“Though this be madness, yet there is method in't.”
William Shakespeare, “Hamlet” (Prince of Denmark – but strangely enough
not a tragedy in this case)
Several months ago, younger son (R) who is fifteen
started corresponding (if that’s the correct word) via Skype with a girl called
Anna who is Danish. At first he told me
that she went to the same junior school as him but moved to Denmark when she
was seven, however he has subsequently admitted that she is Danish through and
through. Now, by walking into rooms
unannounced. I have caught sight of her on Skype and she is a genuine teenager
and quite pretty.
A couple of months ago they hatched a plan. She was coming to London with her school on a
trip and they arranged they would meet up.
By chance British teachers were going on strike on the day they had
arranged to meet and so therefore R’s school would be closed. Well, that’s lucky, otherwise I’d have had to
ring up and pretend he was sick.
And then her friends also started Skype-ing R so now he
had three Danish girlfriends and he started saying he had to bring them all
presents, not just one each but TWO each.
One girl wanted pink and green nail varnish. One was very into Harry Potter and we
happened to have two copies of one of them so she was given that so she could
practice her English plus a bookmark/light.
And Anna was given a Union Jack hipflask (as being very English) and a
horse’s head mask (no, I don’t know, either).
I was a bit concerned about the Danish teachers’
reactions, how they would take to a 15-yr-old English boy stalking them but the
only way for me to contact them would be through the kids so I couldn’t see
that happening.
He wanted to go by train but that would have cost £51
return (at least) whereas the coach was only £18.50. He wanted to catch the 5.00am coach which
would get to London by 8.00am to give him time to meet them at their hotel by
9.00am. On the Saturday before I sent
him down to walk to the coach station to make sure he knew where it was and
which bay his coach would go from.
Print out tube map, bus map, map of Victoria coach
station, printout of birth certificate (on the coach 14-yr-olds have to be
accompanied, 16-yr-olds have to buy adult ticket, so therefore he needs to
prove he’s 15 to get a child’s ticket but not need to be accompanied, gosh this
is so complicated!). Give him letter “to
whom it may concern” saying who he is, how old he is, how I’ve given permission
for this tomfoolery, etc and here’s all my phone numbers.
The night before he had various phone calls from the
girls in London which indicated that the following day’s itinerary was being
reorganised. Jokingly I said they must
have got wind of R turning up, but he said the girls had told their teacher he
was coming and he was going to be an honorary Danish student for the day! In retrospect I think this was to avoid
teachers’ rallies going on in London, but it meant he didn’t know where they
were going (the original first stop was St Pauls).
We checked his bank card the night before in case I had
to transfer money to him in an emergency.
He hadn’t used the card for several months and it appears to have been
cancelled. Whatever – it didn’t work. Okay – here’s some cash, it’s for an
emergency (I’ve yet to see this come back by the way).
Get up at 4.00am.
Make bacon sandwich. Take your
travel sickness tablets. Bye. There are so many things that could go wrong
from this point.
Empty dishwasher.
Empty washing machine. Put
another load on. Wait until 5.00am to
get a text saying “I’m on coach. It’s
moving.” Go back to bed. Takes another hour to get back to sleep.
Get up at 8.00am because I have an appointment at
doctor’s at 09.00am and by now he should have arrived at Victoria Coach Station
and needs to walk up to Victoria Rail Station to buy a one-day Travelcard. It’s then going to take him 45 minutes to
walk across Hyde Park to meet them at their hotel.
No text.
Look at travel website.
M4 closed between Swindon and Hungerford due to accident involving car
transporter. Long delays expected.
08.35am R calls to say he’s just arrived at the coach
station and where is the rail station?
Give him directions. He says
he’ll have to run once he’s got the Travelcard as he’ll only have half the time
to get to their hotel. I can see him playing
catch-up all day.
08.45am – having left map of area on computer screen,
tell his father he’ll have to give him directions if he rings up and set off
for doctor’s.
08.55am – En-route to doctor’s I get a call saying “I’m
not quite sure where I am”. Tell him to
ring home and speak to his father.
09.25am – Get home from doctor’s to find that the girls
have rung R and said they’re setting off from their hotel but don’t quite know
where they’re going yet so will ring him when they know. Dad thinks he’s just waiting at Hyde Park
Corner to find out where to go next.
Ring R who is actually somewhere in the middle of Hyde
Park but doesn’t quite know where. We
are reduced to can you see the sun, where is it? to ascertain that he is
heading north.
R says Anna’s phone number doesn’t work so he can’t ring
her and she hasn’t rung him yet. Take
her phone number and say I will try and ring her. This is great, isn’t it? Son somewhere in the middle of Hyde Park,
girls have gone somewhere (who knows where) and they seem to be un-contactable
by phone.
I now realise that the phone number isn’t long enough so
understandable that it doesn’t work – but what to add? It starts 45… and I wonder whether that’s the
equivalent of us being +44… Try adding a
couple of 00s on the front and it rings and a girl with a foreign accent
answers. Phew! She says that R is not answering his phone
(hope that’s just because he’s in the middle of the Park) and that they’re
going to Camden Market shopping.
Ring R back and tell him her real number and to ring me
once he’s reached the edge of the Park.
09.55 – Okay he’s got as far as Lancaster Gate and has
rung the girls who will be in Camden for three hours and will meet him “under
the blue sign”. Give him instructions to
get the Central Line (the red one) to Tottenham Court Road and then change to
the Northern Line (the black one) to Camden Town. No, you can’t ring me when you’ve done the
first bit because there won’t be any signal down there. The boy’s never done Tubes before.
10.25 – He’s made it to Camden and the girls have found
him.
And breathe. At
last I can get on with my day.
15.45 – Text R “where are you?”
“London Eye”.
“You ought to
start thinking about saying goodbye and finding your way back to Victoria”.
“I think I’d like to stay here for a few hours more. What time’s the last coach?”
“About seven” (I lie.
There’s no way he’s catching the last coach)
“Well can you check?”
“Yes, there’s one at seven”
17.45 Ring R. I
can hear girls giggling in the background.
“Where are you?” “In their hotel
room”. Now R has done two school trips
to Germany and one of the golden rules was no mixed sexes in rooms, let alone
foreigners who have only just turned up on the day. Apparently Leif (the teacher) is fine with
him, has been chatting with him all day.
The trip seems to consist of 13 girls and 2 boys so probably quite keen
to get a male take on things by now.
18.00 R rings to say he’s outside in the street now – how
do you get to Victoria? Tell him to get on Central Line at Queensway, go west
for one junction to Notting Hill Gate and get Circle Line anticlockwise to
Victoria. He can’t see tube
station. Well what can you see? Eventually him doing real life and me doing
Google Streetview coincide and he finds the station. (That’s the trouble with Streetview, you
don’t know how old it is and how much has changed since then. Scaffolding certainly has.)
18.30 He’s got to
Notting Hill Gate, can’t find Circle Line.
Has come up to street level to phone.
Tell him to find a station person and ask how to get to Victoria. There’s really not much else I can do to help
him. When he gets to Victoria rail/tube
station he’s still got to get to the coach station and then get his return
ticket validated. (I booked an open
return because I knew there was no way I could guarantee he’d get a specific
coach.)
18.50 Text him to
say “Guess you’re getting the 8pm coach then”.
Answer “yup”.
Arrange that his older brother will pick him up at coach
station at 10.30pm which still doesn’t work as by then his phone had run out of
charge and they missed each other.
Finally picked up halfway home which is where he’d walked to.
Postscript: I have
just been told “You know at the end of
year 11, people go on holiday?” “What,
you mean they go to Newquay, get pissed and their parents are called by the
police to pick them up at two in the morning, or else they’ve jumped off a
cliff and are in hospital?” (I’d just
like to add at this point that my two elder children went to Newquay and this
didn’t happen to either of them).
“Well I’d like to go to ….” (Yes, you guessed it. Denmark – or as his father would say
‘Pastryland’)
As I said when I was at my doctor’s appointment that
morning, “just don’t take my blood pressure”.
