The first time it happened I was in school. I must have been around seven or eight because I was in assembly and Mr Carruthers was at the front talking about God. I wasn't listening, I never did in those days. I don't know if any of the other kids ever listened but God wasn't very entertaining in those days and Mr Carruthers rarely got the party started. I don't know what I was expecting. Vicar's in those days didn't exactly put on an extravaganza and still don't beat box as far as I know. I was probably playing with my shoelaces or trying not to fart. As I recall somebody always did fart and it was usually the loudest, wettest fart know to mankind. I just never wanted to be the one. Nobody did but somebody always was.
It didn't last long when it happened. Maybe a minute or so. I think that's why I just presumed I was day dreaming, I mean how was I supposed to tell the difference? Even at that young age I was a serial day dreamer as well as being a serial nose picker and flicker.
It came without warning. One minute I was sat with my legs crossed and my buttocks clenched and the next I was rolling down an orange hill in a bubble. Horns were honking somewhere in the distance and my legs were covered in fur. My bubble was getting faster and faster and the hill was getting steeper and steeper until the hill was gone and I was flying through the air and below me was a sea of silver.
Somebody had farted and Mr Carruthers was going on about tadpoles. To this day I haven't for the life of me discovered what exactly tadpoles have got to do with The Bible. I'm sure he had his reasons and I've looked but there are no tadpoles in there.None that I can see.
I spent the rest of the assembly trying to look as if I was listening at least and I didn't really think about the bubble and the orange hill or the silver sea but to this day I believe it actually happened. It was the first time I travelled. I just didn't know it at the time. And it wasn't the last time that I was to set foot on Gallywoot.
