Observing The Habitat

What do you pack on your first visit to the girlfriend's natural habitat? I had a chocolate cake and ample supply of Belgian cookies, but surely I was supposed to bring some other stuff too? Clothes yes. But which ones? Packing makes me feel uncharacteristically girlie. And there's no point bringing your entire wardrobe, cuz that'll just make you look like a right tit. Plus, Jo's chivalrous and only wee, so it's not fair bringing a bag twice her size. She'll only insist on carrying it to the car for me anyway.

After a lot of faffing, I settled on a weekend-sized duffel-bag full of freshly laundered clothing, the basic toiletries, a notebook to jot down my observations and a good book in case Jo would tire of my rambling at any point over the weekend. I turned up at the airport way before schedule, and lost about 5 years of my life when this cheery announcement sent me off in a wee panic:

- Leeds Bradford: Cancelled -

As it turns out, only 14 people had signed on for the flight to Leeds Bradford, and despite the 300 euro airfare per person, BMI simply couldn't be arsed chartering a separate plane for such a small group. So instead, they transferred us all over onto the semi-full East Midlands flight, told us we were lucky to still get a flight out and dropped us of at Leeds Bradford via detour, a whole 2 hours later than expected. If I hadn't been so relieved that it wasn't a proper cancellation, I would have kicked up a real fuss.

But then, my mind was on my final destination, for just this once. My mind slid out of focus, however, when I had to make my way through customs. As I dropped my bag onto the X-ray belt and placed the chocolate cake on a separate tray, a very scary thought crossed my mind: What if... what IF, the bakery accidentally left a knife in the chocolate cake while making it? I mean, it happens. Not often. But it happens. And it would be just my luck that the knife would accidentally be forgotten inside the ONE cake to be scanned at a high-security airport that day now wouldn't it? I was in half a mind to just bin the cake entirely, but then decided that my neurosis was simply in overdrive, and stepped through security with my fingers crossed.

Just as my cake was passing through the X-ray, the lady in charge called her two superiors and stopped the conveyor belt. They eyed me up suspiciously for a few minutes whilst talking amongst themselves and finally turned to me with the words: "Is it a good cake?"

It took me a moment to gather my wits and I eventually replied: "Well Sir, that depends on why you want to know?" To which he said: "We were just thinking of keeping it." "Oh well then, it's a bad one," I replied. Which made him grin as he handed the cake back over to me.

Looks like I wasn't about to be arrested for suspicious knife-smuggling after all.

- Angel of the North in Brussels??-

I took a big risk flying without my lucky travel-sock, but I figured I'd just about all the luck I needed, waiting for me at the other end of the channel ;-)

There's something peculiar about long-distance relationships. No matter how close you've become, no matter how long you've known each other for, there's always a refreshed amount of flutters, nerves and shyness each time you meet up again. It generally takes an hour to settle back into where you last left off, but the fantastic aspect of it is, that you switch into an accelerated gear after that. You have both made a conscious effort to make time for each other for those few days, and you can well and truly focus on each other and on what it is you both want to do. It's remarkably fluid and intense.

While it was my first visit to Jo's habitat, it felt very much like coming home. I did warn her that I wasn't quite sure whom I'd kiss first: Her or the British Soil. I'd not been back to the UK since I left for New Zealand last August, so I'd more than missed Britain. But when I walked through the gate and saw her pretty smile flash back at me, I couldn't resist kissing her first ;-)

She offered to carry my bag for me and I was relieved I'd stuck to a weekend-sized bag.

The drive to her house was a quiet one. We squeezed each other's hands a fair few times, but we were both settling into that strange mixture of re-acquaintance and excitement, and it felt nice to just sit there, among all the tension and unspoken thoughts, with her next to me.

Walking through her front door was like finally finding another difficult piece of the puzzle I was trying to solve. When you meet someone long-distance, it takes a while longer before you get to see the clear picture of each other. You fall in love gradually. Bits of the puzzle are revealed to you only slowly through texts, e-mails, phone conversations and the stolen moments spent together. But a person's home, where they keep their memories, where the rooms are drenched in their daily routines, can reveal substantially more to you than any conversation can. And as such, every new encounter is like falling for someone all over again, only deeper.

It's been a while since I've had such an indulgent, relaxing weekend. We went wherever the flow took us. Much to our surprise, we actually successfully made it out of the house a few times. Strolled the lovely historic streets of the town, hunted down some poached eggs for breakfast, indulged in a traditional Sunday Roast down a local pub, spent a night on the town with some friends, whiled away some time over coffee at Borders while perusing (and buying) books. All incredibly relaxing.

I have a major thing with books. When I was little, my mum arranged it so that I could have three library cards instead of just the one, enabling me to take out 15 books a week. And when I'd made my way through most of what the local library had on offer, my dad started taking me to FNAC once a month, where I would be allowed to buy as many books as I wanted, provided they were of a certain level (was never allowed to buy "the baby-sitter's club" ;-)) And I think to me, those visit to the library and bookstore were like the proverbial visits to the candy shop.

So I love bookshops. And thankfully, it's a passion shared by Jo. I love strolling through them for hours, sitting on the floor in front of a section that tickles my interest, just perusing the books on offer. I genuinely feel that Belgium still lacks on bookshop-culture. Most good bookstores in Britain have coffee shops incorporated in them, and there's sofas strewn throughout the entire shop where you can cosy up for a wee read. There's few things more invigorating than having all that information and story-telling at your fingertips, while being given the time to browse them at leisure.

The nice thing about relationships then, is that you get given a second set of eyes. And because Jo loves books as much as I do, we were feeding off each other in the bookstore. She'd spot things I had missed and vice versa, and while our topics of interest don't necessarily always overlap, our interest in each other enriches the perusing experience. After much oooh-ing and aaaah-ing, I walked out with a book on Banksy's artwork, a photography book on emerging patterns and "Freakonomics", a book I would very much recommend to anyone with an interest in incentives, logical fallacies and economics.

Now, this going to sound a little sad. But do any of you have deeply hidden fantasies about "the love of your life", like say, a knight in shining armour coming to your rescue, or a bad boy/girl on a motorcycle driving you off into the horizon? Vivid dreams about the day Richard Gere walks into the factory in officer's outfit to lift you into his arms and carry you out? Or of Fred Astair tap-dancing his way over to you to seduce you with his singing? No? Right, well don't judge me on this then, but I've always had a massive thing with Dirty Dancing and Grease. And while I fancied "Frances" and "Sandy" instead of Patrick Swayze or John Travolta, the romantic view of love instilled in my head is very much to do with dancing and music.

I don't have "a type" as such, but a nice smile, sparkly eyes and some killer dance-moves never fail to seduce me. And I didn't quite realise how deeply rooted this romantic "Dirty Dancing"-fantasy of mine was until I went out clubbing in York. Jo slipped down in the booth next to me while we were waiting for our drinks, and I could tell she was itching to have a wee boogie. Five minutes later, she was up on the dancefloor strutting her stuff and my jaw just dropped. Now that girl can dance. Not only that, she can dance WITH me. None of that Tango-style classical malarky, no... just freestyle contemporary fun. Feeding off each other's energy, a rhythm that was very much in sync.


Maybe, just maybe, scents and pheromones aren't the only factors of seduction at play in human relationships. I suspect rhythm and pacing very much are too.

- A slightly inebriated, sultry Jo on
our way home from the club-