Canuk

Now we know why the personal details of authors aren't published.... It's not even a cliff...its like climbing Everest and seeing a wall! Great literary device tho'! Thanks for the ride!

An amazing and memorable excursion; everything travel is supposed to be! While we didn't get to Africa, southern Spain away from the tourist beaches and God awful high rises was amazing and so very friendly, similar to how you describe Morocco, tho in our case no hashish! Gibraltar I found interesting away from the mock-tudor tea houses. Driving up to the top was an experience, particularly when we had to rescue two drop dead gorgeous ~25 year old German travellers who had stalled their car. While travel does broaden the mind, there should be a licence to travel to stop those who are an embarrassment to everyone else; the American who tried to take his beer into a mosque, The Brit who had thrown up on his T shirt, so he just put it on backwards.... yep, at times I am a completely unrepentant snob when travelling! Great read! Thanks.

Number super snipe! The first car I re all my father driving! Grey with red leather seats! It also had the turning circle of the Queen Mary! Why is it that to with varying degrees of adventurousness some of us will take these mad cap adventures in our youth (I crawled over Italy in 1980, my sister spent a year touring Africa in 1982) and others think their journey to the corner store is an achievement? Your story engages me as much for the memories it brings back as the elegance of your writing. Thank you.

A few catch up chapters ! I like how your writing often hints at a whole lot more than you say, which allows us mere mortal readers imaginations to run riot using our own outlandish fantasies to fill in! Makes for a very entertaining read. There is something that tells me tho' , that much of what you Hmmmm edit needed....computer issues have resulted in prose worthy of Shakespeare's 2nd cousin twice removed has disappeared into the ether! What I was trying to say is that tensions and concerns are thankfully filtered out by hindsight! ( but it was said in much more prosaic way!) Good read! Enjoying the story.

"Know your audience": I have been trying to get speechwriters to do that for years. The ones that managed it have long careers! The dictum obviously applies to dance as well! Great! thanks!

What a journey! Mine was a much more toned down if not 'G' rated more 'NRC' with occasional 'M' rated scene. I was way too WASP to be as adventurous as you, but I did almost the same journey, Marselle, Nice, Canne, Monte Carlo, Menton, Ventigmillia in 1980. Great life, well told. Thanks.

These two are trying to be American AND royalty.... going to cause problems!

Interesting; you brought back memories of my one experience of public baths. Male only, I was "warned" that some men held to the "old ways" and didn't wear bathing suits/swimmers/Speedos. I courageously went naked, joining about half the crowd that were similarly un-attired. After a few lengths of the pool I noticed that all the men sitting around perving, as it were, all wore togs of some sort. Even at that young age I could see that the clothes were actually highlighting a problem.

Because I am playing catch up here, I havent beeen commenting, but finally your writing has forced me to! Sex. The utter hypocrisy of "No sex 'til your 18" has been eating away at me since it first appeared a few chapters ago. The puritanical streak in America that allows children to drive and join the military at 16, but not have sex or drink alcohol until 18/21 is so self destructive and the cause of more issues (legal, familial, psychological) than is ever necessary. Safe sex and sensible drinking is all about education not a bloody date on a calendar! Well, that was good to get out of my system! Nb is 4 quarters for a shower normal? While I have not been camping for a loooong time, when I did I recall buying around a dozen tokens for $1 (Australian) each token was a 5 minute shower, (which for me coming from the country where 3 minutes was considered wildly luxurious and extravagent) was ample. The aim was not so much to make money as to limit the time. $1 a shower sounds like a money making exercise! Great read. You have created some interesting characters with great quirks and strengths!

I have had the pleasure (and pain) of working for politicians in both Australian territories and the Commonwealth. I'd say in the territories, given the right circumstances, yes, prostitution law reform is possible. In the Commonwealth (apart from it being a state issue) not a hope in hell.

Your point re prostitution is well made. However the problem isn't the transaction but the "deregulation/decriminalisation" of selling your services. No other area of employment is "deregulated" for the very fact that employers/the self employed need "guidance" to protect themselves and their customers/clients. So a solution to prostitution is to regulate it like any other personal service; hairdressing for example. It's the pimps and their ilk that need to be excluded so that honest men and women who like the industry are free to pursue it without fear. Rant over!

Mr Rigby Taylor, I have to disagree with parts of your self assessment (after all given our extensive communication over days if not weeks in one area of new technology, I feel I have insights into your character that you have so far missed😘) It's the very quality where " ( I )just take a deep breath, dive in and simply do what seems the best thing to do at that moment." that demonstrates a level of self confidence. What you describe yourself as not having I would call arrogance; those people who before even buy the hammer or nail know exactly how the project will go, what it will look like and when it will be finished. Self confidence is diving in, not knowing the path or result but intrinsically knowing that you can work this out and you'll survive with added experience at the very least, and at best have a triumph on your hands. I sincerely hope you feel yourself corrected! If not, then bugger it, and keep writing!

Your description of your self confidance is a lesson in how to get by. You definitely seemed to make your own luck!

You write well: that amazing feeling when you first make contact with that person you have been crushing on for ever and it doesn't crash and burn! A feeling way beyond bliss and one you have captured well here!

There is something to be said to have had such experiences at that age. It makes looking back from a much greater age pleasureable and with a sense of amazement that at some stage you were both niaeve, lucky and brave without realising it! Thanks

So the various protocol heavies in Montenegro and Makarovia will be spinning! Sometimes spontaneity is not as productive as a bit of planning, but somehow knowing these two they'll manage it!

Bloody courageous! More than me in 1980 Italy, in any case!

Mr Rigby Taylor, I thinks you's being just a tad disingenuous! A bright young thing, fit, handsome, hung and tanned from the colonies must have been like Eros descending from his post in Piccadilly to those poor misbegotten Brits! Love the tale... Sincerely hope the fires keep their distance (either that or enough hunky firemen are available to carry you off!) I'm in eastern suburbs of Sydney at present and the smoke here is pretty bloody awful!

Great pen pictures of adolescent life! A mix of naivety and innocence and the hormonal desires of young men. Thanks for the read!

You write confusion so well. April is in the most peculiar space and almost as he gets a grip Jett tosses in another curve...and then there's Zane.... I am amazed April some how keeps his sanity!

Very entertaining, written with skill. It's quite an art to turn childhood into an entertaining tale! Thanks again... it's also great your stories come along at the points in my my life that are at their most chaotic. Helps me immensely, write on!

So well written; the entire chapter built up how Simon's life has moved forward and the opportunities to find out who he really is...lots of roses, and hope and happiness....and then Dad. Ultimate buzz kill. And worse, for character Simon, the the crash to reality of that text. There will be tears before bedtime in this story...i can see it now!

Grainger and Daventry; amazing partnership, each with enviable skills, but their roles forcing them to be less communicative than particularly Grainer would like. Great characters well written. Thanks.

All great, except why does the last line feel like more than competitive banter? Looking forward to what's next!

30 texts in a week just be considered abusive... but even with my limited knowledge of tech, sending texts either from a particular sender or with certain key words to a seperate folder, jjst for his own mental health... but I suppose its a story and if Dad texts and behaviour are a plot driver it may be complex to divert them! Interesting story, thanks.