looked as if it almost sniffed the meat, looked at me, looked at the meat, looked back at me with I swear a look of total disgust in its eye and turned round, dragging its wing. It looked back once more, me standing there like the maitre de of some Michelin restaurant which had just been de starred. And then it happened….it flew off!
My morning had been a complete waste, a few people had started to appear on the beach and settle themselves down for a relaxing afternoon.
I was just sitting there with a pile of steak and jelly next to me, not surprisingly no one came near. I decided to throw the food into the sea, disaster me standing in the sea surrounded by brown floating jelly and gravy and lumps of steak, really not a pleasant site and passing tourists were not impressed.
I quickly left the water and retreated to the security of my towel. I just want to go home now, embarrassed at being so foolish and not having to explain why I had a large tin of braising steak in my bag, I decided I could not take it home, I knew what the answer was, and I would bury it. All the evidence of my three hour disaster would be gone, so dug a hole and dropped it in. God knows what the people on the beach thought but by that time I didn’t care. The mercury n the thermometer was climbing fast and I was wilting faster so I packed up and went home again.
I had probably lost about 4 kilos in weight by the time I got back home. ‘You’re red, too much sun eh?’ “Not exactly’ was my reply and I decided to come clean, just in case I had been seen buying steak or standing in gravy.
Highly amusing, totally ridiculous where running through Laila’s mind and then she asked about the second can of steak. “I buried it!’ I replied ‘No let’s just forget about the whole thing!’
Nice idea and then she pointed out that I had buried a can of meat on a beach in the direct sun, where the temperatures would reach the low forties, had I thought about the possibility that it might explode. Bugger bugger bugger …and what if there was an innocent couple sun bathing, they could be physically harmed or mentally scarred and not be able to eat ‘viande sur la plage’ again!
There was no choice, I had to go back…..
After what seemed like hours and yet still wasn’t mid day, I managed to smash open the can, the jelly flew everywhere, and I was covered in this horrendous goo, a vegetarian with a marrow bone face pack…awful. With a little more prizing, I managed to get the steak out of the tin , collected it all on a piece of paper and happily presented it to the seagull , who had patiently been waiting and wondering what exactly the mad Englishman was doing.
I placed the food in front of the bird, it stared at the steak and stared at me, it hobbled forward dragging its injured wing. Thank God it was going to be ok, at least it was feeding…… but no. It looked as if it almost sniffed the meat, looked at me, looked at the meat, looked back at me with I swear a look of total disgust in its eye and turned round, dragging its wing. It looked back once more, me standing there like the maitre de of some Michelin restaurant which had just been de starred. And then it happened….it flew off!
My morning had been a complete waste, a few people had started to appear on the beach and settle themselves down for a relaxing afternoon.
I was just sitting there with a pile of steak and jelly next to me, not surprisingly no one came near. I decided to throw the food into the sea, disaster me standing in the sea surrounded by brown floating jelly and gravy and lumps of steak, really not a pleasant site and passing tourists were not impressed.
I quickly left the water and retreated to the security of my towel. I just want to go home now, embarrassed at being so foolish and not having to explain why I had a large tin of braising steak in my bag, I decided I could not take it home, I knew what the answer was, and I would bury it. All the evidence of my three hour disaster would be gone, so dug a hole and dropped it in. God knows what the people on the beach thought but by that time I didn’t care. The mercury n the thermometer was climbing fast and I was wilting faster so I packed up and went home again.
I had probably lost about 4 kilos in weight by the time I got back home. ‘You’re red, too much sun eh?’ “Not exactly’ was my reply and I decided to come clean, just in case I had been seen buying steak or standing in gravy.
Highly amusing, totally ridiculous where running through Laila’s mind and then she asked about the second can of steak. “I buried it!’ I replied ‘No let’s just forget about the whole thing!’
Nice idea and then she pointed out that I had buried a can of meat on a beach in the direct sun, where the temperatures would reach the low forties, had I thought about the possibility that it might explode. Bugger bugger bugger …and what if there was an innocent couple sun bathing, they could be physically harmed or mentally scarred and not be able to eat ‘viande sur la plage’ again!
There was no choice, I had to go back…..
The beach was rather full now, a few people recognized the mad chap from the morning and they weren’t a bit surprised when I stated to dig holes, trying to find something in the sand , you hoped you would never see again can be hard.. The new comers on the beach were even more surprised when I found it.
the little Bugger Bugger Bugger
Lovely! Almost made me feel sorry for the poor seagull!!
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