No matter what time Queenie gets up in the morning, it takes her ten minutes more than she has to get her act together. Why is that? If she has ten minutes, she can shower, dress, put on slap, clothes, drink coffee, eat banana, tidy flat and leave in twenty. If she has three hours, the same set of actions takes her three hours and ten minutes.
Queenie has never been good with time. Too elastic for her.
So she’s ten minutes late and driving to Blackhorse Ave. and the phone is ringing and she knows who it is, but it’s all going to be fine.
Queenie loves picking up couple friends to go on a trip and watching the whole “couple leaving the house for the weekend” vibe. It is one of life’s more hilarious set pieces, don’t you think. Queenie used to be in a couple, the other half of which was a security nut, and it used to be great fun to walk around behind him unlocking windows and doors as he locked them and then saying “You didn’t lock the kitchen window, you muppet! Jesus!”
Bad Queenie.
Over to the airport then, and straight through the Ryanair check-in and HURRAH, no queues for the x-ray machines. In preparation for the big trip next month, when a knight of the round table and all of his weaponry are going to have to be smuggled into Canada, Queenie had a trial run and smuggled her nail scissors through (this was the week of the big panic because the EU people smuggled a bomb through). Silly Aer Rianta. Coulda stabbed someone with that!!
It being ATP and therefore, important that one wears a silly hat for at least some of the weekend, Queenie slopes off to Monsoon without telling anyone to buy a hat. A green one.
She’s been explaining how she’s broke and has no money, so Dr. Groove can’t quite compute the brazenness of Queenie’s both expecting sympathy for having no money, and concurrently soliciting admiration of a new hat.
Well, Queenie’s never been good with logic either. Not elastic enough for her.
On reflection, she thinks it’s because the concept of ‘no money’ is different for girls. Or maybe it’s not a gender thing, maybe it’s a personal thing. To Queenie, no money means:
“I have no actual positive money balances anywhere on my financial horizon currently, but I have access to various lines of credit for the purposes of impulse buying. Which I shouldn’t access, but fuck it, it’s the weekend.”
That kind of no money.
Sat beside a man reading an article about the importance of having the right golf trousers. Won't mention his name. It's a friendship thing.
Met Joe on the flight, who was going over to see the Frames in London. Queenie would rather chew her left arm off than do that, but she didn’t say. It’s a friendship thing.
Then the three adventurers headed off to Hertz to pick up the electric blue Ford Focus that proves they are GROWN UPS at last.
All set. Queenie driving. Dr. Groove navigating. Dr. Aileen back seat driving. What could go wrong????
Tunbridge Wells, that’s what. Three roads in. Three roads out. Therefore, two possibilities for the exit route. Logical? That’s what they thought.
None of those roads! is the correct answer. The "off to the side small road, leading to the completely unknown road on the far side of town through the traffic" was the road. The one the navigator pointed at and went, “now, now, turn now”, because he had a feeling and an ability to read maps, happened to be the road. It's all a big Tory plot to keep us from having any fun, Queenie reckons.
The kids needed chips after Tunbridge Wells, so they pulled up at the Little Chef a ways out the road. The Little Matchgirl served them. Straight out of the picture story book that used to make Queenie cry when she was little and her mother read it to her. The smallest, thinnest, waifiest little thing they ever did see, with two wall eyes. Dr. Groove left a big tip. For the operation.
Finally got to Rye after three hours and picked up Krossie and Clare. Then onwards and upwards and suddenly, there it was – the golf club, the church, the restaurant, the path to the beach.
Dear Camber Sands. Such jolly times. With jolly good friends. Queenie’s heart lifted like that of a character in an Enid Blyton book when she saw the gaily painted railings of the little holiday camp she’d grown to love so well over the years. And look, there’s Luke and Tom. How they’ve grown!!!!!!!! Oooh, Queenie knew it was going to be a smashing festival this year. WIth kites and ginger beer and all kinds of exciting adventures.
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