Monday, June 27, 2005
Come on, The Quiet Ginger One
Soundtrack: “O” by Damien Rice
Tuesday 14th June. Because of Melissa’s return at 3am, it made waking up at 4.15am to watch the cricket so much easier. Come on. I’m on holiday! I figured, since my hostel had Sky, I may as well watch the England v Australia Twenty20 match. And it was so so worth it. On a beautiful summer evening at the Rose Bowl, England proceeded to make 179 from their allotted overs. Marcus Trescothick and Kevin Pietersen were very good and played their required roles, but for me, the star of the show was Paul Collingwood. Come on, The Quiet Ginger One! He made a wonderfully rapid 46 when everybody thought that we were screwed. And it wasn’t old KP who hit the most sixes, but Colly. This was followed up by a disastrous Aussie reply, and we won by 100 runs. I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.
I went back to bed afterwards, because it was all over and done with by 7.30am. Presentations and all. [Incidentally, I was really rather angry that the dumbarse Sky viewers back home voted KP MOTM, when Colly clearly had the better match than him, and he said so himself.] Later in the morning, I took the shuttle bus up to the glacier car park, and I walked up to its face through bizarre temperate rainforest. Rainforest – glacier, glacier – rainforest. Very very weird, but very very cool as well. Walking along the valley to get to the glacier’s terminal face, I did manage to fall into the freezing river an inordinate number of times, so I’m glad that I didn’t fork out $130 to climb the thing properly. The view was amazing, though, and I’m really glad that I went to that sleepy little village. Even though I had buggerall to do in the afternoon, and just randomly wandered around for a few hours. [I was right, bytheway. Franz Josef is just a bunch of motels, some shops, and a glacier.] It was so peaceful that it was just wonderfully calming to be there.
Sat reading “Anna Karenina” in the dining room, I met a wonderful Danish girl called Annette. I came out of the conversation having resolved to marry a Danish man. According to Annette, they’re all tall and blonde, and the Christmases there sound delightful. If you’ve read the script for the panto, then you’ll know all about the fire hazards of their Christmas trees, but there’s also all this other good stuff. They sing carols round the tree on Christmas Eve, then they sit around eating and opening presents for hours on end. It sounds so good.
