fuckwits

Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Fuckwitday.

Yup, it’s here again. The day all the bourgeois types emerge from the cities with their sparkling, black usually, huge 4x4s. Clogging up the roads and parking in ‘difficult or extreme’ places, crossing rivers where bridges exists and generally make a fool of themselves while the locals with their battered, miniature, dirty, well-used 4x4s look on in amazement.

I thought as it was really hot again I’d go out for a run on the scooter. Never again. A constant stream of cars going up the valley to find a bit of grass to sit on along with lots of other people. Sometimes I love the Italians (that’s not a joke either). They really know how to enjoy themselves. A simple awning, a bottle of wine, lots of food, good company, on a bit of grass by the river, the radio for the afternoon footy, a couple of sun loungers and they’re away. Not my scene by a long chalk but knowing that I can escape all that I quite like it now. There’s no fuss or aggravation they just get on with it. Marred of course by the jeep drivers. One today in a BMW jeep about as big as a hummer, was driving up the river (we are quite civilised here and have roads up both sides of the river) presumably to find a spot to stretch out the sun-lounger.

But not only are there the jeep drivers to contend with. There are something perhaps even worse - the racing motorcyclists. Zooming up the roads at several hundred miles and hour, getting to the top of the valley, getting off for a fag and then zooming down again. Extreme fuckwits and apparently judging by the people in the cars, an annoyance to everyone. Still, one or two come off every week so that’s some compensation.

But amazingly most of the people are on sit up and beg bikes and in normal cars, just having a good time going out for the day.

All this of course would be quite normal if it weren’t for the occasional superetremefuckwit. People who, for example decide to go up a mountain to a road accessible refuge on their scooters in shorts and a tee-shirt to measure the distance from house to refuge, get half way up and stop for a pee, switch off the engine, and find that they have forgotten to pack their shoes. Yup, words like total dickweed or wally spring easily to mind.

After checking under the saddle several times for shoe like apparel there ensued a long period of swearing and waving of arms and shaking of fists. Actually it reminded me of the Scottish Borders one winter when I was sleeping out on the hills near carter bar in the car and having locked the doors from the inside, at about a quarter to dawn I gleefully leapt out of the car in my underpants to go for a pee and locked myself out. There was a lot of swearing going on then too I recall but slightly more urgent in its delivery.

So after swearing for a bit and then calming down enough to attempt to reason with the bloody thing, I tried to start the bike by hand, first using a bit of wood to protect my hand, then placing flat stones on the kick start and then placing foot on top of them, 10, 11, 12 times, and then doing a lot more swearing.

The bike doesn’t start very well usually anyway and the electronic ignition is broken and believe me trying to kick-start an obstinate bike at altitude, under a baking sun, barefoot is no joke.

So after half an hour of trying I gave up and, tail between legs, I freewheeled down to the writhing masses by the rock pools (like Blackpool in the summer it was) and went up to the first jeep driver I could find (fuckwit to fuckwit communication is usually simpler) and asked if I could borrow his foot.

After starting the bike for me, he smiled as if to say, “fuckwit!”, and off I went revving the engine all the way down praying that it wouldn’t cut out.

So I intend to stay home for the rest of the day, have a gin and tonic with ice and lemon sat by the pool I haven’t got dressed in long-sleeved t-shirt, head covering, face covering (‘cos I can’t afford to expose my already red skin to even a minute or two more of sun) and relaxing a little in preparation for the mass clean and tidy up scheduled for this evening .

Tomorrow the howler and howler’s mum get back.

Then I shall do something I haven’t done for ages and ages, watch a film from start to finish. Perhaps I’ll try and get past the twenty minute mark of the DaVinci Code a film I found so mindnumbingly boring and absurd that this is as far as I have ever got. But everyone else on the planet seems to rave about it so I think I will persist and try and discover why.