The interest it takes in the humans now flocking to gaze upon its coils is possibly just curiosity.

“I’m writing, not bleeding,” he chuckles, “you know what I mean?”

I do. I see a boy hunched over a table, clutching a pen, pressing meaning on paper. Tip of the tongue between the teeth, tasting air. I think back on a summer en Provence, the dry heat, cool swim, scorched earth, lemon ice cream type of holiday. The two images don’t blend.

“You’re taller, better looking and you’ve got better hair,” I say. Smooth as butter and mostly true.

“Absolutely,” he says.

Mistral winds, purple hues of lavender. Pitching your tent in the middle of the arid, scratchy bushes of wild oregano and sariette. Eyeing French lads, two per moped.

He’s sucking on his cigarette, tiny, tiny sounds of satisfaction. The butt so small the fingers touch the lips.

Insists I should swim. But my skin rebels. “There’s cream,” he says, “for when you get a rash… ”

I’m sure there is.

“… she used to get them after swimming. Get that.”

Too much information. I hear water, a single splash. Must be the pool. Lying on a lounger, drinks ‘n’ sweets. Factor 40 and a hat. Twenty tens nearby.

We used to do the shopping before noon, markets were like heaven. Heaps of swollen pomodores, capped tanned weathered fishermen offering glistening shell food. Olives and pistachios. We’d drink wine from glass Danone yoghurt cups and cook pasta à la camping gaz.

He’ll never know the mouldy rubbery smell of our ancient canvas tent, the gentle tap tap tap on rainy days. Not there, not swimming in the sound, not living in a rich man’s world.

“Talk soon. Bye bye.”

Days pass, the smells and sounds remain. The single splash resounds. Again. Again.

And then it dawns. The quiet hollow slap of water and flesh reflected between tub and tiles.

The smile on my face is so wide my eyes start to tear.

Sometimes I go to England.

But to answer the question: I have no plans to go there this summer. Yet.

I never do have travel plans, because I don’t seem to travel without a reason anymore. I don’t go on holidays. I travel with a purpose. Mostly music related. To see a gig. To see friends. To see friends at a gig. Often, these trips are last minute decisions. Whenever something’s on.

My idea of a (real) holiday is going camping in France. Or to rent an apartment in Portugal, with a pool on the grounds and some dirty little caf in the village nearby, and watching fishermen handle their colourful boats on the beach and gape at the mountains of shell food at the market. Which is something I enjoy doing very very much. But not on my own.

Frankly, the idea of holidaying on my own fills me with dread. The whole purpose of holidaying is to create relaxing memories, and they’re more relaxing when they’re shared. There really is no point in watching incredible sunsets over Mediterranean shores when you can’t go ‘Remember that incredible sunset’ to anyone in the future.

I travelled extensively when I was younger, with my parents. Brasil, Senegal, South Africa, etc. Four or five trips a year. It gave me a thrill back then, but I can’t see me doing it again.

Which makes me the odd one out, again. Because the Dutch these days Travel with a capital T.

In Holland, ‘work’ for a long time was of the utmost importance. People, like the good Calvinists they were, defined themselves by their job and their god.

Affluence brought change to the Dutch mindset. People shed religion. Then work became religion. Then the right not to work became religion.

These days, the right (a word that gives me the creeps) to go on holiday after a couple of months of slave labour is king. People work to have time off. They work to finance their elaborate travelling.

Around me, though – rather telling, I’d say – not in my immediate circle of friends, people talk about travelling to Vietnam, India, Malaysia as if they were taking a break in the Ardennes. I can’t seem to equate ‘holiday’ with ‘backpacking in tropical heat surrounded by people whose language you don’t speak and whose lives you can never hope to understand’.

Maybe I’m lazy. I still would rather see the Ardennes.

This summer, I am staying in the city and I’ll be doing some travel in the head. Tonight and on Monday, I’ll be at De Parade, surreal vaudeville theatre gone mainstream. De Parade is, in good Dutch post hippie tradition, a happening, man. In August, I’m seeing outdoor theatre spectacle, Faust in Almere. And I definitely want to see this double ‘dog exposition‘ called ‘Dog and Master’.

So, I don’t always go to Ireland. Mostly, I stay at home.

My parents and I went camping in France almost every year of my life with them, mostly sticking to the least luxurious camping sites we could find. All we needed was water and a flat space of land for our tent. Sometimes that meant there were no toilets.

It was on one of these occasions, camping by the river, that I grabbed a roll of bog paper and made my way into the wide, shallow stream to relieve myself.

There I was, doing my business, when I suddenly spotted a large snake, coiled up not a meter away from me. I froze.

I had NO idea what to do. Whether to move away from the animal slowly, or run like hell (not an easy thing to do with your pants around your ankles). Somehow, I managed to do both.

I moved away a bit, slowly, making no sudden movements as I pulled my jeans back on. When I thought I was out of biting range, I ran away as fast as I could.

I did my business in the bar down the road from then on.