Canterbury Tales....

ON Sunday afternoon Christian and I set out in our easycar.com rental for Canterbury to see my Nan.
I often have the feeling that I live in a sitcom...and this little road trip was no exception!

We were accompanied on our journey by "Fanny"...that's the name I gave to Christian's GPS. For those of you who don't know my dear friend Christian - he is the biggest PC, techno nerd in my life ( Andrew Currie wins on the Mac world side...but I dare say that Christian may be a little further ahead in the world of gadgets. Sorry Andrew). So OF COURSE we had a satellite, not a plain old map guiding us to my Nan's! Christian's handy little gadget spoke to us all the way along in her pert, efficient little English accent - things like, " In 200 meters, at the round about, take the third exit", and when we took a wrong turn, " Perform a legal U-turn". WHORE!

I quickly grew to despise Fanny. She was brilliant at timing it just so that she would interrupt me right in the middle of a story. Christian hung off of her every word and LOVED her for making the journey so smooth and stress free. Fanny even took the time to point out Post Offices along the way, and bars and petrol stations....Which brings us to a whole other issue. We left London with almost NO gas in the car! Easycar.com is cheap - and they give you the car empty. Now - Christian has taken a very serious political/ environmental stance in his life AGAINST Esso....which is all fine and good, and I really do support him in that....HOWEVER...all we passed were Esso stations. Christian flat out refused to stop at any of them - which wasn't a big deal in the first 25 kms...but once the fuel light came on, and we continued to pass Esso stations...and THEN he turned down a few TEXACO stations....Well, between envisioning us running out of gas on the edge of the highway AND having Christian's time and attentions monopolized by that BITCH Fanny - it turned into one tense ride! Do you know, Chistian actually said to me, " You're going to have to stop talking all together so I can concentrate on Fanny,"!!!! SLUT!!!

We did finally get petrol and arrived at my Nan's house in one piece.

My Nan is lovely and delightful. When we got there, my cousin Sharon's husband, Martin was over. Seems Nan was not getting any heat ( when you're 84 you get cold even in summer). Martin was there to try to fix the problem. He had also brought two of his kids with him ( my second cousins) Susan ( 10 years) and Michael ( 15 months). Sweet kids!

Something we learned very quickly about 84 year olds: Lots and lots of family members call everyday to check up on them...and when they do, each one of them get the FULL story in minute detail as to what's happening in the flat that day. Of course one of the details being passed out to the family was my visit with Christian....only Nan kept saying, " Rebecca is here from Canada with her boyfriend."

!!!!

Unfortunately I missed my window of opportunity to correct Nan because I was too busy teasing Christian about being my boyfriend! He and I did have a rushed and whispered discussion about correcting her - but then we were also spending the night...and Nan only has one guest bed ( which Christian and I were fine with sharing) ...but we figured it would be too long and complicated to explain. It would also have caused Nan undo hostess stress. She would have gotten worried about where the other was to sleep and would have felt AWFUL if one of us slept on the couch....AND to try and explain that my boyfriend is my ex-fiance back in Canada, who really wouldn't mind me sleeping with Christian....FORGET IT!!!

And so - things got more and more sitcom like as Nan had about 14 phone calls and time, after time it was, " Rebecca's boyfriend this, Rebecca's boyfriend that....". We thought maybe Nan had forgotten Christian's name. Turned out that she was having a hard time understanding what his name was...So for the first while she just called him Christine...and by morning was calling him Chris. ( again...if you don't know Christian...he is NOT NOT NOT a Chris!!!) Hilarious!!!

In the morning...Nan wouldn't let me wake Christian up to join us. " Ah - let the darling have a lay -in and then you can take him in his tea." WHAT???!!! Because Christian was my boyfriend (!) he got to sleep late...then Nan made him a cup of tea that I was instructed to take in and wake him up with so that he could have his morning cup'a in bed!!! ( Sorry Bruce, honey, you really missed out!)

Towards the end of our visit, when Nan and I had a moment alone, she leaned in and whispered:
" He's very, very nice. You're very lucky. You've done well."
And as Christian was saying goodbye to her, " I'm very happy with you and you're always welcome to stay here."

So - there you have it. Christian is IN...and Bruce...well, I'm going to have a LOT of explaining to do when the wedding invites go out!

In the end...hard to say who was the bigger whore: Me or Fanny? I'm going to stick with Fanny. She got us lost on the way to IKEA and I, yes ME ME ME...I got us there! Screw you Fanny!

Next weekend....Paris!!!
;-)