Hitching Around Europe - Long
Early 80's. I was travelling with an-ex-girlfriend who, though we had mutually decided not to be romantically involved, was still a really good friend and an occasional fuck-buddy.

We'd been bumming about Europe for about three months and we eventually ended up in Cannes. We'd been on the piss one night and ended up sleeping on the beach where most of the travellers and beach-bums slept. I woke up in the morning and felt dreadful. Sick, shaking, fever and honestly thought I was dying. I was throwing up for Britain. Massive rasping retches that brought tears to my eyes and bile into my mouth. I was dying.

The only thought in my head was that if I was going to die it wouldn't be in fucking France. I wanted to go home to Merrie England where I could turn up my tootsies amongst my own kind. So, saying goodbye to Sue (she'd hitched up with a Swiss bloke so she was OK) I headed off to try and get back to England before I gasped my last.

A lot of that journey has faded into the mists of memory but other parts are indelibly imprinted on my brain. I had fuck all money, no ticket for a plane, train or ferry. Nothing except my determination to get home. I made it to Marseilles (can't remember how) and headed for the train station. I spent that day jumping trains, getting asked for a ticket by the conductor and getting kicked off at the next stop. I remember sitting on one TGV in the bogs with my arse exploding down the bog and simultaneously throwing my guts up into the sink.( Top Tip: If you ever have the shits and vomiting the bogs in trains are a great place to be. You can squat on the pot and throw up down the sink at the same time). Eventually I was caught again and put off the train in Lyon. Looking at the departure board I could see that the next train in was an express to Paris. A direct train with no stops so when they threw me off again I'd be nearly home...

Then and announcement came over the tannoy. Of course it was in Frog so I didn't understand a word. A big groan came up from the crowd and everyone started drifting off. What the fuck was going on? I managed to collar a bloke who spoke some English and asked him to explain. The bastard French train drivers had pulled a lightening strike. No trains for 48 hours. I was gutted.

So off I went again, pausing every few yards to puke. Somehow I made it to the motorway and started to hitch North. After a few lifts I was eventually picked up by a Dutch guy. I was still pretty sick but not throwing up quite so much. After about half an hour the Dutch guy asked me if I smoked. "Yes" I said. "Weed?" he asked. "Sure” says me. So he passed me the makings and I skinned up. When I finished and sparked the joint up he looked at me and said "That took you 15 kilometres. You'll have to be faster than that or you're out..." And so passed a pleasant drive to Paris. At Paris I was dropped off at the Gard Du Nord and I jumped a train to the coast (these trains weren’t on strike ). Dieppe I think it was. I blagged my way on board the ferry by claiming I'd lost my ticket (they gave me a new one and said they'd send the bill on) and eventually the ferry set sail.

I was still very weak and still felt really ill but I was almost home. The feeling when the ferry docked in good old England and I disembarked and stood once more on the land of my fathers will stay with me forever. I was home. I could now lie down and die in peace.

Legless. - Apologies for length but you love it really.
( Legless Mister Stabby - shanks for the memory, Fri 11 Mar 2005, 11:17, Reply)