Like Internet Dating, But Not

I’m atypically nervous as I walk into Changi Airport, belongings on back.

My phone begins to ring.

I rummage. I don’t get a lot of calls on my Singapore SIM.

“Miss S?” says the lady on the other end. “Your son…”

“Yeah?” I say. I can’t see his flight listed. He should be coming in from Brisbane in a minute or two.

A crackle. An unearthly silence.

Then my spawn’s unmistakable (and, whisper it, still rather piping) tones. “Mum?”

“Oh, hi darling!” I say. “I just got here. Where are you?”

“Where are you?” he says. “You’re late. I’m waiting at the baggage carousel.”

“I’m not late,” I say, defensively. “Your flight must have been early.”

“No,” he says. “You’re definitely late. Planes aren’t early. I’ve been here an hour… Never mind. I’m by carousel 14. I’m waving…”

I collect him from one of the bevy of hot, young Asian women who, he tells me, have been tending to his every whim since Brisbane.

For, yes, one of the things my ten-year-old likes about flying unaccompanied minor is the quality time with the hosties…

As we make our way to the taxi, he’s talking nineteen to the dozen on topics from laser tag to gokarting to games.

I’m still nervous, though.

Not because of the flight being early.

Z’s not the sort of person who comes over all anxious just because he’s on his own in a new country after a seven hour flight and his ma’s not at the airport to meet him.

Luckily for both of us.

I’m nervous because we’re headed off to stay with some folk we “know” online…

That’s right! We’re invading their home and family life for four solid days on the basis of an online acquaintance.

Now, one of MANY, MANY things that I couldn’t have predicted when I started this blog was that we’d actually end up, well, meeting people through it.

I had never read a blog until a few weeks after I started mine (you can read my first post here, if you’re interested). I had no idea (a good thing, frankly), quite how many tens of thousands of blogs there were out there.

Let alone that lots of bloggers actually like to meet up with other bloggers, and that there’s this whole community out there that bounces around the world hooking up.

So the notion of actually meeting people through a blog is just one of many things about the way we live now that would have seemed *completely* bizarro 19 months ago. As, I would guess, it does to you.

Yet, here we are. En route to Singapore’s leafy fringes. To stay with the Vagabond Kids.

It’s like a blind date! Except, obviously, without the prospect of sex.

Sure, I find the adults behind Vagabond Kids quite hilariously, sardonically, savagely funny on Facebook.

They value wine o’clock (“beer thirty” in their house) at least as much as I do. They know Singapore backwards.

And — the kicker! — their son D (nine) has a Lego collection to die for, a shared obsession which promises to be the start of a beautiful, if perhaps monosyllabic, friendship.

Still. We’re invading their home. They’ve just got back from the States and are contending with a killer 12-hour time change.

Ma Vagabond has a serious, responsible job to go to, as well.

Oh god. What am I letting myself in for? What have I forced them into?

And, worst of all, WHAT HAPPENS IF THE KIDS DON’T GET ALONG?

On the plus side, I figure, as we wind through the green and leafy Western fringes of Singapore — an environment that’s verging on bucolic but for the absence of livestock — at least I’ve got our travel plans halfway sorted.

H, Z’s “acting dad”, and my best friend, who lived with me before Z was born and with us both until we left the UK last year, has finally pulled his finger out and booked a flight to Laos.

Before that, we’ll be barging in on *more* travel blogging mates, the folk from Our Travel Lifestyle, who we met in Brisbane last year.

Then to Kuala Lumpur, for science museums, malls and, I hope, a Chinese visa.

And after tooling around Laos on bikes with H, and enjoying the rivers in the rainy season, we head, visa permitting, to China.

But first…

We need to invade the Vagabonds’ lives.

And — y’know what? — it goes great.

Within 30 seconds of Z stepping out of the cab, Z and D are in the Lego zone, constructing an elaborate air force in companionable near silence.

That evening, all three kids bunk down together happily, as if they’ve known each other all their lives.

And the adults?

Despite jetlag on the Vagabonds’ side, and bar-reviewing-lag on mine, we talk as if we’ve known each other a long time.

That’s one of the curious things about blogging, and the associated life online. You can get to know someone really quite well through what they write, and from their Facebook banter.

There are surprises, always. But here?

Not many.

We’re by the pool next day — well, the adults are. The kids, at least until the Great Floatie Popping Disaster, are in it.

On the other side of the world, the London riots are in full swing, my old high street is looted and in flames, so I’m chatting to one of the Vagabonds’ “real” friends, another Londoner, with the general flip cynicism with which Brits tend to handle the sort of activities that have other nationalities crying or praying.

“Yeah,” I say. “Strikes, riots, a Tory government and a tanking economy. All we need now is an IRA mainland bombing campaign and it’s the 80s all over again.”

She laughs.

“So, how do you know the Vagabonds?” she asks.

Deep breaths all round. “Facebook,” says Vagabond Ma.

A look of utter befuddlement crosses my interlocutor’s face, a sentiment with which I can entirely empathise. What kind of freak turns up as a house guest off Facebook?

“We both have blogs,” I say, perhaps counter-productively.

“And what do you do again?” she says.

“I’m a freelance writer and I’ve got a blog,” I say. “I’m travelling longterm with my son. I can work anywhere with wifi, so, well, why not travel?”

This is, in Singapore as elsewhere, not a normal career option, or even a particularly comprehensible one.

Conversation flags a little.

For some reason, I feel compelled to use really long words after this, as if to prove I’m not a hippie, or summat. I’m not, with hindsight, entirely sure this helps…