Stranded in Charleroi

Curled up on the right hand side of our double bed a small blonde girl giggles gleefully as she reaches the line "I'm telling you stories. Trust me."

We missed our flight. We hopped from tram, to metro, to metro, to train, to bus, juggling luggage and dragging it wildly across roads, up stairs and into carraiges only to find on arrival that check in had closed and our seats had gone.

Michelle had panic printed across her face, bold font clashed against her rosy cheeks and ever enlarging blue eyes; she was goldilocks in grandmas house, gretel desperately searching for crumbs. Crumbs came in the form of a friendly Italian boy running late for his flight home; his shared predicament and reassuring smile calmed her down. The chivalry of the latin man slowed her pulse and she began to smile. His efforts, however, were soon dashed by a large Dub man with a wicked grin, who announced with glee "Well you're screwed anyway".

When we arrived at the airport we tore through crowds and skipped past the queue of people to ask a cold spagetti looking woman if there was any chance of getting on the plane- she looked at us with scorn and glee and retorted "but check in closed twenty minutes ago haw, haw, haw". Wishing her rabies and wrinkles we ran for the ticketing desk where they checked the computer telling us we were too late but we could get a flight in the morning.

Three years ago my passport was stolen in Italy and I was not allowed to get the train to switzerland to get a flight home. Instead I spent most of the night in a train station in Florence avoiding a horrible man with a toothless grin and the next in the airport in Rome trying to get a flight home. The airport was brightly lit and there was nowhere to sleep, I was offered an office by a security guard but the feminist in me objected to getting preferential treatment to the boys scattered around the floor. So I thanked him and assured him I was fine. But I was not fine, soon I was cold and the benches had arm rests slouched half way across them preventing people from using them as beds. They were large metal things that felt like they had been nailed to the floor. When my bones started to ache for sleep my inner feminist flew out the window and I opted for comfort and spent ten minutes dragging one metal bench across the floor to push against another to use as a bed. I would not curl up on the cold floor like the boys, I needed comfort.

But my efforts were in vain, the bench was hard and jagged, I was no warmer and got little sleep. This was the memory that came to me when we were told we could not fly out until the morning. My teeshirt was almost sticking to me, my hair was wild, my face glowed with perspiration and so I asked where the nearest cheap hotel could be found.

On entering the hotel room Michelle and I were greeted with the site of a large double bed with a tiny bed hanging above. Neither of us moved, Michelle looked at me and said "so we have to make a decision, does one of us sleep in the uncomfortable bed or do we share." This was not a new situation, in Tunisia Michelle had foolishly offered me the double bed thinking I would be polite enough to turn it down, but I was not polite and took the double. And she was not genuine, so after one night in the single she climbed in next to me, both of us opting to share rather than sleep in the corner.

After many jokes about molesting her in her sleep, and the brown substance on my wrist that I opted to put in my mouth being poo, I took out my poetry books and fell into other peoples dreams. Michelle was bookless so I gave her with my favourite novel, a signed copy of Jeanette Wintersens 'The Passion' that I got at the Dublin Writers festival when we ventured out to hear jeanette wintersen talk. I have never seen someone read with such glee, after each description a mischievous child grin spread against Michelles face and large eyes popped gleefully over the top of the book as she read out passages, eventually getting to that wonderful line and reading to me...

"I'm telling you stories, trust me"