Whitby, part I
May. 2nd, 2002 09:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
zotzSome time ago I arranged to go to Whitby this Easter with ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
razornet,vyvyan and robinbloke.
I'd taken two days off work either side of the weekend (leaving me with only 27 days to see me until the end of December . . . I'll explain later) and I'd totally failed to pack the night before (on account of going for a pre-Whitby tipple with a few close associates, I believe. Various people were there, mostly fairly local except forteknoirangel , who I'd not met before). I was up moderately early and noted with displeasure the threatening missives from the council concerning our lack of organisation when it comes to paying the council tax. I'll spare you my council tax rant just now, but the words "jointly and severally liable" appear prominently. For your information, this is now headed for sorted, at last, although it put a bit of a damper on the morning. Grimm had said he'd call towards the end of the morning, and at about twelve he did. I'd just finished packing (after having spent a while seriously considering just dropping people off and coming home again), so he timed it just right.
I, unfortunately, had forgotten that the rent cheque was due, so I had to pop over and drop that off before going round to his. I was, therefore, about half an hour longer than I thought I'd be. I'd dropped him off there from the pub the night before along with Vyv, so it was the only stop in town - and a very brief one. Luggage out of the house and into the boot, and then we were onto the A14 to pick up Robin. No trouble there, so in two shakes of a fissionable assembly later we were headed properly West through the glorious mountains of Cambridgeshire. There was a quick stop for petrol, and another because I'm too stupid to use an air line properly, and then it was onto the A1 and North. I do this road not infrequently because it's the road home to Edinburgh, so it was all very familiar. It felt very relaxing to have a working speedo again, and it was also very refreshing to have some company in the car apart from just the radio - even if one or two of them did have a slight tendency to fall asleep. There was conversation, there was a brief blast of Mark'n'Lard, there was me failing to spot the Lightning parked by the road near Claypole (I'd been hoping to point it out to Grimm because we'd been discussing it a couple of weeks earlier), there was the "designer outlet" by the road outside York which I never tire of telling people was built on the site of the hospital where I was born (true, as it happens), there was Fylingdales (or rather wasn't), which is (or rather, isn't) one of my favourite buildings - although obviously I'd burn it down in an instant if I had the chance. And finally there were various worryingly steep descents in a worryingly loaded car and we were there. The Elsinore! We stayed there for four days and five nights and then came home. The end. It's a mini-adventure!
Err . . .
No. Although as with all the best myths, there's more than a grain of truth to it.
We stopped on the West Cliff and phoned a very helpful woman who said she'd see us there and gave us an address and directions. It turned out to be facing the harbour on the North (Abbey) side and was a bit smaller than expected, with one fewer bed. This wasn't a great problem from my point of view, as I've never been that attached to my creature comforts and I've spent the last couple of weeks sleeping on the floor anyway, what with the builders and all.
Anyway, that was about six or seven and as soon as we'd dumped our bags we really did decamp to the Elsinore, where various people were well ahead of us in our journey into an alcoholic stupor. I drank. I bought drinks and was bought them. A young woman sat on my lap and gave me a kiss. A different young woman sat on my lap and gave me a kiss. Not a bad evening, actually. It was the closest I got to pulling all weekend. No tongues or anything, though. That's disgusting, and anyway I didn't actually have a room, as such, so if anyone had noticed I'd have been in trouble. Names will not be divulged to protect the guilty (me) from any bad consequences.
There was a fairly drunken woman there who insisted on butting in and disagreeing physically with people, so I ended up accompanyingshekhmet outside after having to prise the mad one off her arm. I'm sure a charitable person would have seen this as a chivalrous move to offer reassurance, but actually I was just scared - she was drunk, aggressive, and (I'm fairly sure) bigger than me. Even sitting down. There were other people there to talk to, and when the place finally closed bootpunk forced us - at gunpoint - to go back to his for a drink. A can or two later and we left to return to our respective accomodations. I got as far as the place Peta shared with lhiss and she offered some crash space.
I remember nothing after this point.
I woke up, still wearing my jeans, boots and Tshirt, on a couch in a strange room. My shirt wasn't in evidence. Neither were my jacket or glasses.
Oh dear.
I cautiously explored. It was tidy and quiet. There were stairs going down.
>DOWN
You go down the stairs. There is a corridor with a kitchen and a living-room off it, and a front door onto the road. There are stairs up.
>UP
You are in a corridor. There are two closed doors, an open one and one slightly ajar.
>LOOK OPEN DOOR
There is a room with a couch. The couch looks as if it has just been slept on.
>LOOK AJAR DOOR
You peer through the gap. There are stars going up.
>UP
You go up. You are in a bedroom. there are two single beds. One is slightly disturbed and has a shirt, a jacket and a pair of glasses on it.
Well thank God for that.
A Patrick arrives. He has : a breakfast.
The Patrick offers you the breakfast.
The man's a lifesaver.
Discussion was had, Peta arose and more discussion was had, and eventually I left. Apparently I'd gone to sleep up top and at some point gone down a floor to the toilet despite having one right next to me. This must be when I got the nasty bruise on my right leg that I had all weekend, because I think at any other point I'd have noticed falling and hitting myself that hard.
Thus ends the first part. I'm pretty sure I remember the rest of the weekend pretty much in full, despite CJ's best efforts.
razornet,vyvyan and robinbloke.I'd taken two days off work either side of the weekend (leaving me with only 27 days to see me until the end of December . . . I'll explain later) and I'd totally failed to pack the night before (on account of going for a pre-Whitby tipple with a few close associates, I believe. Various people were there, mostly fairly local except for
teknoirangel , who I'd not met before). I was up moderately early and noted with displeasure the threatening missives from the council concerning our lack of organisation when it comes to paying the council tax. I'll spare you my council tax rant just now, but the words "jointly and severally liable" appear prominently. For your information, this is now headed for sorted, at last, although it put a bit of a damper on the morning. Grimm had said he'd call towards the end of the morning, and at about twelve he did. I'd just finished packing (after having spent a while seriously considering just dropping people off and coming home again), so he timed it just right.I, unfortunately, had forgotten that the rent cheque was due, so I had to pop over and drop that off before going round to his. I was, therefore, about half an hour longer than I thought I'd be. I'd dropped him off there from the pub the night before along with Vyv, so it was the only stop in town - and a very brief one. Luggage out of the house and into the boot, and then we were onto the A14 to pick up Robin. No trouble there, so in two shakes of a fissionable assembly later we were headed properly West through the glorious mountains of Cambridgeshire. There was a quick stop for petrol, and another because I'm too stupid to use an air line properly, and then it was onto the A1 and North. I do this road not infrequently because it's the road home to Edinburgh, so it was all very familiar. It felt very relaxing to have a working speedo again, and it was also very refreshing to have some company in the car apart from just the radio - even if one or two of them did have a slight tendency to fall asleep. There was conversation, there was a brief blast of Mark'n'Lard, there was me failing to spot the Lightning parked by the road near Claypole (I'd been hoping to point it out to Grimm because we'd been discussing it a couple of weeks earlier), there was the "designer outlet" by the road outside York which I never tire of telling people was built on the site of the hospital where I was born (true, as it happens), there was Fylingdales (or rather wasn't), which is (or rather, isn't) one of my favourite buildings - although obviously I'd burn it down in an instant if I had the chance. And finally there were various worryingly steep descents in a worryingly loaded car and we were there. The Elsinore! We stayed there for four days and five nights and then came home. The end. It's a mini-adventure!
Err . . .
No. Although as with all the best myths, there's more than a grain of truth to it.
We stopped on the West Cliff and phoned a very helpful woman who said she'd see us there and gave us an address and directions. It turned out to be facing the harbour on the North (Abbey) side and was a bit smaller than expected, with one fewer bed. This wasn't a great problem from my point of view, as I've never been that attached to my creature comforts and I've spent the last couple of weeks sleeping on the floor anyway, what with the builders and all.
Anyway, that was about six or seven and as soon as we'd dumped our bags we really did decamp to the Elsinore, where various people were well ahead of us in our journey into an alcoholic stupor. I drank. I bought drinks and was bought them. A young woman sat on my lap and gave me a kiss. A different young woman sat on my lap and gave me a kiss. Not a bad evening, actually. It was the closest I got to pulling all weekend. No tongues or anything, though. That's disgusting, and anyway I didn't actually have a room, as such, so if anyone had noticed I'd have been in trouble. Names will not be divulged to protect the guilty (me) from any bad consequences.
There was a fairly drunken woman there who insisted on butting in and disagreeing physically with people, so I ended up accompanying
shekhmet outside after having to prise the mad one off her arm. I'm sure a charitable person would have seen this as a chivalrous move to offer reassurance, but actually I was just scared - she was drunk, aggressive, and (I'm fairly sure) bigger than me. Even sitting down. There were other people there to talk to, and when the place finally closed bootpunk forced us - at gunpoint - to go back to his for a drink. A can or two later and we left to return to our respective accomodations. I got as far as the place Peta shared with lhiss and she offered some crash space. I remember nothing after this point.
I woke up, still wearing my jeans, boots and Tshirt, on a couch in a strange room. My shirt wasn't in evidence. Neither were my jacket or glasses.
Oh dear.
I cautiously explored. It was tidy and quiet. There were stairs going down.
>DOWN
You go down the stairs. There is a corridor with a kitchen and a living-room off it, and a front door onto the road. There are stairs up.
>UP
You are in a corridor. There are two closed doors, an open one and one slightly ajar.
>LOOK OPEN DOOR
There is a room with a couch. The couch looks as if it has just been slept on.
>LOOK AJAR DOOR
You peer through the gap. There are stars going up.
>UP
You go up. You are in a bedroom. there are two single beds. One is slightly disturbed and has a shirt, a jacket and a pair of glasses on it.
Well thank God for that.
A Patrick arrives. He has : a breakfast.
The Patrick offers you the breakfast.
The man's a lifesaver.
Discussion was had, Peta arose and more discussion was had, and eventually I left. Apparently I'd gone to sleep up top and at some point gone down a floor to the toilet despite having one right next to me. This must be when I got the nasty bruise on my right leg that I had all weekend, because I think at any other point I'd have noticed falling and hitting myself that hard.
Thus ends the first part. I'm pretty sure I remember the rest of the weekend pretty much in full, despite CJ's best efforts.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2002-05-02 02:37 pm (UTC)Well I'm glad you stayed, it was nice to see you!
I still think the journey is the stressful bit though, maybe I should cadge a lift from you next time!
no subject
Date: 2002-05-02 03:34 pm (UTC)Well I'm glad you stayed, it was nice to see you
Yes. It was good to see you, too. And that odd bloke you hang about with.
I still think the journey is the stressful bit though
I felt fine all the way up, then it all landed on me again. Then we got to the pub and there were people and pints and everything was fine. And stayed fine.
no subject
Date: 2002-05-02 02:43 pm (UTC)I guess God, and only God, will ever know what you were thinking :)
no subject
Date: 2002-05-02 03:32 pm (UTC)including the walk-in wardrobe (right next to the bathroom)
Well, there's one mistake I'm glad I didn't make.