The day we left the city

Snagov Monastery (If we had actually seen it, this is what it would have looked like)

James left yesterday and I'm almost certain he'll never return to Bucharest again. We visited many a drinking establishment, found the city parks and generally wandered. It was only when James suggested we take a bus out of the city to visit a monastery in the middle of a lake did things start to go horribly wrong..

Lake Snagov is a lake situated north of the city. Perhaps only 40km away, it is in all the guide books and features high on the list of attractions the country has to offer. Guidebooks, we soon found out LIE!. Especially ones reviewing places of interest in this country. 

Looking back, there were many alarm bells which should have sounded the morning of our excursion. One of them being Jame's apartment manager's vague attempt at trying to give us information on how to get there and back. The only advice he could provide us with for returning to the city was to try and hitch hike the 40km back.  Undetered and possibly still drunk, we made it there by cab. The instructions to just get to the right bus stop to find the right bus out of the city were ridiculously complicated.

We were soon making our way out into the countryside, en route to Lake Snagov and the tomb of Vlad Tepes (Dracula).

As we arrived, the location looked like a 60's holiday camp after a nuclear disaster. There was an empty swimming pool and a outside shower leaking water, and the main buildings which looked like remnants of holiday apartments and chalets were dirty and deserted. There were however a hand full of romanians barbecuing on the grounds; seemingly having fun. A small cafe was open and so first stop was lunch, then there was the issue of  where the boat was located which took people across to the monastery. Arriving at the small jetty, there was not a boat in sight. Only a speed boat which seemed to be motoring around the lake, occasionally dropping people back to shore. Turns out this boat belonged to a family who were just out having fun. When I asked where the boat was for the monastery the guy nearly died as he thought I was asking if I could borrow his boat myself. He pointed to 3 moldy old rowing boats, rolling his eyes at me as he motored off in his giant propelled penis 

The small area where said boats were mored was fenced off and was occupied by what looked like 3 gypsy men who were busy raking grass. I ventured in and asked how much the boats were. 

"Maine dimmenata" he said giving me a bit of  a pervy, but confused look. "Nu Acum"

Basically, Tomorrow morning, not now.

Great.

A tad deflated be considered our options as it was only 3pm by now and we hadn't even managed to spot the monastery at all. The options available to us were... 1) try and attempt to hitch hike home or 2) go for a walk and put the hitch hiking off for an hour or so. Option 2 was decided upon and in no time we had taken a path into a rather beautiful wooded area. Following the gravel track seemed like a good idea as not to get completely lost or end up in someone's back garden. After 30 minutes or thereabouts, some houses came into view through the trees. The forest ended and civilisation appeared like a phoenix from the ashes. A small gap in the foliage allowed us to see what was on the other side. I pushed my way through to find a asphalt road, a few houses and 3 cute dogs lying in the afternoon sun.

Being used to encountering stray city dogs, I continued to make my way towards them and out of the woods. My progress was however well and truly scuppered when I realised these cute little beings were in fact rabid, tooth-bearing monsters. As they rapidly approached me, red eyed, salivating and crazy I turned back to james who I thought was behind me to tell him to perhaps retreat into the safety of the bush. James however it had seemed to have already legged it a good 50 yards back into the woods. Penny once told me the time when she had resorted to barking insanely at a pack of wild dogs in Siwa which seemed to do the trick. I however, turned around and retreated slowly, hoping to god they weren't pissed off enough to take a chunk out of my arse. 

4.30 and the days events hadn't exactly gone to plan. Least it wasn't raining. 

After enquiring about whether there was in fact any sort of public transport back to Bucharest we were pointed in the direction of the town. Things started to look up.

8km later and some rather ominous looking black clouds looming above us we made it to Snagov. There was one rather dilapidated bus stop with no times tables or useful information at all and no one in sight. A shop keeper told us there wasn't any buses, or in fact any taxis around. Hmmm, helpful chap. Assessing the situation for a moment it seemed we were stranded  in the middle of nowhere 40km away from the city  and it was about to rain. A lot.

Just before James decided to pull a wad of cash out of the ATM and wave it in the face of any passer by, I thought to try again in the shop. The thought of sleeping rough in a thunderstorm made me grimace. Only this time did the shop man point at the bus stop we had just passed. I'm sure he did it on purpose. It's always amusing to watch two ridiculous tourists, close to tears shit themselves.

Who would have thought 30 people could fit in to this.

A mini bus eventually came but it appeared that there wasn't just no seats available, there was no space full stop. Like hell we were going to wait for another one so we crammed ourselves in. I was sat under the dash board and James was squatting on the step. This is nice we thought. 

Every tiny bit of space imaginable was taken up by people standing, squatting or hanging on for dear life. Just when we thought it couldn't get any worse, the driver stopped to let more people on. Within 20 minutes we had gradually made our way down towards the middle of the bus. It had begun to hammer it down with rain and it was like standing in a greenhouse in the middle of a rainforest. But this greenhouse smelt of armpits. 

"This is Romania!" joked a lady, after realising we both found the whole sweaty situation fairly amusing. Actually I thought, no, it's absolutely ridiculous. If we crashed all 30 of the people in this crappy little 14 seater micro bus would be toast. Not nice tasty toast and marmite either; soggy squashed toast covered in bolognese.

Needless to say, we did make it back alive and headed straight to Lipscani and the nearest bar, to obviously toast our success at having possibly the most unproductive day imaginable. 

James vowed never to suggest anything...ever again. I have to say, he's had better ideas. 

But James' day wasn't over yet.

It turned out that evening James was chatted up by a prozzey pimp with missing teeth. After trying to sell him a 12 year old whore for 500lei she then proceeded to follow him down a backstreet. The rough old dog then decided to pin him against a wall, give him a distract-your-attention grope whilst stealing his phone and a cash!

The next morning James was describing to me this rather sordid chain of events of the night before and I was surprised she robbed him blind. He then proceeded to tell me he may have perhaps insulted her slightly in a previous conversation which could have angered the pimp lady somewhat. She had asked him why he didn't want to buy any girls and what was he afraid of. 

James then told her that the reason why he wasn't interested was because he had heard awful stories about prostitutes and he'll more than likely get robbed by them. 

Hmm. That'll be it then.

What a way to set yourself up for the most expensive grope in history. 

Jame's top tip of the day: Never piss off a toothless pimp.

Bucharest 1 month in

Shisha Alley

Firstly, the reason for my absence from the blogersphere recently is due in part to the fact that nothing of much significance has really happened. One month in to life in Bucharest and we've found ourselves counting down the days until we leave for the green pastures of Breb,Transylvania. 

We had a short snowy trip in the 1st week where the kids learnt how to snowboard and I had an incident with a bottle of Romanian moonshine and a snowy piste. Let's just say, I genuinely thought I had broken my neck. For a week afterwards I couldn't lift my head off the pillow. Instead I had to roll onto my face and slide my whole body off the bed feet first, scooping my head up in my hands. 

Bucharest is an interesting city. It's not hard to imagine it was only a mere 20 odd years ago that Romania was still under communist rule.  In 1989 Ceausescu and his wife were both executed in public which put a prompt end to that.
The city is gradually changing, a cultural scene is emerging and people are starting to learn how to live. However, you can't help but get the distinct feeling that the 2 million population are still somewhat scared to breath. The whole country is rife with corruption and stray dogs. If you happen to read anything articles on Bucharest, they rarely mention anything else. It's common to wander the streets and spot shady mafia folk everywhere you go. You see Bentleys parked along side rusty 80s Ladas and crusty tramps kipping in the doorway of Armani.

The architecture is a funny mix of neoclassical and art nouveau as well as neo-romanian. There is little medieval architecture left as it was destroyed by communist systemization. The whole historic center was demolished to make way for high rises and apartment blocks. The small pieces that were spared are impressive. I was walking past a building site the other day and happened to have a nose through a gap in the mesh fencing. There were more than 10 which I could see, intacted human skeletons sticking out of the ground in various places. In some areas, men were just hacking the bones out and dumping them into rubbish bags. Slightly odd but never mind.

I have been living with the kids and their Dad in an apartment near the centre. We have school as usual and then I do my website doodling. During the week when I finish I walk to Carrefour with Claudia. Not that I like shopping, but it's the only time I get to leave the apartment. Most days I have to still steer Claudia away from the stray dogs which she can't help but try and make friends with. She did make a friend in art class; but she obviously wasn't hairy or smelly enough. 

If it wasn't for the abundance of Vin Rosu and its tasty cheap availability, I would have certainly gone nuts in less than a week. I've recently found a rather disgusting bottle for the equivalent of a mere £1.10! It tastes like sweet gypsy piss, but beggars can't be choosers now can they.

My next blog is much more exciting, James came over and got groped by a prozzey....but that's another story.

Pe curand prietenii mea!

Siwa the Swamp

On the evening of the 5th of February clouds were looming in the sky looking a little heavy an unpredictable. Siwa encounters perhaps a couple of millimeters of rain a year, if that. The place is bone dry. Sand storms are a regular occurrence but rain is scarcer than a bacon sandwich round these parts.

Anyway, after a merry roast everyone hit the sack, expecting the clouds to have disappeared by the morning. 

I awoke on Sunday to a funny smell which I couldn't place for the life of me. It was a musty, cementy smell. I swung my legs over the side of the bed, at which point I realised my head hurt slightly from the night before. I paused for a second before lowering my feet to the floor and into an inch of freezing cold water.

Water was streaming out of every plug socket in the room and dripping unremittingly from every door frame and crack imaginable. It was something out of one of those weird dreams where everything distorts and turns into something else. The lovely blue wall paint was bulging into giant globules on the wall, sagging with fausty water. Being on the top floor meant I had first dibs . It had soaked through the layer of rotten rubbish and crap lying on the roof and seeped into every  crack and cranny imaginable.

The carpet in the main room was stinking and sodden and as I tried to squeegy the water out and onto the tiled area, disgusting waves of brown, most likely cholera-infested swamp water came gushing forth.

Luckily, I have little possessions as it is and the night before I must have been sober enough to not toss random items of any value on to the floor.  As I attempted to drain the marsh that was now my apartment, the stench of years of unwashed carpet nearly made be gag. After dropping a few things in the quagmire in an attempt to move them to higher ground the phone rings and Penny announces that school might possibly be off this morning. Their house out in the sticks was inhabitable last night and all the school books are now teetering of the brink of disintegration. She them reminded me that the wiring here is the dodgiest on the face of the planet and not to go touching any dripping light switches or poking any plugs. The town was already starting to resemble a mini firework display so I took onboard the advice and got back to sweeping muck out the front door and down the stairs probably straight into someone else's apartment.

Town was completely drowned and lights were sparking all over the place.  The majority of Siwan houses are made of mud and bits of straw and found objects which gives me the impression there isn't likely to be any drainage system installed in this state of the art metropolis. The shop next door is doing a roaring trade and has sold out of plastic sheeting within the first hour of business. People are rushing to gift wrap their houses against another downpour. Ludmilla had left me her plants to look after whilst she went back to Russia for a month and I had, up until now been very green-fingered and nurturing towards them. They sat on the balcony soaking up the sun. Now however the majority of them resemble miniature potted mangroves, some of them are completely pulverised into mush after meeting a watery end on my bedroom floor. 

I'm hoping to get away with using the Natural Disaster- get out shit free card. Fingers crossed. 

It was only after 2 hours of de-waterfying the place did I remember I had a rabbit on the other balcony. Poor Revo. I braced myself to find a cold soggy dead bunny lying in a  pool of poo and water but it turned out it was just not his time...yet.

His lovely Blue Peter-syle abode was indeed a little droopy but it appeared the other end of the apartment was was drench-free.

Today is Friday and even though water has stopped dripping incessantly from the ceiling, I have had to roll up my stenchy carpet and take it for a dunk in the kids Pool. The reason for this was that there had become strange smell which later Penny identified as cabbage. Old cabbage smelling carpet. Not good. Apart from that everything is pretty much back to normal. The roads are beginning to be passable again and I can ride my bike to school without disappearing head first into a swampy trench.

Aside from causing a truck load of destruction for 3 days, the rain in Siwa was undoubtedly a once in a life time occurrence. I'm glad I was here to witness the drenching but I'm also glad it only happens once a century. 

th

REVO! (the rabbit)

The first news of the protests in Cairo began to trickle through to Siwa at the beginning of the trouble. The mood in Siwa was tentative but business resumed as normal. Those who owned televisions filtered though bit by bit snippets of the events that were unfolding. 

The death toll mounted and communications were severed with the outside world. The Siwans don't tend to consider themselves "Egyptian" as such. For one, Siwa is closer to Libya than Cairo and the majority of the population in Mersa Matrouh and Siwa are predominantly Bedouin or descendants from Berbers. However, all eyes and ears were open to hear of developments in Cairo and Alexandria as inevitably there would be repercussions felt here at some point. 

The Sheiks of Siwa have taken control and organised patrols in an attempt to safeguard the people and the remainng tourists who have managed to get themselves stranded here. It remains a very tribal area and in Siwa it is clear that the people here are different. Everyone looks after one another, cafes have started to provide free soups and the little supplies they have to marooned visitors unable to withdraw any money or take a bus out of the town. 

Wednesday afternoon Penny came into the shop looking, quite frankly Aghast. She then proceeded to relay to me that the town of Matrouh had been looted. all the shops were empty and not only that, our very special and sacred booze shop had been ransacked also. It gets worse. Not only did they loot the booze shop, they used the alcohol to make homemade bombs! As my face fell off my head completely I  managed to take on board what was being fed to me. Firstly, I live in the middle of the desert which is dry enough, secondly,  there is a revolution taking place which could possibly last for weeks, months even..and your telling me, the only shop that sells alcohol in a 300km radius has been looted. 

The following day myself and Penny were considering the severity of the booze situation when it dawned on us that the one and possibly only useful thing Siwa has to offer in the way of produce is dates. Dates are abundant here and many people grown them, harvest them sell them and package them out of town...but they are also known to FERMENT THEM INTO YUMMY DATE WINE!!?

So, The internet was down, phones lines were severed, and our alcohol making wits were about us. On the case we harassed Fahmi who told us he had a whole stack of dates he just needed somewhere to make the wine. A night was spent doodling sketches of barrels, pipes and fermenting times. We still need to visit a garden where the professionals make the stuff . This being for a number of reasons really, the first, we'd quite like to remain fully sighted post to the distilling process and second, we don't want to die.

I may have led you a little astray with my talk of wine. This is not wine in the traditional sense. This is what we call here Arak.  I have tasted yummy Arak and I also tasted bad Arak. I have heard stories of Arak makers going blind as well as Arak drinkers go crazy.  For me to describe it as fire water would be the biggest understatement this side of the century. It is however, in a time of crisis, absolutely, unquestionably, a) the only alcohol that will ever touch your lips and b) could possibly be mistaken for the yummiest thing you'll ever drink in your life (depending on your mental state)

There is now no petrol in the petrol station and no Gas in Siwa. No money in the ATM and the veg shop is looking rather depleted.

Time for drastic change. 

As I was cycling home after a wonderful productive morning at school with the guys, I passed the usual butchers ( a cage with 2 live chickens and a rabbit inside) and caught sight of this little bunny sitting in chicken shit looking rather down. Claudia suggested I brought. I chuckled and considered it half heartedly. Ten minutes later I was making 'NOT DEAD' gestures to the boy who worked there as he yanked the poor thing out of the cage by it's ears and started walking in and out of the slaughter room. "Mish- (throat cutting gesture) " I repeated again and again. He understood my crappy arabic and sign language and he was in  fact trying to find me a box in which to put the rabid thing.

I figured we needed a mascot for the Revolution, and the newly appointed Revo the Rabbit would  be it.  I made him a lovely house out of a cardboard box and brought him the only carrots left in Siwa for him to munch on.  He was bony, timid and tired but liked to fall asleep on me whilst I  watched people stoning other people to death on Television.  I wondered whether I had perhaps made a rather rash decision in buying him as I would be leaving the country in a month. Then I figured it would be fine. I would feed his scraggy self up on luscious carrots and lettuces and then when the time came for me to leave I'd give him to a Siwan family as a parting gift.  By this time he would be all fat, yummy and appreciated.

Day two of life with Revo and I'm begining to think I have created a monster. Either that or there is definitely something in the greens here.

This evening, after munching though a whole carrot and a lettuce leaf the size of his whole body he proceeded to hop excitedly about the place, munching on every bit of wooden furniture I have. He looks like he may be on crack. Crack carrots possibly. Occasionally he loll-ups up to me, a deranged twinkle in his eye and then darts off again, probably to take a crap under my bed or something equally gross.

Anyway, I love my little bunny wabbit and for now, however mental he might be, he's very soft and cuddly and doesn't make a sound. He will sleep on my balcony for the time being and run about like a deranged psychopath in the apartment in the evening. He will without a doubt have a prolonged and happier life than if he were still sitting in shit in the butchers cage or in the gut of some overweight tourist.

But all good things come to an end and Revo will inevitably become a martr of the peoples revolution in Egypt ( not out of choice )  He represents any trace of innocence and equality that still exist in this illiberal country. How can a man take money from a corrupt dictator to ride a camel through a crowd of praying Muslims, beating and trampling them to death?

I have just given Revo another carrot which he is devouring like it's his last day on earth. I've told him otherwise but he clearly doesn't believe me. I think my mum could make a fair comparison between his eating habits and mine when I was younger. This worries me slightly.

Must sign off, my bunny is eating my trouser leg and looks like he might throw up.

I have resumed my place at the keyboard as something rather gross/hilarious (had there been someone else in the room ) has just occurred.

After chasing Revo around the apartment for the best part of 15 minutes, I manage to capture him, only for him to then take the biggest piss I've ever seen come out of a rabbit's winky ever, all over me and the floor. I am now covered in rabbit urine and will have to wash the patch of the carpet over which I held him in a manner not dissimilar to that of suspending a small child over an imaginary toilet on a grass verge.

I'm wee-ly glad I have a wevolution wabbit. 

not.

P.S I love him really.

Roman Skulls and Meteorites

(Naser looking very Siwan)

My Intention was to post this a week ago but as you are aware there has been a small scuffle in Egypt whereby 2 million people took to the streets in an attempt to shoo away a right meany of a dictator named Hosni Mubarak. We are still awaiting the outcome. Internet and all communication has been down for the past week so I have taken this opportunity to  upload this post before it's either cut off again, or we have another powercut..which is likely.  A revolution blog will follow in which I will introduce to you my new little friend Revo the Revolution Rabbit whom I purchased two days ago.

25/01/2011

Anyhow, the main reason for this blog is to tell you all about my recent little voyage into the desert.  I was recently fortunate enough to tag along on a two camping day trip with a couple of guests. I was to accompany the avid bird-watcher and American Poet Liz and Aussie teacher Keston. Our driver Naser would be our guide. As we left the town behind us we began making our way into the depths of the unknown. We circled the salt lake and left all traces of civilisation behind us, Liz's face pressed up against the window, her illustrated book of Egyptian birds  clasped eagerly in her hands. We drove around the the huge rocky  structures and passed a large group of flamingos which nearly make Liz wet herself.

Suddenly all the palm trees disappeared and we entered the huge baron expanse which consisted of the odd rock formation and deathly looking shurb. Naser dropped us off to let us go for a wander. There are still the tombs cut out of the rocks where mummies remained untouched for centuries. Over the years they have all been found/stolen and sold to various collectors or museums. I have been told the wealth of certain individuals in Siwa and the surrounding areas have been the result of the unearthing of such artifacts.

As we surveyed the area, Keston noticed three rather large white eggs sitting at the entrance to one of the tombs. It turns out they were Roman skulls, quite a few of them along with other various parts of the human skeleton.  Eerie. I took a lovely picture so you can see for yourselves. 

(Roman remains)

After our little run-in with the Romans we headed out into the sand sea. It's hard to imagine that this huge dry deserty region was once a sea bed. It's only when you walk the crusty stretches of terrain that you notice the crunch of fossilised shells beneath your feet. It is common to find whole shells and sections of coral left over form Cambrian period when the whole of Egypt was submerged and the only life which existed was underwater.

The Great Sand Sea provides evidence of forests, ferns, coral and the first land animals - spiders and insects and in other parts of the desert  fossils of elephants and crocodiles. I had my heart set on finding a sharks tooth which I had heard was a possibility. Unfortunately I didn't manage to bagsey a sharks tooth, instead I had to settle for a 300 million year old piece of coral and a fossilised talon of some large bird of prey. Unfortunately Liz was unable to identify from which species my claw once belonged. Shame on you Liz, call yourself a bird watcher.

The temperature dropped as we arrived at our camp site (an areas of Sand between two dunes) The sunset was incredible and behind us the full moon was rising. I've never experienced silence like the that of the desert. It is actually deafening and hard to describe and it gave me a bit of a head ache. I was imagining I was hearing the sound of the inside of my head..but I can't have been, it's pretty empty up there these days. 

In hindsight it was a good job no one was in the vicinity as our sand-boarding escapade resulted in a series of blood-curdling screams which would have woken any mummified remains within a million mile radius.

(Liz and Keston Dune gazing)

(Liz and Keston Dune Gazing)

After the fire and dinner cooked my Naser we star gazed using Liz's bird binoculars and I found out that what I had previously thought was Orions Belt for the last 27 years was in fact not his belt at all. Now I know.

The next day we visited a hot spring which just happens to be a tiny mini oasis right in the middle of nowhere. 

These small natural springs or oases have usually come into existence due to the tapping of underground water. 

The larger oases of the desert including Siwa are depressions causes by the combination of structual weakness and salt weathering. The oases are usually below the average surface of the desert, near or below sea level where huge underground chambers of trapped subterranean water is more easily accessible. The liquid which rises from these springs is over a million years old and contains gases and minerals of great medicinal value. 

Later we visited the rather large fragments of a meteorite which had once crashed through the earths atmosphere and landed with a splat in the middle of the desert. It's surface was shiny and melted and the pieces I picked up had tiny shells embedded in it.

(A big lump of Meteorite)

Add caption

(Oasis in the middle of nowhere)

(Our Jeep)

Bye for now!

Picture Blog

(a ferrel kitty)

Pigeon poo towers

View of the Oasis from Dakruh mountain

The Oracle

Town

Driving home. (this is not me by the way)

Cleaning the Spring

An enlightening experience in the dark

When the electricity cuts out in siwa, which happens often and by often I mean at least once a fortnight, the whole town plunges into darkeness (as you can imagine). This usually lasts for around 10- 15 minutes whereby everyone either remains in position awaiting to be reboted, or attempt to carry on their business as usual about town. On most of the occasions this has happened I have been in the shop/office. I too tend to wait in the darkness, occasionally peering out the door to witness another seemly invincible boy on a bicycle nearly plough head-on into an oncoming donkey cart. Today however I was fooled into thinking that the 5 minute wait was all that was install for us. I sat patiently torch in hand hoping no one would raid the shop whilst I went unnoticed in the corner.

In this time Fathi the Siwan man who we rent half the shop from turns up. I had been designing some book covers for him recently and for this he decided that in return he would give me something back. Fathi is a quiet, deeply religious man with a big beard to prove it. He has written many books about Siwa and Siwan life which he sells in the shop and elsewhere in the town. His most recent book is a "fictional"

account of a man who took more than two wives. The book goes into depth about how manipulative they both were and how the poor man had to cope with their unreasonable demands which made a very unjust existence for him.

After reading it the only thing I could think was THAT'LL LEARN YER.

Anyhow, Fathi works as an anthropologist and is a very respected writer and man about town. He told me had for me a gift for me, a document which he had headed "Hi Anna". I could take it on a memory stick home with me or I could read it here in the shop he offered.

With nothing much else to do I decided to read it in the shop in the dark on his laptop which was still powered up. The page of writing began by thanking me for all the help I had been giving him with his book covers etc etc. Followed by how he would like to repay me. Oh, I thought, hoping the next sentence would read something along the lines of..."so here's a million pounds.."

But no, it was just going to tell me all about Allah.

What followed was a fairly detailed overview of life and the afterlife (if you made it that far) according to Islam. This was interesting, except from the part which informed me that I would burn in the Firey Pits of Hell should I ever deny the word of the Prophet Mohamed.

Well, I thought. What a lovely bit of light reading. I thanked him graciously and had a short conversation about where exactly I could find more information on the internet when the electricity comes back on.

I didn't not find this insulting, forceful or rude in any way. Isalm is a rich, virtuous religion and the many Muslims I have met in my life so far, all of them have been extremely kind and lovely people, Fathi being no exception.

The thing that unnerved me was not the fact that Fathi had decided to bestow upon me an enlightening introduction to his religion. What disturbed me the most was the fact that It made me realise that for the whole time we have known each other, somewhere along the line he must have come to the conclusion that I was in desperate need of reforming in some way.

The lights were still out by this time so I decided take my wayward self home. It took three times longer than usual as I had to pick up bread, meaning I had to cross the donkey gauntlet in pitch black, twice.

Finally I reached home with chicken shit on my shoes and crud up my legs from the inevitable sludge-filled pot-holes which lurked like wet poo traps in the road.

I did however manage to avoid falling into Hells Fire...which I was pretty thankful for.