RETURNING

Day 6

It seems that as a family we can only maintain our interest in something for five days. Sometimes in the UK we can use the weather as an excuse and go home early. Not here. So we all sit on the balcony overlooking the wooded slopes of beautiful Kefalonia as the goat bells jingle and the cicadas rattle, but our minds are all somewhere else. It feels like the holiday’s over, but we’re still here. That we’ve gone home in every sense other than actually going home. Which is going to happen tomorrow. Someone has switched the enthusiasm switch off: we do not want to eat, nor do we want to swim. And seeing as that is pretty much all we’ve done for the last five days, we’re at a bit of a loss.

To liven things up the youngest drops half an oregano crisp on the floor and we all watch the ants carry it off. I wonder what we’re going to do when it’s safely down the hole under the kitchen window.

ITHACA

Day 5

We’re on the sun deck of the morning ferry to Ithaca waiting to depart Sami. The family next to us take out hotel breakfast boxes and start rifling through to see what they’ve got. Presumably they ticked a box the previous night, alongside the one asking if they’d like a knock on the door so they don’t have to think about having to wake themselves up either. I can’t see what they’ve got but I don’t care, because I’m too busy thinking how stupid they look, and how great I am for holding out for an indigenous Americano and pasty in Vathi.

This isn’t the first time I’ve noticed the propensity some people have for eating the moment they set foot on public transport. Especially trains. It’s not just something they do to pass the time after a spell of looking out of the window. No, it’s immediate. As if their life depends on it. When the first steam locomotives were introduced people thought they might suffocate over 30mph. I wonder whether these people think they might starve. That the train will drain every scrap of energy from their sorry arses and discard them like spent Duracell's at the next station. So it’s sit down, crack the Coke, pop the Pringles, rip open the Honey Roast Ham and get gorging.

The father is wearing a turquoise polo shirt and has a small and perfectly spherical head. There’s very little above the eyes, as though the bit that normally houses the brains has been left off. If it weren’t for the mature female mate and two normally proportioned children sitting beside him, you could easily pass him off as a grotesquely over-sized toddler. He’s bald and shiny except for a narrow shaved strip at ear height, and a couple of fleshy folds around the back. Around the front there’s a little beard-moustache combo, circling the mouth area like the muzzle of an unimaginative soft toy. His paws fumble with the play food in the box wedged in his groin, and it looks like he’s found something good to eat. By the time we pull out of the harbour they’re all munching happily; daddy bear, mummy bear and both baby bears.

EXTRA-TERRIBLE

Day 3

The mood is lightening. Presumably at least partly because we slept in a bed last night. We hadn't been able to the night before because the aircon was broken in our bedroom, so Julia and I encamped in the lounge. With one thing and another, things didn’t get off to a good start. The youngest decided the apartment was nowhere near as good as last year’s and went into some kind of terminal sulk. Which drove Julia and I crazy, not because he was behaving like a spoilt 6-year-old, but because he was right. And shouting at him was a lot easier than accepting the fact we’d chosen a shit apartment.

But now things are easing, and problems that seemed insoluble when we arrived are getting sorted. For example, we’ve found that, despite there being no toaster, we can make perfectly adequate toast using the oven grill. And closing the wooden shutters is a good way of stopping the early morning sun blasting into the bedrooms and waking us all up.  I don’t know why the act of flying from Edinburgh to Greece is so detrimental to the act of rational thought, but it is. We may not be tired and befuddled when we finish work, but by the time we get to Kefalonia we certainly are. We’ve come to accept that the act of going on holiday demolishes you. It’s just a matter of whether you can put yourself back together before it’s time to come home.

NASTY

"You want to donate?”

The cashier nods down to the collection box on the counter and fixes me with a startlingly intense stare. Do I want to donate? That’s a question I wasn’t prepared to answer when I stepped into WHSmiths for a White Americano and packet of Extra Strong Mints for the youngest.

The people in the line are watching, judging. The youngest is watching, judging too. But also I guess looking for guidance on what to do the next time someone in a shop asks him if he wants to donate. The truth is, I don't. For some reason the disdain I feel for people I don’t know asking me for money far outweighs any compassion I might feel for the poor and needy. Especially when they’re wearing yellow ears. But she’s still staring, and it doesn’t look like the transaction is going any further without an answer. Which means a dozen people’s day has been halted as a result of my callous indecision.

MOLLUSC

Our final afternoon on the Greek island of Kefalonia, and we’re snorkelling around a cluster of giant mushroom-shaped rocks sprouting from the sea opposite Ithaca. Apparently thrown by Cyclops at invading pirates. As if being half blind is an excuse for not tidying up after yourself. Anyway, they’re great to jump off and, especially when the sea is calm, the most photogenic objects on the island. Which means I take the same photos of them every time we’re there, in the mistaken belief that one of them will be perfect, and I will look at it often, even though it’s exactly the same as the last, and I won’t. That’s the problem with always having a high quality camera in your towel bag. When you have the opportunity to preserve that perfect moment for all eternity you tend to take it, thus missing it completely.

The eldest lets out a gurgled exclamation and points down to a huge snail moving surprisingly quickly over the rippled sand below. With the magnification effect of the water it’s hard to tell how big it is, although it looks about a foot long. It’s decided that I’ll dive to get it, having the biggest lungs. Also we’re all slightly worried it might be dangerous.

WONDERLAND

Greetings from Wonderland.

I can’t of course be sure you’re seeing this - if you’re in the real world that is. Or even that I’ve written it. Because that’s the thing about Wonderland - doing something doesn't mean it’s happened, just as not doing it is no guarantee it hasn’t. Wonderland is all about faith; the deaf, dumb and blind variety. Believing what you’re told to be true even if it blatantly isn’t. And then Wondering how the hell things got this bad, and when it will all be over.

On the face of it Wonderland is a wonderful idea. I mean, what do you do when you realise your organisation is basically crap and never going to get any better? Simply because it’s got people in it, and people are - unavoidably - human. And that’s no longer good enough, because what you’re promising is perfection. Which is something your glum and disinterested workforce can barely spell, never mind deliver. And when you can’t get to where you want to get to in the real world what do you do? Create another one. Hey presto: Wonderland.

And that’s where I am most of the time these days. I say ‘time', but that’s one of the things that doesn’t apply here. Along with logic, and giving people credit for even a smidgeon of intelligence. You’ve probably been here yourself without realising it. For example, you’re on a station platform, your train is due at 8:08 and is ‘on time’. With a single fluid motion you turn to the station clock and see it’s 8:08, then swivel back to the platform. No train. Where it is? Nobody knows. And it doesn’t matter. The real question is where are you? And the answer is: Wonderland.

CROSSING THE LINE

About a mile from home I pull up behind a slow moving vehicle with flashing lights and black and yellow chevrons. Assuming it’s a street cleaner I weave a little with view to overtaking. Unexpectedly, an arm extends out of the offside window and flaps wildly. It’s a signal I vaguely remember from my driving test days back in the eighties, but I can’t remember what it means. It’s charmingly manual, presumably deriving from a time before light bulbs, and reminds me of when driving was still unpredictable and full of mystery. Rather than something that just happens when you’re between places, as it is now.

I cross once again over the crown of the road and the arm flapping changes into something a little more erratic, as if the driver is attempting to slap the side of his truck immediately behind the window. I wonder whether he’s having some kind of fit and signalling for help.

I pull in closer behind and swing out again in an effort to understand what’s going on. That’s when I notice the second vehicle in front, a kind of small yellow steam-driven contraption - like a roller, but I can’t see what it’s rolling. Is this what it’s all about - a roller in transit between jobs? Surely they’d put it on a truck wouldn’t they? Unless I’ve happened upon the world record breaking Endurance Rolling Team in the process of completing the Scottish leg of its round the world endurance rolling attempt. I suppose I’m honoured to be delayed by such an heroic undertaking. 

But I’d still rather get home, so after the next bend I throttle hard and, with a jaunty toot and a friendly wave, surge past both vehicles. I catch a glimpse of the truck driver who seems to be shouting something out of his open window. No doubt an apology for the inconvenience caused.

Twenty minutes later I’m in the driveway trying to chip the thick white paint off my tyres with a screwdriver.  It never occurred to me that people painted white lines on roads when anyone else was about. Without telling them. The white goo is becoming stiffer by the minute, and I chip away with increased vigour, afraid that at some indeterminate point in the future it will become permanent. I’m in new territory here and have no clue about the properties of this substance. Other than that when you put it on a road it stays there a very long time. Which suggests that if you put it on a car it won’t be going anywhere fast. Other than where the car’s going of course.

MINEFIELD

What doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger. Then it kills you.

I’m sat staring at a laptop, fingers poised, frozen in a trance of helplessness and despair. I have approximately 30 minutes to write a short essay on the challenges facing the trucks used by aid workers in a location of my choice and how they are overcome. Or rather, the youngest has. But he’s got his head on the table and is blubbing quietly to himself. The Britain’s Got Talent Live Final is on in half an hour and he wants to watch it. Live. Far more than he wants to write about overcoming the challenges facing the trucks used by aid workers in a location of his choice.

As someone used to tackling the absurdities of government tenders, I’m no stranger to answering seemingly unanswerable questions to impossible deadlines. But nothing comes close to this. You see, this is not something I was ever expecting I’d need to know about. Let alone write a short essay on, with pictures, in time for the Live Final of Britain’s Got Talent.

UNCOUPLING

"Jes, for God’s sake you’re going to get us killed!"

Aloft on his mountainous machine the tractor driver bobs along obliviously like only a tractor driver can, while all around him lose their heads and blame it all on him.

I pull back in behind and thump the wheel. We’ve been stuck behind him for 10 minutes! What idiot has fields so far away from where he keeps his tractor? And with all that power why can’t he find a couple of extra gears to make the bloody thing go faster than 35 mph! Can’t he bob any quicker!

‘We’re going to miss this train!’ I vent.

'It doesn’t matter, just be careful!'

It does matter. The fact we’re not going anywhere on it makes no difference. At this moment in time, while looking at the back end of this agricultural road block for the eleventh consecutive minute, getting to the station is the most important thing in the world.

You see, the Flying Scotsman is coming to Dunfermline and we have to be there. Why? Because we go back a long way. When we lived in Yorkshire we’d go and see it often, in pieces, being lovingly restored in the National Railway Museum. Now we live in Scotland and it's coming to see us. When he was two, the eldest fell in love with the thing, and slept for years with a small replica next to his pillow. We pulled it off the cover of the first edition of Great Locomotives of the World. Special offer; the best 99p we ever spent. Such was his devotion that he took the bold move of introducing the Brio version into Sodor, the only non-fictional vehicle on the network.

SEE IT, SAY IT, SOD IT

It’s not very good is it. I mean, how many people go "Wow, yes, I now feel empowered to play my part in keeping Britain’s railways safe". And how many people just go "it’s not very good is it"?

Which isn't what you'd expect from the railways. That pioneering force. That great British engine of social and cultural change. A hundred years ago the railways were busy changing the world, connecting our towns and cities, giving us all a way to get to work, and something to complain about when we got there. Before the railways we didn't even share the same time zone. And there was no WHSmith. And now what do they give us? Sloppy slogans and nonsensical announcements.

For example, when did it become necessary to remind us what a station does by putting the word 'stop' after it? And since when did things start 'arriving into' them? And how long has it been possible for something to be 'formed from' eight carriages. You'd think an organisation that spends all its time going to and from places would be on top of its propositions.