Living Without Cheese

I sat in the waiting room for 40 minutes reading an article about buying yachts in the February 2008 edition of “Country Life”. What a strange choice of magazine. My village in the South West of Ireland bears no resemblance to the Hamptons. It’s a nice village, but it’s not wealthy. We have a post office and a local shop. Most of the people here have normal humble lives. They work Monday to Friday, go for a few pints in the local at the weekend, go to Mass on a Saturday evening, and a package holiday to a beach resort in Spain once a year. Not a yacht in sight. At a stretch they might rent out a paddle boat while on holidays. Why on earth would the receptionist at the doctors put a magazine about buying yachts and mansions in East Sussex in the waiting room? Truly bizarre.

Anyway. The reason I went to my doctors was to get my travel shots. She stuck me full of Hepatitis A, Polio, Tetanus, Rabies, Diptheria and Typhoid antigens. I feel like a bit like a farm animal, getting jabbed all over my body. Whenever I have to get a shot, or when blood is taken, I look. I have to see what’s going on. I stare. It puts the doctor off sometimes.

 “Quit staring at me.”

“I’m not staring at you. I’m staring at the needle.”

“Well just stop it.”

 But I keep staring. I think that it’s better to know what’s happening. Looking away just heightens the unpleasant thrill that comes before a needle is forced into your arm. My doctor said I was “hard as nails”. I’m not. I just don’t like painful surprises. “So. How’s work?”

People say to me “You’re so lucky to be going travelling.I wish I was that lucky.” Sometimes I reply “Yeah! I know!” but mostly it’s “Luck?! Where does luck come into it? You save your money, book the flight, and you go.”

But then I realise that I am a complete hypocrite because I did get a helping hand, financially speaking, with the planning of this trip. I came into some money, a lovely amount of E4000 that most sensible people would have hidden away in a “you can look but you can’t touch!” savings account, and started thinking about the future. Y’know. Pensions and shit. I did not do this. I kept looking and looking and then looking some more at this cheque for about a week. I smelled it once. (Mmmm that’s some good smelling paper-equivalent-of-money.) I put it in a jar. I took it out of that jar. (I then lost the jar but that’s a whole other story.)

I’m not going to go into the ins and outs of the thought process that lead me to decide to go travelling; it’s a story that’s been done to death. Feel trapped – hum drum life – no excitement blah blah blah – ooh some money – why with this money I could escape the feeling of entrapment, hum drum life and have a life of excitement and exotic tales.

And here I am 4 months later, starting a travel blog.

So. Planning a trip is exciting. It’s fun. And it’s damn hard work. I’ve never organised a trip in my life. I get nervous at the thoughts of going for coffee in a new café. I don’t like to ask for help at the information desks at airports because I’m sure they’re very busy and I don’t like to disturb them. It’s taken me 4 years to figure out how to apply for a credit card. I believed my friends when they told me Barry Scott (from the Cillit BANG! ads) was deaf, which was why he shouted all the time, and that Cillit Bang were an equal oppurtunities employer.

In short, I’m useless.

So planning and organising and being on the proverbial ball is my new challenge. So far I have booked the tickets (check!), booked my first nights accomodation (check!), applied for the stupid credit card (slightly embarrassed at the whole taking 4 years to figure it out check!), and got the local guard to sign my passport form (check!). What I have yet to do is post that passport form (how I hate posting things), sell my car (oh jesus don’t get me started), and sort out my travel insurance (A totally pointless exercise. If anything happens, they’re never going to get my claim form anyway because I just hate posting things.).

Then there’s the saving. I haven’t saved in years. Everything I earn goes straight out the window on a bloody marvellous social life and a bedroom full of useless paraphenalia. The Nintendo DS I lusted after for months (yes I’m 13) and which is collecting dust beside the dustier keyboard. I bought the keyboard because as far as I can remember, I was very good at it when I was young, and it’s just like riding a bike, right? So wrong. The trick with playing the keyboard is to (a) learn a piece and (b) practise it a lot. I have employed neither tactic yet. Hundreds of CDs, DVDs, a car I’ve never driven, a bike, a guitar, a laptop, a fancy camera; the list is endless. It’s not that I need or want all this stuff. It’s just that I have been far too near sighted to contemplate a time when I would need the money more. I blame the Celtic Tiger for that one.

Now I have a strict budget, which I stick to. Ish. I keep my receipts. I know exactly how much money I have in my account at any given time. I check my change after a transaction. The shop keeper has to wrench the pile of change from my hand when I want to buy a packet of chewing gum (which I now buy in bulk).

Back in college, being poor was fashionable. Pot noodle and/or pasta á la Questionable Sauce from Lidl was haute cuisine. Now that I’m one of those “professionals” I’m expected to come up with a damn good reason when I turn down a dinner invitation or a night on the beer. Luckily for me, I have one. Then comes the inevitable “You’re so lucky!” conversation.

I compare the price of everything I buy to what I could get for the equivalent sum in South East Asia.

“Mom – for that packet of toilet roll I could buy a golden buddha and three dancing girls.”

“Why would you want three dancing girls. Wouldn’t one be enough?”

“Em. Probably.”

I’ve taken for granted how expensive this country is. Trying to have a night out for under E50 is nigh on impossible. I smoke, which adds to the financial discomfort. Combined with my penchant for having fun and my rubber elbow, it’s just a complete disaster.

“So. You wanna go for a pint?”

“No way. Totally skint.”

“Ah just the one.”

 “No. I’m on a budget. There is no way I’m going to change my mind.”

“G’wan.”

“Ok let’s go. But I’m totally wearing trainers so there is just no way I can go to a club.”

 Four hours later……

“Hey! Hey! Look! Right. If I bend my knees and stoop over like this and then pull my jeans down as far as I can and then if you walk in front of me there’s no way they’ll see my trainers!”

“You’re pissed.”

“Yes. Yes I am. Now walk in front of me.”

So now I’ve all but given up the social life, am in the process of thinking about quitting smoking, and am learning to get over my fear of posting things. I think it’s been a very productive few months.