Steve’s daughter, Rosie, is one of those warm and lovely people that attract lots of other warm and lovely people. And then she looks after them all, so they stay in her life forever (my sister-in-law is the same, so I’m doubly blessed).
When we were still living in Midford, we got a call from Rosie asking if we could help her friend Dory, who was stuck in Bristol with nowhere to stay. Of course we said yes, and Steve set off in the car to rescue said damsel in distress. An hour later, a whirlwind of a woman blew into our lives. No other way to describe it.
Dory is a fast-talking American lady. A one-time restauranteur in Munich, a stand-up comedienne, an eco-warrior and squatting-rights expert, and a million other things besides. She’d tidy and clean my house when I was at uni (thank you sooooo much), put garlic and ginger in my hot lemon drink (oh no, no, no), give Steve decaf coffee ’cause she thought he was drinking too much (Steve was surprisingly polite about this), and generally entertain us. This is Dory.
She stayed for a few months and then we said a sad goodbye to her, as we said goodbye to England, trekking off in Georgie, fourteen months ago. And though she’d always be our friend now, too, we thought our time with her was over.
But then …
Earlier this year Dory’s texts started to cause me concern. She still had no permanent place to live, and was couch-surfing or being a live-in helper. Her health was suffering – she talked of kidney stones and an ulcer, of losing weight and hair. And she often sounded very down. I was worried.
When she’d lived with us she’d talked of a friend in Warsaw who was constantly on at her to come over. He said he could get her a job, no problem, everyone he’d recommended got snapped up and she was more qualified than any of them.
So here was my thinking – we weren’t that far from Poland, we could detour that way. Give her a few weeks to recover herself and sort out what she wanted to do, put out some feelers, do some research. Try out some Helpx volunteer work, perhaps? Whatever. I just felt she needed a safe place to stay while she worked out her future.
So I did what I always do (just ask my family) – I interfered and nagged a lot, and I mean A LOT.
The biggest impediment to her joining us was lack of a passport, hers having been stolen many moons ago. So that was my first nag-athon. In the end, another mate of hers sorted it all out with her, and paid for it too. People can be so kind, don’t you think?
Once the passport issue was resolved, Rosie organised a JustGiving page to help fund her journey over to us. Some more lovely folks contributed, and I found cheap ways for her to travel. However, it meant a very long day to get to us as we were in Slovakia by then – about fourteen hours in total. Well done, Dory.
Anglovilles
We’d nearly finished at our first Angloville teaching course when Dory arrived. She slept for most of her first day, naturally, but then came and socialised with us all in the evening. She and the Blonde hit it off straight away and went off to annihilate the others at foosball. This was fine because Steve was having his chest stroked by the Voluptuous One, and I was just falling-down drunk, having played too much of ‘The Game’ unawares (see previous posts here – Angloville 1, and Angloville 2).
Three days later we were doing our second Angloville, in Poland. Dory had gone down with a bug, or was just incredibly over-tired, because she slept a lot that week too. This was fine because we were able to leave her undisturbed, but could still see her in our breaks and in the evening. She’d do helpful things like hide my onions (don’t ask).
She got to meet some of the participants, and came and joined us on the last night again. This time she really connected with some of the people, and I could tell that even after such short acquaintance, she’d be keeping in touch with several of them, and them with her. I was delighted for her.
And so off we went again …
To a nice campsite on the banks of the Danube, to make a PLAN.
Dory had seen how much fun we’d had with Angloville and wanted to try that for her self, and apparently there was one happening near Warsaw, very soon. Well, what a coincidence – Dory could check out that job her friend was always on about, go and do the course, then come back to her friend’s place after and take it from there. If the job was a go-er then she could hang on there, or come back to us (depending on the start date).
And what if she didn’t like the job, or it was no longer viable (said friend having been a bit incommunicado)? Well, she declared that she had other friends and family back in Houston, that wanted her to stay and could help her find work. So she’d go home. We could sort her a ticket from Warsaw. Bit pricey, but worth it to know she’d be all right.
Well, ok then. We agreed we’d hang around a bit nearby until she knew more about her future plans. We didn’t want to go too far out of reach, in case she ended up with nowhere to stay again. But we were booked to do an Angloville in Bucharest in a few weeks time, and it was a long drive, so we couldn’t hang on indefinitely.
I should have known it was all too easy
You know what they say about best-laid plans. Well, for a start, she did go to Warsaw on the coach, but it broke down. Ergo, it took twelve hours to get there – without a loo break. Poor thing was so dehydrated and ill from the journey, she didn’t know which way was up, let alone be fit enough to sort out job stuff.
So off she went to Angloville, with all of us none the wiser as to the job in Warsaw. But, luckily, she was paired off with a fantastic woman from Krakow, henceforth to be known as The Angel, and they absolutely clicked.
And here’s where it all got a bit muddled for me.
Dory said that she reckoned The Angel was going to offer her a job – she just had a feeling about it from things that had been said. And that she didn’t want to go back to the States.
Wait, what?
And actually, she’d been asked to help out on the next Angloville somewhere else, possibly Germany, she wasn’t sure. And she’d agreed.
Wait, what the actual fuck? You don’t know where it is, how you’ll get back, where you’ll go to next, and we can’t wait much longer. What about the PLAN?
PLAN is now SCREWED and I am panicking.
I have brought my completely broke friend over to Eastern Europe, and basically stranded her here with a load of strangers. I DON’T EVEN KNOW WHERE SHE ACTUALLY IS! I feel so guilty I can barely sleep.
Dory is perfectly calm, which freaks me out even more: ‘Just chill, Bev, it’ll all work out. I’ve got a really good feeling about this.’
I vent to Rosie because I am now in full headless-chicken mode, ‘Help, help, I don’t know what to do!’ etc.
But off goes Dory to another Angloville…
And we have to start driving. We try not to go too far, and find a campsite at Jasow, near Kosice. This is on the way to Bucharest, but not so far along that we couldn’t hive off and go to Budapest, if necessary. It is the farthest I can face going at the moment. We make new friends. We explore the town and the monastery and the caves.
I try not to worry. She is a grown woman and I am probably being a bit over protective. It is her life; she can do what she wants. And when we talk she tells us to get driving, get on with our lives, not to worry about her (how is that even possible?).
So, in the end, we do.
And guess what?
She was right and I was wrong. How effing brilliant is that? Because serendipity is alive and kicking in this story.
The Angel did set her up with a phone interview, to teach English at a Montessori school in Weiliczka, near Krakow in Poland. Which went really well. As did the second interview. So well, in fact, that the principal found her somewhere to live and paid for the first month’s rent for her. They’ll also organise some evening work for her too, teaching English to the parents, for extra money.
And Dory has been Facebooking how happy she is, and how much she loves her new home. She is excited about her finally stable future and has made a shedload of friends through Angloville. There’s even a cat that visits her. So it’s all good.
. . . . . . . . . .
And we are in Hungary, because we’ve had to cancel our own Angloville in Bucharest. But that is another story.
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