Walking the walk

'Well I doubt any of the others will be able to say they have done a walk such as this today,' he says with satisfaction.

'Daren, we have walked 20 miles of Cornish coast path in a hurricane. No one will have...'

I am prevented from finishing by a gust of wind so violent it takes my breath away.

'Plant your poles,' he shouts as I shoot sideways, literally swept off my feet, and with all my might I do.

'You remember to tell them,' he shouts, 'that poles are not for nonces.' Then, in more reasonable tones, continues, 'Mind you, I can understand why they might think that. I also used to be of the view that they were only for old men. Whereas, what I say now is,' he pauses to leap a puddle, 'that it's just like taking your own personal handrail with you.'

With each gust we find ourselves laughing, caught out by these improbable circling winds, swooshing in from the north east one second and from the south west the next.

Eventually at 5.09pm we make it into Porthtowan and fall onto the seats in the bus shelter - somewhat blistered, certainly windswept. The buses to St Ives are not frequent and the 5.23 is the last of the day. At 5.25 we make the discovery that, being a Cornish bus, this one does not stop at the bus stop. In small print above the timetable it notes that if you actually want to catch the 571, then you need to turn left and walk 5 minutes up the road.

What is this place where the buses stop in private places and the 5.23 is pretty much considered the night bus? Clearly somewhere with a local pub in need of custom. We retire there in search of beer and a landline phone to call for rescue.

And conveniences. I had offered to avert my eyes but Daren was quick to note the perils of pissing in a changeable wind.

Two pints and a bag of pork scratchings later, K arrives to collect us.

'We have encountered unnatural phenomenon today,' Daren tells him impressively. 'Nothing less than an upward falling waterfall.'

Truly, it is not often you witness such a thing, and when I am in possession of the video footage (captured on his camera not mine) I shall plant it here in proof.

He's now walked 460 miles of the south west coast path. There's officially 630 miles in total. 'I estimate I'll have done 660 miles by the time I finish,' he announces.

'Why the extra 30 miles?

'Getting lost mainly. And extra distance to reach the pubs.'

Or the buses it would seem...

What Christmas looks like

Thursday: a man is walking towards me as I run down a muddy track. He is dark and thick set and he looks like he wants to kill someone. Then around the bend appear four children walking with their mother. She looks like she wants to kill someone. Oh dear, I think, Christmas holidays.

Friday: my beautiful goddaughter is hanging a gingerbread family on our tree (a few limbs go missing). My children are playing a raucous game of 'touching the ceiling' with her father. Outside on the drive K's car is drawing up. He is home early and we are all excited. Oh good, I think, Christmas holidays.

Saturday: a little sequined angel is standing at the front of the church, holding hands with a littler shepherd clutching his toy lamb. The angel is singing Away in a Manger and is protecting the shepherd from stampeding wise men. A young couple steal a kiss as they leave the church. Oh good, I think, Christmas love.

Sunday: four wide eyes, sparkling with excitement as wrapping paper is ripped open and presents are shared. K is carving a five bird roast, symbol of generosity and greed. Oh dear, I think, for what we are about to receive I feel horribly guilty.

Monday: two people standing by a fire on their allotment, which gives me a warm cold feeling as I run past. The owner of a local wine bar walking his dog waves hello (and I resolve to drink less next year). More people walking in ever stranger familial formations. A waterlogged nature reserve, with up-tailed ducks searching for morsels. Two planes flying overhead, uniting and dividing a couple of hundred families. The world's coolest parents on rollerblades, teaching their youngest of three how to skate. Darkness descending as I reach home, but on the front lawn two bright white doves shine out. Oh good, I think, Christmas peace.

Which Disney Princess Are You?

Every time we want the Impster to do something she finds disagreeable (such as putting on her shoes) she gets all huffy and shouts: 'I'm sixteen years old, I'm not a child anymore!' She's actually a three year old with an overactive imagination and a Disney addiction. This line comes straight from The Little Mermaid and she is currently styling herself in the leading role, drawn here:


It has some advantages, being a useful way of keeping strangers at arm's length by lying about her name, and also a way of getting her to put her shoes on if you only remember to address her correctly.

But on balance the advantages are outweighed by the disadvantages, as we discovered on holiday last week when she told the man at passport control, 'my name is Ariel'. Then later (much later as it turned out) when we were characteristically lost in search of our destination, a little voice from the back of the car chirps merrily away on a pretend phone call: 'hi Sebastian, it’s Ariel. We are very lost. [Pause for response.] Well. Well, we are in the middle of the dark with French words all around us. [Pause.] No, we don't know where we are going.'

When we did finally arrive at the gite it took her about four and a half minutes to sniff out a whole cupboard of bloody Disney films, which goes to prove yet again that there is no such thing as a holiday with toddlers. As if to reinforce the theme, what should be in her a bedroom but a full-scale underwater sea mural, which (along with the Little Mermaid) I hold responsible for her terrifying insistence on only swimming underwater in the pool. Most embarrasingly of all, she has a bevy of imaginary mermaid friends and spent the week VERY clearly telling anyone who would listen: ‘I’m not interested in lady love.’ That surely can’t be more Disney scripting can it?

Anyway, in the style of Just Seventeen , if the Impster is Ariel, which Disney Princess are you?

1. You meet the man of your dreams. Are you likely to:
a) have met him once upon a dream
b) dance all night with him but have no idea of his name in the morning
c) be grateful he's over 4ft tall
d) admire his mode of transport
e) think he's a bit ugly but hey, looks aren't everything
f) find yourself speechless

2. You're currently seeking professional help to overcome your:
a) narcolepsy
b) lack of assertiveness
c) claustrophobia
d) anger management issues
e) terrible eyesight
f) laryngitis

3. Your family set up is:
a) muddled. You were adopted by three eccentric old women, and didn't discover your true identity until you were 16
b) absent father, abusive stepmother and two hideous stepsisters
c) both parents deceased, pathological stepmother
d) absent mother, doting father
e) absent mother, hair-brained and grossly incompetent father
f) absent mother, tyrannical father

4. Your best friend is:
a) an owl, a squirrel and a rabbit
b) a family of mice
c) an assortment of woodland creatures with domestic prowess
d) a tiger
e) a teapot
f) a stripy fish and a lobster

5. On your sixteenth birthday you are given:
a) a spinning wheel
b) a glass slipper
c) a poisoned apple
d) a magic carpet ride
e) a rose
f) a pair of legs

Congratulations! You can now live happily ever after. If you have answered mostly:

A's, then you are Sleeping Beauty. With three good fairies and a heroic prince to look out for you, you can expect lasting happiness (provided that your husband isn't sent down for murder).

B's, then you are Cinderella. For true happiness, just do yourself a favour and get a cleaner.

C's, then you are Snow White. One day your prince will come, but you'll have to work your way through seven unsuitable men first.

D's, then you are Jasmine from Aladdin (coloured in with much enthusiasm below). Watch out that class differences don't start to ruin your marriage (or that your tiger doesn't eat his monkey).



E's, then you are Belle from Beauty and the Beast. Ah, c'est bon. He may not be a beast any longer, but you're still left with a frog.

F's, then you are Ariel from The Little Mermaid. Consider investing in an outdoor swimming pool to make family visits easier.

The Antidote

Much good cheer to impart – at last I’ve had an utterly divine, entirely successful holiday. All thanks to G for introducing me to the remedy for the Impossibility of Holidaying. Namely, the 24-hour Holiday. There is only one rule: you must be child free for the entire duration.

It’s pure genius. Basically you are so extra specially grateful for the chance to escape for a non work-related purpose, that you get 67 times more excited than you would about a normal holiday. And because being left to your own devices is such a rarity, the day seems like an entire week. So by my calculations it is 67x7 = 469 times more fun than a day spent on any other kind of holiday.

Leaving the Impster in the care of my mother, K and I escaped as early as we could like two overly excitable teenagers playing truant. We spent a day of generous indulgence at the Champneys Forest Mere Spa, and then the night at the deliciously romantic West Stoke House, before returning the next morning to resume normal parental duties (me) and to fly to Buenos Aires for a few days (K).

Strictly speaking, it was a 27-hour holiday. That I pushed the limits of my mother’s babysitting patience no further, is doubtless an indication that she finally possesses a very serious deterrent against any wild or delinquent behaviour. She only needs to withdraw her babysitting services to ground me for life. So here is the new improved me – spirits soared, opulently satisfied, full of gratitude and goodwill to all mothers, stealthily plotting my next great escape.

To the Hermitage by Ambulance (or, Russian Hospitality)

No, this is not the screen adaptation of a Malcolm Bradbury novel starring George Clooney, but a true and faithful account of how the Impster and I came to be travelling in St Petersburg last Thursday somewhat unconventionally.

With flashing lights and a masterful U-turn, our ambulance driver swings across four lanes of traffic to drop us at the bank of the River Neva so that we might make the next hydrofoil for our day's sightseeing at Peterhof. I offer him many spasiba's, and he kisses me warmly on both cheeks and pats the Impster’s head. Konstantine is my proof that Russians make powerful allies. If they're on your side, they can make things happen and will stop at nothing to help you overcome a predicament.

As a random pregnant tourist with a toddler, however, most Russians wouldn’t piss on you if you were on fire (never mind give you a hand with your pushchair). Russian cities are not child-friendly affairs. To attempt them with an infant leaves one exposed to the view that as a mother, one is at best eccentric, and at worst unfit for purpose. Lifts, highchairs, pushchair ramps, baby-changing facilities, and (it slowly dawned on me) children under the age of eight are nowhere to be seen in St Petersburg. And as the week went on, I had a creeping suspicion that mothers might actually be banned from the city centre. For one thing, the women living here of child-bearing age are intimidatingly svelte (possibly as a result of the unpardonable cuisine creating a kind of national Cabbage Soup Diet.)

For another, they have clever ways of making sure children don’t interfere with their cultural tourism, as I discovered when I went to the Russian Museum and was told that only disabled people could use the lifts. To be honest, I’d had better days than last Wednesday, redeemed only by the prospect of seeing a fantastic collection of Kandinsky’s. So to discover that the House of Culture was denying me access, put me in a magnificent rage (‘f-ing Revolution’ etc etc). But the good Book advises to, ‘Leave off from wrath, and let go displeasure: fret not thyself, else shalt thou be moved to do evil’, and being in a pretty murderous temper, I head for the House of God. Unfortunately, St Isaac's Cathedral is closed on a Wednesday. (This is the city that simultaneously made one of its cathedrals the museum of atheism and religion for a time, which is possibly an indication that it shouldn’t be relied upon exactly for nurturing spiritual wellbeing.) In the end I did what any oppressed English mother would do, and contemplated a fag and a McDonald's. But on my way I stumbled across St Petersburg’s answer to The Dorchester, which went a considerable way to lifting my spirits (plus, the Impster still got her chicken nuggets, chips and a toy, because you can order absolutely anything there).

And now, somewhat in the manner of Ronnie Corbett, let me return to the matter of the ambulance. On Monday morning, dear K wakes up feeling, as Withnail would have it, 'unusual'. By Tuesday morning he is off-puttingly pukey and shaking uncontrollably, so I think it best to call a doctor (all the time privately convinced he shouldn’t have had ice in his drink the previous day). Two hours later he’s in surgery with a nearly-ruptured appendix, and I’m harbouring visions of a theatre equipped with vodka anaesthetic and a hacksaw. Turns out we’re in the poshest hospital in the city, and after a brief sojourn in intensive care, K ends up in a private room with en suite, river view, telly, fridge and no hyperactive toddler - so is marginally better off than me. And one can't but admire the Russian method of convalescence, his room being furthermore agreeably furnished with six wine glasses and six shot glasses (not a water glass in sight).

Here he resides at the current time, visa expired, regrettably unable to leave the country due to a faux pas on my part. All I did was to call BA to try to get him upgraded on the return flight. Admittedly I may have laid it on a bit thick, but how was I to know they would take it into their heads that he was unfit for travel?

It's been a curious week all in all. On Monday my brother had his gallbladder removed, on Tuesday K was relieved of his appendix, and on Wednesday I began to wonder how many other expendable organs we might be housing. Perhaps in California one could plausibly sell the idea of getting rid of a few, as a new surgical weight-loss method?

Anyway, being so posh, this hospital does a good line in English-speaking guardian angels. Dear Olga pities my lone-mother-in-St-Petersburg experience so much that she insists upon ambulance transportation to help the Impster and me get about (the charge for an ambulance is £250 an hour, so she can easily find one hanging about the place). A Russian on a mission will go to any lengths.

A few nights earlier, Madonna has come to St Petersburg to do a gig in Palace Square. We get accidentally caught up in the hordes of fans, and then caught in the torrential downpour which follows (Russian rain is really something else). Next day, as Dimitri is driving me to the hospital, he tells me how the authorities tried to break up the rain clouds by shooting things into the sky. Can you believe that? I know Madonna can be, well, prima-donnaish, but they actually tried to move the rain for her. My friends, that’s Russian hospitality for you.

The Impossibility of Holidaying

I have of late – but wherefore I know not – lost all my mirth. I took my leave of K with a right-minded smugness. He would be working, I would be holidaying on the French Riviera. He would be earning, I would be spending. A pleasing natural equilibrium seemed to have established itself. And Menton lived up to its promise in many ways: I barely had requirement to remove my sunglasses the entire week, there was a frisson of glamour about its yacht-studded shores and heady prices, and the promise of reckless abandon lay tantalisingly within grasp.

Query: when is a holiday not a holiday? Answer: when it is spent with two toddlers. After all, what defines a holiday if not rest, relaxation, and time spent at leisure, free from work? And how to fulfil same holidaying spirit if one is perpetually forced to rise at unsociable hours, appease tantrums, listen to whingeing, get splattered with tomato and orange juice in restaurants, and generally be subject to the relentless repetition and routine of parenting a nearly-two-year-old? No good ever came of believing that a change is as good as a rest. One day you have children, and the next you find yourself in the midst of a dance reminiscent of something from They Shoot Horses Don’t They? Menton has a garish little merry-go-round, which simply thrilled the Impster. Riding round and round and up and down and ‘again again!’ is the perfect metaphor for toddlerdom.

I confess I was greatly relieved to see K after the 9-hour journey home. He was looking remarkably chipper, and dare I say it, had a note of right-minded smugness about his countenance. He’d spent his week in London and Manchester doing that kind of sociable working which involves late nights, Michelin-starred restaurants, unbridled luxury, vast expenditure, lazy mornings and too much alcohol. Is it just me, or is that the definition of a holiday?

On Destiny

You only have to take the most cursory look at history to realise the dubious benefit of having the courage of one's own convictions. I’m thinking Icarus, Napoleon, Hitler, Maggie Thatcher.... Anyway, my dearest K is widely known for his work in the dark art of persuasion, so much so that until we met, few if any had dared to challenge him on a whole plethora of peculiar beliefs, which together constitute certain idiosyncrasies of character that only a wife could love. So it was that, blessed with the appeal which utter confidence inspires, I blithely followed him aboard the flight he had booked, and made the unusual mistake of going on the wrong holiday.

It seemed like nothing less than good fortune when, trying to harness a wriggly one-year old Impster on my lap, the pilot announced that our flight would only take 2 hours. Indeed, I had anticipated the flight to Lanzarote taking a good 4 hours. The only obvious (and dare I say it, logical) explanation was that we were experiencing an unprecedented tailwind (my father is an aerodynamicist – I really do believe such things are possible). And as we came in to land, K pointed to the volcanic mountains and remarked that the island was really much larger than he'd remembered. Then out through customs, more curious yet, was the inexplicable absence of the car hire firm we'd booked. Tcha, what cowboys! Undeterred, we hired a different car and sought a map of the ‘island’. And in the midst of our most creative gesticulations and finest pigeon Spanish, the horror crept upon us. Quite clearly, we were in mainland Spain, aka The Wrong Lanzerote. Yes, if our stupidity is to be believed (and we’ve made careers out of it not being), then we had not the slightest notion that Alicante was on the Costa bloody Blanca. How wise was Robert Louis Stevenson when he wrote that to travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive.

In short, my beloved had booked flights to Alicante (ALC) instead of Arrecife (ACE). A note to self that late-night use of lastminute.com is a truly hazardous thing – you could end up anywhere waiting for those screens to refresh! But K is so entirely plausible as to be a liability - a reputable member of customer services at Gatwick was actually grateful to him for being told that Alicante was in Lanzarote. After all those years of ignorance!

Looking on the bright side, as far as the little Impster is concerned, she's had a super week in Lanzarote. Well, it seemed a trifle unnecessary to confuse matters when she'd just learned to pronounce the place, and 21 months is far too tender an age to reveal that grownups are fallible (or whither parental authority?).

I must confess, dear reader, that we had a rather fine holiday after all (though an extra jumper wouldn’t have gone amiss). Which begs the question of whether we were not destined after all for our destination? For who can say how often we take a wrong turn in life, only to end up at the exact place we had been headed all along? As the Spanish would have it, ‘Que sera, sera’.