Norway '09

Having been a caddy for a year I had managed to befriend a number of caddies on the tour and when the prospect of going to Norway arose we hatched a plan to find cheaper accommodation.

Norway is renowned for its ridiculous prices and mid summer in the beautiful town of Sandefjord was likely to be no exception. There is a guy on tour – Pete’s his name, bags his game - whose job it is to transport the girl’s golf bags and suitcases across the continent to the various events thus saving the girls and caddies the hassle and most of all the extortionate charges most budget airlines add on for any bags that weigh more than a postage stamp. It was Pete the bag-man’s idea for us all to save a few sheckles and camp whilst in Norway. It was only a midweek, 3-day event so we all figured why not?

Thinking I had a rough time leaving Dublin, he drove non-stop from Dublin to Torp in southern Norway taking in nine countries along the way and four ferries. Thirty-eight hours later he arrived a little jaded and with a touch of elephantiasis of the right foot.

My journey to Torp had been relatively seamless apart from the mess leaving Dublin the night before and I arrived at the course unscathed and fairly fresh. After walking the beautiful course I got a lift back to the campsite we were staying at for the week. Pete had bought four huge tents, sleeping bags; roll mats, pillows, beer, food for the week and a large portion of humour to be dished out amongst us all.

We had a real giggle too. The site was in a beautiful spot, right on the edge of its own fjord and with a beach and everything. The dock was where dinner was served one evening but for the remaining nights we cobbled together a curry, a spag bol and a barbecue. All washed down with copious amounts of slightly tepid beer it was an experience not to be missed and something we’re likely to do again sometime.

I did my job well that week with Christel and we finished 11^th.

In my eagerness to save a few sheckles I had booked a return flight the day after the tournament finished but with the event finishing at 4pm on the Sunday afternoon I had 24hours to kill before my flight. I could have stayed at the campsite another night on my own but I didn’t really fancy it.

My flight was with Ryan Bloody Air as they were the only airline that flew to Torp so I knew it was going to take my very best negotiation to change to an earlier flight without having to re-mortgage the house.

Delivered to the airport by the courtesy transfer bus I rolled straight up to the Ryanair desk. I was informed in no uncertain terms that whilst there was ample space on the 8pm flight out that evening that there was a fee to pay. Furry muff – how much? The stroppy little cow searched through her online ‘how to rip off the customer manual’ and told me that in order to change my flight I would have to pay an ‘administration charge’ - whatever the hell that is - of €75.00 but the cost of the flight now had rocketed up to a staggering €379.00. I know I’m lucky enough not to be paying for my flights but I do have principles.

I fluttered my lengthy eyelashes and faked as sincere a smile as I could muster at the miserable cow but received nothing further than a “Do you want to proceed then, Sir?”

Letting out a sigh of frustration I shook my bowed head and walked away before I said anything I oughtn’t and wondered what I should do for the next twenty odd hours in southern Norway.

It was beer o’clock in my book (you noticing a pattern yet?) so I wandered around the airport and found, as you do in Norway, a Seamus O’Shaunessey’s bar by the exit. Poifect.

I ordered a ‘point’ and took it outside to savour the evening sun. Many players and caddies were milling around outside who’d been shrewd enough to have booked themselves on the Ryanair flight that night not the one leaving the following day. A few even expressed murmurs of pity and I recall one of them even saying there there before charging off towards her awaiting silver bird.

I had quite a few beers that afternoon and then thought I’d have a crack at the barmaid. She was a tidy sort – a damn sight tidier now that I’d had a relative skin-full - and so with confidence oozing through me I began waffling in my best non-existent Norwegian only to be interrupted by the Liverpudlian tart saying she was married to Dave.

Changing tack I asked what there was to do and whether she knew of anywhere I could go where I might be privileged enough to meet some genuine Norwegian folk to which she mentioned the town of Sandefjord that was a relatively easy train journey away. Job done. There were supposed to be lockers at the station (not the airport strangely enough) so I wandered down to the railway to store my rather too large suitcase.

I managed to find a locker and was midway through wedging my suitcase in there when the station-master approached. He informed me I could leave it in there but that the station would be locked until the following lunch time. Great. So I lagged the thing on to the approaching train and wondered what I would do with it.

Twenty minutes later I was in a very sleepy fishing town wrapping itself around a fairly impressive marina. I was still wheeling this bloody heavy suitcase around and with one wheel within minutes of running off I had to get rid of it. I studied the marina and found an imposing hotel overlooking the bay and marched up to the reception. Using my best Eddie Murphy confidence I asked the receptionist to store my case until I returned – whenever that might be. Being a five star establishment my arrogance and presumption that she would obey my every word seemed to be appreciated and he took my case to a secure room out the back. Sweet.

A gentleman’s wash downstairs in the rather creepy marble bathrooms later and I was ready for a night out in Sandefjord.

I’d had a relative crack at getting peshed by this time but found myself wandering down the marina in search of more lager. Before long I found a cracking bar suspended on stilts above the crystal clear water below. I can’t tell you how beautiful a spot it was to be having a cold beer. With a healthy contingent of Norwegian beauties to gape at I was in my element.

I hadn’t however seen a cashpoint on my travels thus far and so approached the barman once my available Kroner had run dry. He said I could run a tab and so sensing a good deal when I saw it I handed over my MBNA Platinum card and feeling generous bought myself and a lovely looking MILF next to me a drink.

She was rather taken aback but I thought nothing of it. We started chatting – thankfully in English as my Norwegian hadn’t really come that far in five days – and that was it. She was up for it. Rubbing my leg was where it started but by the time I’d been bought my fourth beer by her she had raised her wandering hand to my nether regions.

Her family were all around us and all seemed absolutely fascinated in this rather drunk Brit who was being groped rather ferociously by their mother. It was a bizarre situation to be in can I tell you. She was all over me and whilst suggesting I go back to her hotel for an evening of mad passionate rampant intercourse her husband and father of her several fully-grown children came over. He was nice as pie and didn’t seem too perturbed by the actions of his randy wife.

I threw some uncomfortable small talk his way and then he bought me a beer. And another. And another. I was proper bladdered by this point and she was still rubbing her lovely legs up and down my inner thigh whilst her hubby watched on intently without batting an eyelid. I was no doubt making no sense to anyone at this point let alone this strangely incestuous family led by Mr and Mrs Robinson.

Sensing an unpleasant finale to this bizarre charade I decided it was probably best to bid them all a pleasant evening and disappear before Mrs R started got down on her knees whilst her sizeable family rated her technique or whatever.

Through groans of disappointment I staggered out of the bar wondering where to go next. Sandefjord is a small village with only a handful of places to go out and I had just left the only bar still open. I had no idea where to go and not a bean to my name. In my haste to leave O’Shaunessey’s several hours before I had inadvertently left my bank card behind the bar. In my haste to leave Mr and Mrs Weirdo I had also left my only other form of payment behind the bar too leaving me proper screwed.

I also had no idea what time it was either. Norway in the summer doesn’t get dark as we know it and at whatever time it was now I hadn’t a clue as it was still quite light. It had to be sometime after midnight but having been so gripped (and groped) by the proceedings earlier it could have been four in the morning for all I knew.

The hotel was still storing my case and with its gentle orange glow emanating from its windows seemed an inviting place to head for. Knowing I had no funds to pay for anything I tried the old Murphy special again and bold as brash I approached the receptionist and asked for the key to room 219. They didn’t have a room 219.

The failsafe free room trick had fallen at the first hurdle but trying desperately hard to focus on the key board behind him I noticed that all the keys were out. Sensing the game was up I asked for my suitcase and trampled back into the morning light once more.

I was exhausted by this point and in dire need of a lie down. All I could do was walk about. I looked in the park for a suitable bench to call my home for the night but none looked remotely suitable and in my inebriated state I didn’t fancy leaving my worldly possessions out in the open whilst I passed out.

The marina looked like a friendly place and an old wives’ tale that boats not being the securest places in the world occurred to me. So I approached the yachts and catamarans hoping one of them would have a neon sign in the shape of a hand with index finger ushering me in. Visions of a luxurious cabin with a round bed in the hull wrapped in white silk sheets encouraged me to keep looking until I found one but this isn’t Hollywood and I found myself getting ratty and desperate. Every yacht and floating palace looked as secure as the Bank of England so I discarded that as a possibility and started looking for a less salubrious home for the night.

Then I saw her. In all her shimmering glory. A vision of hedonistic heaven afore me. There a few feet away in the calm marina waters lay my bed. A little blue and white wooden rowboat no longer than 12feet in length was bobbing up and down beckoning me to board and set up camp. I pulled the rope and hither she came. I threw the suitcase aboard and hopped on after it.

I still had my roll matt I’d been sleeping on all week with me and rolled it out in the bottom of the hull for a bed. It didn’t quite fit as the benches running laterally across the vessel kinda got in the way but five out of six feet made it to the floor and on I climbed.

It wasn't quite the apparition of hedonistic slumber I had visions of earlier but it was sort of flat and for the time being it was perfect. I plucked a hoodie out of the suitcase and made a pillow and with the Norwegian summer keeping the air pleasantly clement I closed my eyes and Betty the boat and I bobbed our way to sleep.

Six hours later I awoke to the sounds of life on the water all around me and figured it was my morning alarm call. I popped my little hungover sleepy head out of the top of the side to see a bustling hive of activity all around me. Fisherman, sailors, cleaners, deck hands all milling around on the planks of the jetties around me.

Felling a touch trampish I gathered my things with minimal fuss and contemplated the return exit from the confines of my little boat. How I’d had managed to negotiate my way into this little thing was probably one of the reasons no one had yet asked me to vacate it. The height difference between the stern of the bateau and the jetty was about five feet and I couldn’t imagine how I was going to get out of this thing without causing too much of a fuss. Surely someone around me would know whose boat I had squatted in all night and would more than likely have a word.

I pulled the rope towards me thus bringing the boat nearer the dock and then planned my escape. I thought about the possibility that the tide might have gone out leaving me somewhat lower than the previous night but I couldn’t remember being remotely concerned about boarding this thing some hours before so why now did it look like a guaranteed slam-dunk?

Getting me out was one thing but the heavy suitcase was going to need some clever negotiating. I weighed up the options in my weary hazy state and concluded that brute force was the way forward. Having been a reasonable discus thrower in my school days I adopted the required Adonis pose and with all my might spun on my heels and tried to launch the case on to the dock. The advantage real discus throwers have is a relatively steady footing to plant their feet on. A wooden rowboat weighing no more than a couple of kilos doesn’t compare. Betty was determined to throw me overboard but some miraculous footing Ginger Rodgers would be proud of kept me upright as the little boat bobbed and bashed its way against the jetty.

The case fell onto the dock with an alarming bang and I fell backwards into the hull of the boat – thankfully I hadn’t rolled up my roll matt by this point or I’d have had a sore bottom.

With Betty swaying side to side like a recently vacated swing I did well to avoid capsizing the little bugger. So then it was my turn. I had to pull the boat ashore once more to give me half a chance to climb up to the dock. My drunken haziness let me down here – embarrassingly too. The boat was pretty much resting on the struts of the dock and so I made a run and jump for it. My calculations let me down big time though; as I leapt for safety the boat went in the opposite direction throwing me towards the drink below. Grasping for anything I could I grabbed the rope with both hands and immediately swung underneath it. The sound of creaking Norwegian wood above me suggested I was putting the ancient Viking carpentry to the test big time. Like something out of Cliffhanger there I was holding onto this bit of rope for dear life whilst Betty was trying to make a break for it the other way. With my bum dangling in the water, hands welded to the rope and both feet clinging on the boat whilst it shot off towards Denmark at a rate of knots, I was in a serious predicament. If my feet fall off the boat I’m in - wet. Really wet. I tighten the old quads and pull with all my might hoping my bed for the night doesn’t abandon me altogether into the watery grave below.

Betty’s ABS kicks in and she grinds to a halt with me at this stage at full stretch parallel to the chilly soup below. Physics plays its part at last and Betty comes my way to lend a hand to her ailing skipper.

I somehow manage to pull myself on board once more and contemplate the whole process again. I was panting and out of breath by this stage and my beery head throbbing but as the marina buzzed around me I knew I had to get out of this sodding boat before Lars came back hoping for a little row.

I try the gentle approach and manage to get a decent finger hold on the dock above. Now where to put my feet… the supports of the jetty are too far underneath to reach and probably a bit too slippery and slimy to get a foothold on so I try the rope again. Needless to say there’s a physics issue once again and as I try and put 12stone on to it the boat moves my way and the taught rope gets too slack to stand on. So it’s time to put all those press-ups to the test (ahem) and pull myself up. I reach a point of no return when Betty starts to drift away and I’m left dangling there with my deltoids at full contraction but knowing what option b might be I find a touch more strength from somewhere and haul myself onto the slimy jetty above.

I’m absolutely exhausted; panting; sweating; arms shaking; head throbbing but just as I think I have avoided any humiliation I receive a gentle applause from a small gallery of onlookers on the jetty behind me.

People say this job is all glamour… at times like this I beg to differ.

CK