- Don’t wear a Fitbit through airport security – if you do it guarantees a body pat down due to the ‘unauthorised metal in the left leg area’. Although this was a lot less stressful than last year when my new shoes set off the airport scanner as ‘explosive’.
- Don’t watch the propeller out of the plane window if your seat happens to be next to one– once you’ve started to watch it you will feel compelled to keep your eye on it for the whole journey, in case it stops. Your ‘nervous flyer’ status will be elevated to ‘hysterical flyer’.
- Do walk along St Brelade’s Bay beach – it’s beautiful. I think it would be too busy for me in the summer, but in Autumn it was nice and quiet and at times felt like my own private beach.
- Do visit St Brelades’s Bay church – it reminds me of the church in ‘John Carpenters The Fog’. But there were no foggy ghost pirates there.
- Do remember to pack some tweezers – an unforgiving hotel bathroom mirror revealed that I’d travelled over disguised as Hercule Poirot.
- Don’t have your phone sat nav set for ‘car route’ when you are a pedestrian – you will walk miles extra than you need to.
- Do laugh loudly while being transported on the land boat, ‘The Charming Nancy’, across the causeway to Elizabeth Castle – it’s quite impossible not to laugh as they play the James Bond theme loudly, while driving at 5mph.
- Do watch the sunset while sat on a deserted beach – it’s just magical.
- Do triple check the opening times of Mount Orgueil castle before you hike up there – arriving for a visit on the day they have closed for the winter is disappointingly pants.
- Don’t visit the fruit bat enclosure first at Durrell park – it’s a humid 28 degrees and you will walk around the rest of the park looking like a sweaty plague victim.
- Do check out Portelet Bay from the cliff top walk – Amazing views, and a handy bench to sit and enjoy the panorama.
- Do stop to take photos walking back on the causeway from Corbiere lighthouse – it’s a good excuse to get your breath back.
- Do imagine yourself to be on another planet at Corbiere lighthouse – the boulders shaped by the sea are amazing, I felt like I was on a set from Star Trek. I never knew I’d get so excited by rocks.
- Don’t expect the glass church to be actually made of glass – only certain bits of the interior are made of glass.
- Don’t say yes to healing prayer if you are an atheist – you’ll struggle to keep a straight face and still have a sore throat when you leave. Actually the throat got worse.
- Don’t assume that all non-moving people in the Jersey War Tunnels are mannequins – they might be humans stood really still reading information cards on the walls, and will make you squeak when they eventually move.
- Do sit for a while at night in St Brelade’s Bay church – I sat there alone on Halloween night and nearly gave myself heart failure imagining foggy ghost pirates.
- Do chat to people at bus stops – I met the delightful Pat, from Bolton originally but lived in Jersey for 50 years now, she does Zumba every Thursday morning in the church hall. And at a different bus stop I met Sarah and Pete from Frinton (Enfield originally), a lovely couple who happened to be staying in the same hotel as me, we had drinks the following night together.
- Don’t answers other tourists’ questions while sat in the Fisherman’s church in St Brelade’s Bay – they might think you are a guide/volunteer, and then more people entering the church will assume that too and gather around you in a semi-circle, to listen to you reciting the facts you read in the leaflet by the door.
- Do visit the only cinema on the island if you are having film withdrawal – I watched ‘Dr. Strange’ which was excellent.
Archives
All posts for the month November, 2016
A Conversation With Myself When a Wasp Tangoed on my Face.
Published November 6, 2016 by Naomi Rettig(Scene: sat on a bus, near the back, approximately 10 other passengers on board. Couple move from seat on my right to seats in front of me.)
Why have they moved?
I don’t know, maybe the sun was in their faces on that side.
Oh, yes, probably.
Oh no, there’s a wasp, they’ve moved from the wasp. It’s followed them though. They’ve brought the wasp over to our side!
Well if she stops waving her hands about it will go away.
They’re moving back now.
Good, the wasp is moving too.
Yay, it’s going down the front of the bus.
Can everyone stop waving their arms around, they’re making the wasp angry.
If it stings you, I bet you go into anaphylactic shock.
Don’t be a drama queen.
You’re allergic to penicillin, pet saliva and fur, feathers, and broad beans. And you have a swollen throat already because you’re ill. A sting from that wasp could make your throat swell, even a little more, and you could die.
You’re such an idiot.
It’s coming back up the bus!
Don’t panic. If I just keep still it won’t bother us. I’ll make myself invisible to the wasp.
You’re wearing the most floral blouse you have, and you’re wearing fleur de fig perfume, you couldn’t make yourself more attractive to the wasp unless you dressed as a female wasp.
Just keep still.
Christ it’s on the windowsill in front now. If it comes near us, you’ll have to kill it. No one else on the bus is going to. It’s the wasp or you. You decide.
What can I kill it with?
Your kindle is in your bag.
Don’t be stupid, there’s a note book in there too I can use.
Well slide your hand in and get it out ready. The wasp is getting closer. That’s it, nice and slowly.
I’m ready for it now. Where did it go?
I don’t know, we share the same eyes, I was looking in the bag with you. Everyone else is looking around for it too.
Maybe it went out the wind-ohhhh…IT’S ON MY FUCKING FACE!
Don’t swear!
It’s on my fucking face!
Follow your own advice, keep perfectly still, don’t make any sudden movements to scare it.
I’m not even breathing. It’s on my face. It’s doing a fudging tango on my cheek. I can feel its tippy-tappy feet. Bastard.
Keep calm. Don’t cry, your salty tears will only aggravate it.
I don’t think I can keep my silent screaming silent for much longer.
I can’t believe the man over there just told you to keep still because it’s on your face.
I know! Does he think I don’t know this! Fudge Womble!
Ooh.
Hallelujah!
You’ve got quicker reflexes than I thought.
That didn’t seem quick, that seemed to take forever to buzz from my cheek to the headrest in front.
Are you sure he’s dead?
When I whacked him, his head propelled two seats forward, I’m pretty sure he’s dead. Even if he was a zombie wasp, he’d be dead.
Did that lady really tut at you because you killed the wasp?
I think so yes. Numpty nugget.
Naomi Rettig 