It continued with poor circumstances…

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France

Well then, there I was, with my family – two kids, the youngest 2, the eldest 7, and my wife – at a gorgeous camp site in a really beautiful area of southern France. It was pretty much at the bottom of a canyon, but the ages had turned the area into many canyons so that one may very easily confuse the area with mountainous.

I’d travelled 1000+ kilometres to the south, from The Netherlands. Anticipating warmer weather, we had packed shorts and T-shirts, swim-clothes and whatnot. The only warm clothes we had were the jeans and pull-overs we wore on the journey down there. And the next morning disappointment hit big time: clouds, some rainstorms, fairly heavy winds, and only 9 degrees Celsius as a maximum temperature during the day. Farking cold!

After a shivering breakfast with a hot cuppa tea, we decided to get back in the car and drive down to Montpellier – down to the beach. There it was a lot warmer – 23 degrees Celsius – but also more windy. So the beautiful view and the nice sea to swim in was disturbed by unending complaints from my eldest: dry sand swept along the beach and it hurt his legs. Stretching this to an hour and a half was absolutely the limit of anyone’s tolerance. We got back in the car and drove into Montpellier, to get a glimpse of the historical city centre.

That was – surprisingly – a good idea. Montpellier is an old town, and its history has made its city centre quite a sight to see. A huge church with no church-square to speak of in front of it drew my attention. My family were more amazed by the view from the top of the mountain with the royal square – and the ancient Roman aqueduct that no longer functions but still stands.

Leaving Montpellier at 16:00 that day was less of a good idea. This day was July 13th, with the next day being a French public holiday (I know, but had never thought of it…). Also, the Tour the France would visit Montpellier on the 13th and 14th of July. This combination caused traffic to back up into people’s garages – and the 5 odd kilometres to get out of town took us over 2 hours. So instead of cooking a nice camping dinner, we had something fast so that the kids could get into their relatively warm sleeping bags before catching a cold. Because at the camp site, it was still well below comfortably warm.

Also the next day it was this cold. Scared of more traffic jams, we decided to walk up the canyon wall behind the camp site. This was a good idea in two ways: first, we stayed warm for the better part of the 9 degrees Celsius day, secondly the views from the trail were really nice. And to my great surprise, my eldest actually had fun walking up… He walked the 8 kilometres (4 each way) without complaining.

We did decide to walk back and forth, and not full circle though, because as we got near the top of the plateau, rain came. And I can tell you – in shorts, a T-shirt and 9 degrees and heavy wind… rain isn’t a pleasure. And all that waited was a warm shower, a camp site dinner and a mildly warm sleeping bag. And a big question mark as to what tomorrow would bring.

The camp site did advertise a wifi network – but it wasn’t free. And even when we decided to pay for it, it was so slow that a weather forecast couldn’t be downloaded, nor could we send any messages across different social media…

While writing this blog, the blog was called “Moron on holiday”

 

It started with a poor plan

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France

My planning was meticulous, but the execution much less so.

I don’t own a car, and I couldn’t find someone who let me borrow theirs for 12 days to drive back and forth between the Netherlands and the south of France. So we went camping by train. And it seemed easy enough: get on the train at 7a.m., change trains 4 times and get off at 17:30 in Montpellier, get the rental car and drive to the camp site. Pitch a tent and enjoy the holiday.

The first thing that was unexpected was the amount of stuff we need to carry – two adults and two young children. One of the latter still has to be carried, or he’ll be on the tracks before you can say: watch out for the fast train!

It really started to go wrong already before we left The Netherlands. With 7 minutes to change trains, more luggage than pleasant to carry, we hopped on a Belgian train heading for Belgium. This was the show train; not the fast train. So we missed our connection and – once in Brussels – were stuck there for the day. I know, plain stupidity from my side, and there’s no good excuse but to say that I wasn’t paying attention.

The bright side is that we now have a holiday in two countries: we got to see Manneke Pis, and my youngest loved it. He was glued to the fence and screamed as if he were being abducted when I carried him off ten minutes later.

The next morning everything went fine, but let me recommend something about Paris: do not change from Gare De Nord to Gare de Lyon with only 50 minutes and two children and a tonne of bags. It is a very stressful experience! With 3 minutes to spare we got on the next train. It worked, but was too close for comfort.

And so we got on the TV from Paris to Montpellier. Once underway we were fined 45 euros because ‘we’re not a freight train’. Our luggage was to big. Something like this doesn’t lighten the mood in the least…
And then we got to Montpellier… I rented a car to be picked up yesterday, so I expected it to still be there. I’d paid in advance, so morally it’s my car for the time I booked it. But no such luck. Car rentals are fucking thieves. They wouldn’t give me the car, and they wouldn’t even give me my money back! After a lot of talking they agreed to unbill my credit. But then I still didn’t have a car. I had to go through another rental company to get a car for twice the money as the one I’d booked. Friendly service, I have to add…

So now my kids are asleep in a tent, with an amazing non-Dutch view, and ten days of summer ahead of us. I’m broke but I’ll try not to think about that until we’re back home. For now, it’s my duty to make it a fun week for the kids.

Knowing how moronic I am, I may very well not manage to do that… The future will tell.

While writing this blog, the blog was called “Moron on holiday”

Done

It’s done .

For the longest time I’ve been down in the dumps. At least, when you’re hanging in a tree a minute or two is also the longest time, but let’s say I was down in the dumps for over a year. I was a regular reader the magazine ‘How to kill without rope or knife’. But now…

It’s done.

It’s surprising how many touristy staircases are featured in that magazine by the way. Bridges too. And certain train tracks too. The latter wouldn’t be my way. If I were to go, I wouldn’t traumatise an innocent with it. I’d leave gap, sure. But not to worry now.

It’s done.

I’m still a coward. I’m still a cunt. And I’m still all those things I said in the previous posts. My nastiest thing to do was refer to real people in this blog. I shouldn’t have. It’s my story, about what I do in my life. So I’m also sorry. I’m also a loser for not keeping up with plan to post weekly for a year as I planned. I gave up on this blog the moment it started to look like work. But in the end – this is the end – this last post is very different than i thought it would way back last fall. The last post was going to be in a huge font: BANG. Nothing else. But no such break with tradition. This last post is entirely in style, because…

It’s done.

A few weeks ago, for the first time in a long time, I woke up before anyone else without having to rush out of bed. And as I laid there, listening to my wife breathing, thinking about my children sleeping in the other rooms, looking forward at my own life instead of back – and at the hopelessness of my situation… Lying there, I realised for the first time in I don’t know how long, was afraid to die. Was this just a male post-natal depression? Having lost a friend in a freak car crash recently, this fear of death came back stronger than ever. Not in the way old people who haven’t lived to the max try to cheat death. I’ll be ready to go when I’m old. But a healthy fear; one that prevents me from being reckless. And that’s why
It’s done.

I’m cured.

While writing this blog, the blog was called “diary of a suicide”.