Yay! My question - suppose I'd better do an answer (cheers Mods)
[This is actually the follow-up to the top story on my profile, but feel free to read this first]

Let me take you back to 1985. Ronald Reagan was President of the USA, the very first Live Aid concert took place, mobile phones and the internet didn't exist and Che and Xena took to the road.

We'd met in the summer, fallen heavily in love and I'd said that I'd "take her away from all this". I had about £500 saved up in my Post Office account and another £250 limit on a Barclaycard - so I was rich. She had no money at all, had cut herself off from her family and ditched her love-rat married lover (though I didn't know that bit at the time). She did have a portable TV that was hired from Rumbelows but she hadn't told them that she'd left her bedsit in Cricklewood for my folks house, where we were both living while we got our travel plans sorted. This took us about two days - we bought train-boat-train tickets to Paris and packed some clothes and stuff.

The day we left we waved goodbye to my Mum standing at the door and headed up the street towards the tube station, marching boldly, head up, smile fixed. Hang on, I turned round and saw Xena about ten yards behind me, struggling under the weight of her rucksack and we were only half way to the high street. Still, what would be the point in having a true-love that was as fit and strong as you? It reminded me that she was gentle and soft and gorgeous and, and...

Thus started the most amazing honeymoon you could imagine - well, unless your idea of perfection is drinking cocktails out of pineapples on a Caribbean beach while servants tend to your every need - that's never been my bag, nor Xena's. We took the other route to bliss - staying on the floor at my mate Nass's flat in Paris, then hitch-hiking south and west to La Rochelle, staying in the cheapest hotel in town, cooking 'food' in an army mess tin over a gaz burner, hiring bikes and taking them on the ferry over to Isle de Re, sunbathing naked on the wide empty beach, making love in the sea then cycling back to the ferry with the setting sun shining through her dark hair then making love long into the night before doing it all again the next day.

Our plan was to head towards Bordeaux for the grape harvest and pick up a bit of work to fund us for longer. I'd done it in Rousillon the previous year but hadn't really done any deep research into this bit. But, after a week or so, we headed back onto the road, getting lifts easily - one night a lovely couple invited us back to their house to stay the night, otherwise, we headed to the train station where you could always find a cheap place to stay.

The sound-track to this whole trip was supplied via my Sony Walkman Sport - the black one, not the bright yellow version - and a selection of tapes I had. Our favourite tracks though were on a mix tape we had and the songs were Iggy Pop's 'The Passenger' and Talking Heads' 'Road to Nowhere'. We'd stand at the roadside, holding a rectangle of cardboard with a sign on it saying "Bordeaux s.v.p." and when there weren't any cars, or they weren't stopping, we'd sing and dance to the The Passenger and Road to Nowhere.

When we got to Bordeaux, we went out of town to look for grape picking work, ended up in St.Emillion and met up with a bunch of Irish lads. They had found an old deserted house and were living in it and they invited us to stay too. It was a real derelict place - the stairs had gone in the middle and I had to boost myself up and then reach down, pull up the bags and then pull up Xena. Still, it was home, and there was a campsite nearby and we could sneak in and use the toilets and showers. The Irish lads showed us where to get free food too - the nuns would hand out food at six every evening outside their nunnery. We looked for work but there wasn't any really.

One evening, one of the Irish lads told us we ought to go to the Algarve - it was cheap and it was lovely. Sounded alright to us, so we went. First to Lisbon, then on to Salema on the south coast. We haven't been back since, but at that time it was pretty unspoilt there - just one street of little shops, restaurants, b&bs and bars leading from the amazing beach, past the fishing boats, up the hill. We rented a room from a lovely old couple and stayed there for about four weeks, from the middle of September to the middle of October. The weather was perfect, there were little coves we could only get to by wading round the rocks and which were just ours for the whole day. In the evenings we drank and danced and ate fresh fish and chicken. One night, we took our sleeping bag down to a private little beach and slept under the stars after making wild love to the sound of the waves crashing.

By the end of the four weeks we'd explored each others bodies from every possible angle and direction and had hardly been out of sight of each other for a couple of months. But everything has to end, and the money had just about run out when we bought train tickets home. By November, we were living in a one room bedsit in Chiswick, claiming housing benefit and looking for jobs.

I won't pretend that it's all been sweetness and light from then til now, but we're still together, our daughter has grown up and moved away and we still stick Iggy or Talking Heads on the iPod dock after a bottle or two of wine, and if we're less energetic than 25 years ago, and perhaps the frequency has lessened a little over the years, she still knows how to push my buttons, and I know how to wiggle hers. We're planning to go back to Portugal this year to mark the quarter century. The music will come with.

Strange to think that many of you weren't even born back then, and 'Road to Nowhere' will have the same resonance for you as, say, 'Ticket to Ride' does for me.

Ah well.
(Che Grimsdale Best before:, Thu 28 Jan 2010, 16:43, 8 replies)

Man
heartfelt and honest, deserves a click.
(Gru being trolled since 1998, Thu 28 Jan 2010, 16:56, closed)

that
has made me feel all warm and fuzzy and a teensy bit jealous.
click!
(bryo, Thu 28 Jan 2010, 16:57, closed)

Truly beautiful
Brought a tear to my eye. Click.
(Petite chien is going to do science to it, Thu 28 Jan 2010, 17:11, closed)

brill
Great story. Click. One word of warning about the Algarve though. I am sure it was fantastic back then, but now it is crawling with dreadful expat cunts and the golfcourse resorts have taken over, replacing lots of the semi-beautiful scrubland with vapid, alien, permanently green lifeless landscaping.

They spray everywhere with pesticides, the locals don't know whether to hate or love the foreign influx, and many a villa or run-down hovel has 'vende se' daubed on it, as some locals eye up a fast buck trying to sell gran's old place.

Salema beach is nice, and the coastline is dramatic, but a cherished idyll? Hmm. I have been there five times. My uncle owns a place. Trying not to go back this summer...
(mersault, Thu 28 Jan 2010, 17:32, closed)

Cheers for the update
We were planning a week in Lisbon and then a week somewhere less busy - may just find somewhere on the Silver Coast for week two.

It never really pays to 'go back' does it?
(Che Grimsdale Best before:, Fri 29 Jan 2010, 9:18, closed)

that sounds wonderful
i'd love to do something like that one day.
i love Road To Nowhere, it always reminds me of travelling to Spain by coach, as i always make sure i take it with me to listen to on the journey.
( Smash Monkey lowering the tone of the whole internet, Thu 28 Jan 2010, 18:18, closed)

Road to Nowhere
Does have a resonance. Listening to that in Aberystwyth, first time I'd ever properly left home. Must get myself a copy of "Little Creatures" offa Amazon sometime
(Sir Tainley Barking Ezekiel 23:20, Sat 30 Jan 2010, 23:54, closed)

what a fantastic, warm and heartfelt story.
well done to you.
(foxy01, Wed 3 Feb 2010, 10:43, closed)