Summer Holidays 2010 2: Clothes Maketh the Man

Why is it that whenever the sun peeps from behind the clouds for about ten seconds people start showing the weirdest looking body parts? The women look strange enough, with skirts too short too befit their age and fat bulging between those skirts and too tight t-shirts, but it’s the men that really make you wonder. Is there anything worse than a man in shorts? It doesn’t matter if the men are skinny or fat, shorts simply are the death of any relationship. It’s even worse when the man in question is wearing sandals and grey woolly socks as well or, God forbid, flipflops.


I’m in England, the country of Messrs Darcy and Rochester, the area where Heathcliffs can still roam the moors and where we can dream of Robin Hood and King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. Have you ever wondered why women still secretly dream about men like that? It’s because they never wore shorts and sandals. Pre-1900 man really knew what women wanted and it was certainly not that. Ever wondered why men like wearing uniforms, especially the colourful ones they wore at battles like Waterloo? It was because a good uniform covers up all the flaws and makes even the scrawniest man with the wonkiest knees look to die for.

Now it would be going a bit far to start wishing men would start running around in uniforms like that again, but looking at themselves in a mirror before leaving the house in the morning would be rather considerate to their fellow human beings. Don’t these men have wives who tell them their sense of dress is totally off?

Although, come to think of it, their wives may be on to something, because, let’s be honest, if you had your own Mr Darcy at home, would you want other women to know about that? Wouldn’t you actually send him out in shorts and sandals yourself so no other woman would look at him twice?

I’m sitting in my car in a car park near the M4 motorway on my way to Wiltshire, sipping a cappuccino from a big cardboard mug looking at the men going by. I haven’t seen a Darcy or Rochester yet, but who knows, the holidays have only just begun ….

Summer Holidays 2010 1: Customs

Arriving in England on a brilliantly sunny summer morning is always a pleasure until you get stopped by a customs officer at the ferry port of Harwich and you start feeling like a criminal.

“What is the purpose of your visit, madam?”

The smile looks genuine but the feeling behind it is clear. You, madam, are a woman travelling on your own. You must be either very weird or a drugs trafficker. Now I know that I’m a bit odd, even one of my best friends told me so (and I must say I’m rather proud of that), but I’m certainly no drugs trafficker, so in a situation like this there are two things you can do.

1. I could behave indignantly, which will surely result in me having to unpack the whole car, but will give me the satisfaction of feeling very superior once I’m allowed to leave, or

2. smile sweetly and be very nice, treat the gentleman like he’s my favourite grandson and be very sympathetic he has a job like that.
I didn’t feel like going for option one. As I said, the sun was shining and the countryside had looked very appealing from the ferry when we were disembarking, so I went for the big smile.

“The purpose of my visit, sir, is a holiday. I will be visiting friends in Wiltshire and I got to know them when I rented a cottage from them a few years ago.”

My smile didn’t seem to make an immediate impression.

“So what is your profession, madam?”

“I’m an English teacher.”

I was relieved to see that that helped for some reason. It seems teachers are somehow trustworthy. Or maybe his wife was a teacher as well.

The questions went on for a while, but finally he told me I could go. I had no idea what I had said to make him change his mind but I was greatly relieved to find that I didn’t have to unpack the car after all and wouldn’t have to explain why I was carrying my medication in bulk. I’m a terrible worrier so I always take more medication than is needed in two separate bags. In case one of them gets stolen, I will still have the second bag. Then of course I also take into account the fact that there may be a delay in getting home, so I always take a bit extra. Anyway, in retrospect, I would have had a lot to explain.

Needless to say, I accelerated out of there. The last thing I saw of the friendly customs officer was his head disappearing in a cloud of diesel from my exhaust.

I love England. Though a part of Europe, people there have retained the sense of isolation true to island dwellers. They do everything their own way and even when you can travel anywhere in Europe nowadays without having to show your passport England is the perfect exception to the rule. It still takes a long way to go through customs, especially when you’re a single lady from Holland (the den of iniquity as far as drugs and sex are concerned), but still I wouldn’t want to miss my trips over there.

People often ask me why I like going to the UK when I could so easily go somewhere else where it’s just as beautiful and where I could go with a lot less hassle, but I truly wouldn’t know. I could of course give you a whole list of things which I’m sure you can find in any travel guide, but essentially it comes down to only one thing. For some reason arriving in England always feels like coming home. I’m just odd that way