Beside the Seaside

« In Which It's Me, Oh Kathy | Home | In Which I Get Tongue-Tied »

In Which I'm Never Drinking Again. Again

August 21, 2008 by Mike

Poreč

A day off -- cleainng my underwear and hoping it dried off before the "fifty Hell's angels" turn up.

I also had a walk up here in the hill country above Poreč - a mixture of cute old houses and bland modern ones in a string of villages along the lane. A couple of old souls pottering. One house the venue for a laughing gang of kids on pushbikes. A trio of elderly gossipers who don't notice me or the dogs whose barks follow me round the houses.

And an evening off.. my face. (Sorry, Birgitta -- I have to own up to this. And I didn't see it coming.)

The fifty Hell's Angels failed to show. Maybe I'd misheard Dragen's German.. though a couple of Wheels Of Steel turned up to check the campsite out.. with a view to their whole gang coming back next year. Scouting a year ahead to make sure the loos have paper and seats -- doesn't seem very rock'n'roll to me, but each to their own.

There was a Black Piston, on the other hand, who was staying in a holiday cottage down the road with his wife, but had the evening off to come to BIKERS CAMP for a drink and a chat. Roland..

[and I'm sorry but I have to interrupt here. But.. Wheels of Steel.. Black Pistons.. Roland.. is it just me who can't take the names of German bikers and their gangs seriously?]

.. Roland and Dragen and Dragen's friend Goran and I had a few drinks together. I spoke at length about the War -- the 1991-95 war here in Croatia -- with someone. I think he was Croatian, so that rules out Roland -- but then it turned out that he is from Koblenz.

"Koblenz! That's a twin city with Norwich!" I spluttered. "I've been there!"

I'd had enough moonshine by this stage to mean I thought my German was perfect, when it clearly was getting worse than ever. And as Roland spoke only German, Dragen spoke German and Croatian and Goran spoke Croatian and English, meant things were starting to slow down, especially when I had to translate between Roland and Goran. Or was it Dragen?

Anyway, "Koblenz! That's a twin city with Norwich! I've been there!"

Roland seemed really thrilled, so I pressed on. I snapped back a shot of moonshine.

"I stayed in the house of Manfred Becker. You must know the Beckers? They live in Von Witzlebenstrasse."

And they do -- or rather they did, in about 1981, when I was there. God knows how, or where I dredged it from, but I remembered Mandred's address. "Von Witzlebenstrasse 44. You must know it!"

And of course -- because why wouldn't he? -- Roland *does* know Von Witzlebenstrasse -- because he used to live in number 33. We drank to that. "Wife number one," he said, an explanation for why he had lived there once -- and why he didn't anymore.

He didn't know Manfred, though. Or if he did I was already unconscious, my dribbling face flat down on the table. That's where i woke up at two in the morning, with a blanket kindly draped over my shoulders.

I'm never drinking [Dragen's moonshine] again.

Comments

Leave your comment

Back to Top

RSS feed | What are feeds?