Bank holiday weekend 14 – 17 April

ROAD TRIP!

In a last minute freak out over what to occupy ourselves with for the long weekend we managed to pull together a hire car and four people to fill it on a mini road trip around southwest England. Living so centrally my “room” has now unofficially been renamed ‘Hotel Hayley’ despite my remonstrations and so 1 of said 3 stayed the night before our departure. Whenever she’s involved a big neon BAD NEWS sign lights up above her head and this was no exception. To bed by 11 was the plan but noooo, she invites her boyfriend over and neither of us could make him leave so unfortunately the first day of plan ‘See England’ turned into plan ‘Sleep in the car’.

Our first stop was Bournemouth where we spent a good part of the afternoon seeking out beds for the night. Eventually we found a really rather good place despite the disturbing display of rock memorabilia everywhere we looked including a life size Bruce Springsteen which freaked us out every time we used the stairs.

Strolled to Oceanside for a lovely meal in the beachside tackarama restaurant with a side of long island iced teas. Posed by the merry-go-round cos that’s what you do at the British seaside and wandered by the ‘Bournemouth Eye’, a hot air balloon attached to a crane thing (DODGY) in search of a pub, and myyy did we find a great one! At first appearances the ‘Tapp and Hobbit’ was just a backwater Bournemouth sports bar with a few disturbing amateur paintings from the Lord of the Rings and the toilet vending machine’s excessive array of dildos. However – vodka redbulls were half price (perfect for the weary traveller) and then the DJ came on and played the best music I’ve ever heard in one venue. I should introduce my fellow companions here Alex and Amy, my lovely work friends and Al, also from the hospital, an Aussie boy who I don’t really speak to - for no particular reason except I’ve never quite figured out how to converse with him. Anyway, Al’s theme song is Mr Farenheit by Queen (which is played bloody everywhere and I don’t know why) which was 2nd tune up putting us all in good spirits.

After musical bliss for a few hours, one of the party used sneaky tactics to get us to go to a horrible club. However I must say I was secretly overjoyed at how this panned out. Picture the scene – dark, horrid club full of wankers. First round of drinks on the table. Alastair leans slightly on the table and the whole thing collapses. Al’s on the floor, drinks go flying – most ending up in Alex’s eyes. Smashing glass, stares, bar staff running towards us from every direction and me sitting there calmly, laughing internally. It was bloody brilliant. We got totally told off for it which provoked Amy and Alex – completely separately – to storm off and scream at management.

By the time we got home everyone was cranky and we all ended up arguing. To alleviate the stress Alastair went to sleep and Alex decided it would be a great idea to take his pants off – or should I say “trousers” or Brits will think I’m referring to his “undergarments” (her argument was so he’d be more comfortable). So I’m on the bed taking photos and her and Amy are trying to get his strides off and then hiding on the floor everytime they thought he might wake up and I’m just praying he doesn’t cos the first thing he’ll see is me sitting on the bed with a camera aimed at him, his pants half off and the others appearing to not be in the room. Wouldn’t have been a highlight.

Looking back at the photos I noticed an orb in them – an orb! Exciting stuff. (For those who don’t know what an orb is cos I didn’t until I went to Turkey – it’s a ghostly ball of light which appears in photos for no rhyme or reason.) Side note to this – I’ve since noticed my camera puts orbs in photos all the time. Either that or there are a lot of ghosts wandering about.

Next day, whilst trying to leave Bournemouth, we noticed a very stange thing. There were a lot of elderly people around. And every single one of them either was driving around in one of those motorised wheelchairs or they had no necks and were walking like zombies. It was really very odd. Anyway after many near misses with the zombies and races with the wheelchairs we finally arrived in magnificent Bath. Everyone raves about it and it really is lovely. Georgian architecture everywhere. There’s a mini gold Jesus on a cross outside town and someone brilliantly said “imagine if he jumped off and started terrorising people” which turned into a hilarious recurring joke by the end of trip.

Starving, we went in search of food and first came across a goth pub which I won’t ever forget – it was kind of like an outback Australian pub except with goths – weird. And then we enjoyed the best pies the world has ever known, stirking it twice lucky in pub gold, later finding out the random place we lunched was voted best pub in Bath.

Wandered around absorbing all the Bath we could until it was time to jump in the car and go to Bristol. We didn’t really see too much of Bristol having driven the same circuit over and over looking for the ‘obvious’ hotel we’d been recommended. Eventually we pulled over for directions and realised we had a flat tyre. Naturally us 3 girls stood around while the man of the group changed the tyre. Alex nearly got thrown in the river by a drunken Bristolite who’d decided she was far too hot to be left alone. In the end we left it there and checked into the hotel across the road. (Coincidentally attached to a great pub where apparently Blackbeard had hung out or some nonsense).

Had a relatively early night as to be honest we were a bit terrified of the scary Bristol folk with their freaky accents. Back in our room we were having a conversation about mini jesus when the cork popped out of an unopened bottle of wine scaring the hell out of us. Amy then kept me up talking and fell asleep mid conversation. I’d love to be able to sleep like that!

For brunch the next day we had roast beef and the plate was one big yorkshire pudding. Bliss! I’d heard the magical wonder of the Yorkshire pud and yes the rumours are true! Better learn to make them for when I head back to Oz.

At this point we were quite close to Wales and one of the Als wanted to check out the bridge which joins it to England. In the end we thought ‘bugger it’ and drove across for a Baileys in Wales. It was quite a pretty place wherever the hell we were. Worst language ever though. Had a looksee at a castle (the pub was next door) and then headed off for the highlight of our trip – Wookey Hole!!!

The brochure for it was just so random and exciting we HAD to go. A choice highlight from it - ‘In Britain’s most spectacular caves, come and see the witch of Wookey, turned to stone centuries ago, it is said, by a monk from Glastonbury.’ Features include the Cave museum, King Kong in the Valley of the Dinosaurs, a handmade paper mill, a pirate ship, a seaside pier with requisite amusements, a magical mirror maze, enchanted fairy garden and the wizards castle. My oh my!

The tour starts out in the caves which was actually really cool although there’s this stupid myth about it being haunted by this witch who according to the brochure used to ‘casserole children’. This little boy on the tour kept asking if we’d see a real magic wand. The tourguide was all ‘you might find some in the giftshop’ and he replied ‘NO! I want one that does REAL magic’. Cute, at least it was until he wouldn’t shut up about it.

Turns out parts of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets was filmed there. Was also the location of the first deep sea cave dive in the world. After this we wandered about checking out all the brochure promised. The seaside pier amusements were absolutely brilliant. All these motorised executions and way ancient arcade games. I had a gypsy read my fortune whilst hoping to wake up small, reverse big style. She did all her fancy moves and no fortune came! But I didn’t die and I didn’t wake up small. Ah, tacky fun overload I tell you.

We headed the car for home, with a brief stop at Stonehenge (the stones actually seem quite small!), viewing it through the fence of course. How mystical. And a few hours later overbearing London was upon us once more!



31st May, y0-6
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---STOP PRESS--- Latest news from the last month!
(Actually there’s absolutely nothing worth stopping the press for but I thought it sounded good.)

Well the end of last month saw the fancy black tie-esque staff party. Had no end of troubles finding suitable attire. To think of it I actually have nothing of interest worth saying about it so I’ll just post some pics for you to peruse. Was going to try and remain relatively anonymous on this site but bugger it.

PHWOAR what a stunner! (And check out the necklace – I made it!) PHWOAR and she’s talented too!

A couple of weeks ago, in the week leading up to my birthday I thought I’d attempt another sojourn into London city to ooh and ahh at the sights on offer. First stop – Saint Paul’s Cathedral. I actually found it a little bit spooky. Once you check out the main congregation area you descend into the crypts to view the tombs of various famous, rich and influential people from the past. Tombs included ………. However I think the one which interested me the most was Lawrence of Arabia which was not signposted on the brochure at all. After this I ascended the 237 (???) steps to the whispering gallery which is a round balcony area right under the dome and the acoustics are so bizarre that you can hear someone better who’s directly across from you about 80 metres away than someone who is standing next to you. It also gives you a great view of the dome paintings. The unfortunate thing about all this was I had a complete panic attack about the height and was pinned to the seats next to the wall trying to crush myself as far back as possible from the edge. Damn this fear of heights. Took me about half an hour to finally get the courage to edge myself around the wall to the exit and escape.

After this I walked around the block taking photos to compensate for not being able to take them inside. Then crossed the Thames via the Millenium Bridge to the Tate Modern Gallery. This place is confusing. It seems they’ve designed it in an annoying way to add to the artiness factor but its actually completely shit to navigate around. As a result I was quite disappointed with what I saw but I’ve since found out, a couple of weeks later watching a doco on the gallery, that there’s whole other sections I didn’t even find which housed all the art I really wanted to see – like the Warhols, Duchamps and Lichtensteins. Ugh, it makes me angry now just thinking about it. Anyway at the time the only thing that really rocked my boat was the Narcissus painting by Dali.

And we’ll return right after these messages…