"I started having labour pains and Les was adamant that he wanted the baby to be born in the north, so a friend of ours who had a small plane flew us up to Manchester's St Mary's hospital".
Hopelessly lost half a dozen times, we picked our way among hundreds of thousands of bodies and got righteously irritated that no one seemed to know our friend or where we should go or where supplies could be found, or who else might be in charge -- "Listen, you guys flew us up here to do this job.
Planes fly us up to way beyond where we can be seen or heart, then our voices send an avalanche down the glacier… In Weitiki Valley, almost everyone is a descendant of the Inland Pirates, who sailed along the river, burned their thieving boats, and met the locals with brandy and midland diseases.
Shattered beams littered the ground, and bats flew up at us through the gloom.
When I flew up there, I flew up there to take the job.
"We flew up there," says Heaney, taking up the story.
The theme song explained it all in just a few lines: "So you wanna be a player, but your wheels ain't fly / You gotta hit us up, to get a pimp't out ride".
Saints fly-half Stephen Myler gets us up and running, Northampton in their familiar green, yellow and black this afternoon.
We woke early and — with an American friend who was volunteering with a women's health-and-education project in Vientiane, and had flown up with us from the capital — watched the sunrise procession of monks and novices, who emerged from their monasteries, barefoot, to cross the city, collecting food from the pilgrims and townspeople waiting with bowls and baskets of rice and fruit.
We woke early and with an American friend who was volunteering with a women's health-and-education project in Vientiane, and had flown up with us from the capital watched the sunrise procession of monks and novices, who emerged from their monasteries, barefoot, to cross the city, collecting food from the pilgrims and townspeople waiting with bowls and baskets of rice and fruit.
Newcastle Falcons fly-half Rory Clegg gets us up and running again.
