Taxi to the terminal zone

Every so often someone asks me why I often refer to my beautiful- and undeniably better- other half as 'the long suffering Shirley' when mentioning her in these hallowed pages.

No reason really....

It's 4.30 a.m. yesterday and myself and the long suffering Shirley are on the M25. We're on our way to Gatwick Airport where I'm meeting my Chicago Blues Brothers buddies in the North Terminal- it's dark (obviously!) and cold (obviously!!) but we're leaving all that behind as we're gigging on an island off the South of France. After Shirley's dropped me off she's going home to try to get a bit of sleep before going to work. She's too good to me.
The airport's practically empty which makes finding the band easy for once- there's a few comments about my nice shiny'n'new guitar case (the last one got damaged coming back from a gig in Switzerland) and everyone's in good spirits especially considering the early hour. Check-in's pretty straightforward- Squirrel sees a 'WAIT TO BE CALLED FORWARD' sign and comments 'that'll be the first time I've ever been called forward'; mind you he did order coffee and cognac for breakfast- as is the near-empty flight. We're met at Marseilles Airport by a man holding a 'Groupe Bootleg' sign- that'll be our taxis then- and the hour-and-a-bit drive to our hotel takes in some spectacular scenery, which, unbeknown to 4 of us, will look very different in 30 or so hours time... we're staying at Les Grand Hotel Des Bains in Sanary Du Mer- 'Sanary-on-Sea' doesn't sound quite as enticing does it?- we check in (I've got Room 24 all to myself- hurrah!) then go to the bar for some nuclear coffee and a general planning session. It's market day so we decide to walk along the harbour to look around and find somewhere to eat. It's a beautiful day and it's a nice place to be walking around- we eventually decide on a restaurant down the other end of the harbour to our hotel. Being a vegetarian isn't an easy option in France but the mushroom pasta proves to be a good choice; as we're eating Pete receives a phone call from Tony the event organiser to say that ferries to the island are limited this afternoon due to the wind ('what wind?') but the 5.40 boat will 'definitely' be running so we'd better get on that one. After eating we make our way back to the hotel in the by now blazing sunshine- I got a suntan!- for a hour or so's sleep before all meeting downstairs at 5 o'clock. 2 taxis take us to the St Pierre ferry which takes about 10 minutes to get to the Isle des Embiez- the sea's choppy and it's a small vessel so we're thrown around a fair bit which gets one or two screams from the passengers and tests the suspension of the vehicles on board, much to Richard's amusement.
We're playing at a trade fair and conference for Chivas and Ricard- yes, the drinks people!- which seems to have pretty much taken over the whole island. We meet up with Tony who tells us that we were to have been playing in a marquee, but it's blown down- Pete goes off with him to check out the alternative venue whilst the rest of us wait in our dressing room (actually a small apartment, but 'dressing flat' doesn't really sound right does it?). He returns to tell us that the stage is set back into the wall and 'only about the size of this room' (i.e. not very big) but our gear's all set up and ready for soundchecking. We walk over to the Salle Marcel Paguel (no, I don't know either) and attempt a sound check amid the general chaos of getting the room ready for the evening's festivities. I've got a new-ish Fender Twin Reverb to play through which could sound better 'though I always think that at events such as this you just have to muck in and do the best you can with what you've got. It takes a while to get things sorted out- monitors aren't working, then they're feeding back, and my nice shiny'n'new guitar case gets gaffa-taped to the back of the bass amp in an attempt to stop the sound from it blowing the brass boys heads off. With everything sounding as good as we can get it we go for something to eat (veggie option- undercooked potatoes. Urgh!) before going back to our room/flat to watch a dvd of one of our recent Norwich gigs which included the bit where the fire alarm went off. Excellent. By now an implausible amount of alcohol had arrived; this is always a rather dangerous situation as you might as well imagine and, in this case, since we're playing for a drinks company that specialises in manufacturing whisky, was particularly perilous...
'We're all delirious!' exclaimed Tracy, and she had a point. We'd been on the island for what felt like forever, and still weren't due on for ages. Pete had tried to persuade the organisers that one set would be better than two, but to no avail- we're due on for our first set 'soon', then the second one should finish around 2.30 a.m.- we all get changed and make our way across to the venue. Outside there's a gang of kilted men singing 'We are, we are Scotland' to the tune of Queen's 'We Will Rock You'; inside Pete has another unsuccessful go at suggesting that we play straight through for an hour-and-a-half. Eventually we're on- Richard taps me on the shoulder to tell me that I'm out of tune, but I can't hear what I'm playing very well and can't tell. It's all going down well- but, as often happens at these type of gatherings, when we break at the end of the first set we lose all the momentum that we've built up in the previous 45 minutes which makes the second set hard work. The evening was taking it's toll on Squirrel who sounded as though he'd fallen off the edge of the world during 'Do You Love Me?' 'though by then I'd managed to sort out my tuning problems (I still don't know what had happened!) and our performance ended with us realising that if we got a move on we could catch the 3 a.m. ferry back to the mainland, then get taxi's back to our hotel for some well-earned sleep.
Yes, you've guessed it, there's no taxi's anywhere to be seen. Mike speaks a bit of French and heroically manages to order one (although the more I think about it, the more I'm wondering if he somehow managed it by speaking broken English in a dodgy French accent!) which seems to take ages to arrive and can only fit 4 people in- Tracy, Ian, Richard and Marc go back first with the driver promising to come back for the rest of us, or to send another car, or something... 20-something minutes later he returns, seemingly unable to believe his luck at getting another fare at 4 o'clock in the morning. Pete gets in the front and Dave, Squirrel, Mike and myself somehow manage to fit in the back, a situation perhaps best summed up by Mike commenting to Pete 'at this rate I'll have to marry Leigh when we get home!' The driver tells us he's 70, and, judging by his driving, is auditioning for the re-make of the French cult classic film 'Rendezvous' in the morning. He gets us back to the hotel through the near-empty streets in quite a bit less than the 15 minutes it took us to get there which amuses us all greatly- if only we knew then what the next taxi ride would have in store for some of us...

I set my alarm for 11.15 a.m. but woke up around 10.45; after calling Shirley to relate the previous evening's jollity to her and switching on the T.V. to look for BBC News 24 (only to find a Italian station with a weather man wearing a military uniform) I had a quick bath- it had to be quick since the bath wasn't long enough for me to fully extend my legs in- before Squirrel knocked on my door to say that everyone was going for a walk to find some food before leaving for the airport at 2 o'clock. The previous day's market had been busy enough but today's market was so big that the coastal road was cordoned off and there were what felt like thousands of people out shopping. With Richard off busking ('to get the money to buy a pair of leather trousers' according to Pete) and Tracy still back at the hotel the rest of us found a cafe where the lads got through what seemed like hundreds of mussels (veggie option- goat's cheese on toast. Very nice.) before we all made our way back to the hotel. The taxi's were early so we loaded our gear into the first on and with Pete in the front and Squirrel, Ian and myself in the back seat we set off, arranging to meet the rest of the band at the airport. And so it began...
'It's that ''accelerator/brake'' thing that they have over here isn't it?' commented Squirrel as we careered to a halt at a roundabout just in the nick of time. Yes it is, but this guy's not too hot on the 'brake' part of the equation. He's something of an expert at the 'accelerator' bit though, bringing a new meaning to the term 'tailgating' in the process. Once we're out of town he really gets going- Pete's hanging on with both hands, Ian's wondering if he thinks we're late for our flight and Squirrel's taken the sensible option and fallen asleep. We all realise things are getting out of hand when he jumps the barrier at a toll station- he races through after the car in front has paid and the barrier comes crashing down onto the car's roof. With this he looks really pleased with himself- as we roar off Pete turns back to me and says 'I have never been so frightened in a car'. He looked terrified. The driver's on the phone- probably telling his mate how hilarious the English wimps that he's got held captive in his car look- whilst taking a sweeping bend at over 120 kilometers per hour. Squirrel wakes up, looks out of the window and says 'I don't believe it, we're beating a plane' before going back to sleep. Or praying. Or both. As we get near the airport I realise that we've got there in 40 minutes- the same distance took us over an hour yesterday. We've got the car doors open almost before we've stopped; Pete gets out, puts both arms around me and says something like 'we've made it mate'. He sounded like I'd imagine he'd sound if he'd just climbed Mount Everest. Incredible.
With Pete wound up an argument in the check-in queue was all but inevitable- I'm not sure what went on but he was ready to kill the grey-haired man in front of us. Pausing only to claim free copies of The Daily Mail (they were giving them out, we didn't steal them!) we got through security without too many problems ('RESPECT THE YELLOW LINE' said the sign. Who doesn't?) and I would have bought Shirley a bottle of wine if my 'I can't speak the language' inferiority complex hadn't got the better of me. As we walked through to get to our aircraft I decided to visit the Gents toilet-as I got there a nun hovered by the door, then went in. Richard was coming out at the time and held the door open for her- he looked at me and just said 'yes, I know'. It was definitely time to go home.