Day One
Yep as I said they arrived early, I had been around at the time they all awoke in Reading, Dave popped onto msn at about 4am and told me to put the kettle on. About 7:30 Paul, Dave and Jen arrived at the humble abode in Lincolnshire, Dave as has now become custom instantly began sniffing the dog. Dave believes that our dog is the greatest smelling thing ever and eventuall convinced Paul and Jen to have a go. I made coffee, found a plastic bag, inserted some clothes and we departed.
I decided to do the first leg of the journey to Edinburgh, feeling that I knew the area and could impress Paul with my knowledge of the sights. Unfortunatly all i could remember was random useless bits about upcoming mini roundabouts and roadside cafe's, Paul still seemed impressed. All this time Dave and Jen had mischieveiously been crumbling green pringles into my bag.
Next up was Paul, We swapped somewhere near Doncaster, that may not seem far but getting out of linconshire is the tricky bit. I decided to celebrate my work being done with a beer, it was at this point I discovered beer and mints do not go. Dave and Jen seemed quite content in the back playing with batman, so I continued to point out the sights to paul.
Once the beer was gone I went back on the mints with Paul, He bacame alarmed when we got down to the last one placing it carefully on the dash. This was my first opportunity to try out the 'wow look at that train over there' trick. Paul began talking about trains in Canada for a while before noticing my grin, he looked around for a bit before realising I had pinched the last mint.
Paul decided the only course of action was to drive over a large section of exhaust in the middle of the motorway, fortunatly it did no damage to Daves sporty hyundai, unfortunatly it woke Jen up. Jen was disturbed by all the noise, so much so she laid a weird chinese pinapple thing. She immediatly offered it to me, I thought it a little uncivilised to consume while still at body temperature, so I politely declined.
Somewhere near Carlisle and another swap, Dave in the driver seat, a fresh supply of mints and a few sevice station snacks (sausage rolls etc). I took a back seat where I could reach a bottle of cherry brandy and became a little quiet, Jen went back to sleep and Paul got stuck into the liquour chocs. I checked out Daves batman and fashioned his cape into a very fetching suit/robe, before I noticed that Paul had left his sausage roll just behind the gearstick, well within reach. I pointed out a distant stoner indian mountain and the crime was commited. I should note at this point that although my 'stealing stuff through distraction' crimes are usually performed with style and elegance, I am not very good at disgusing the fact that I've done something. Dave realised very quicky that something was going on and within 3-4 minutes discovered that the sausage roll was gone.
Approching the final part of the trip, I was woosy enough to have a go at the pinapple thing. As was expected, it was the most foul tasting thing since pauls "I think they were there when I moved in" bourbons, not only did it have a nasty powdery buscuit outside it also had a chewy jelly inside, it was nasty enough that everyone needed to take a good shot of cherry brandy, good job no cops were about. There was enough for everyone plus some to throw away, it was that bad.
We finally arrived an set about the mammoth task of unloading the car, It was a similar feeling to that I would expect from emptying a beer truck. Booze sucsessfully transported, Paul set about filling some glasses while I took this picture. On show is, one box of roysters, two 5L boxes of redwine, one box of chunky kitkats, two boxes of fingers, four tubes of minging pringles, two boxes of 3L white wine, mince pies, christmas cake x 2, various other chocolatey treats, four bottles of sweet white wine, five 1L bottles of cherry brandy, one bottle of irish meadow (read baileys), one bottle of home made sloe gin, a can of caffreys, one bottle of bells, one bottle of tia maria and a few mixers.
Jen was delighted to be back, she spent much of the first night showing off her bewildering array of huge animal slippers, Dave on the otherhand started to become confused at the apparent malfunction of his camera, I had decided to get back at him for coating my clothes in pringles.
The plan was everytime dave was about to take a picture I would sneak my camera out and take a picture of him, now unless you know that someone is taking a picture a camera flash does not appear to come from anywhere in particular, so as long as dave didn't see me taking the picture he simply thought his camera had flashed randomly and not actually taken a photo. he would sit confused staring at his camera, this was to continue for a while...
A clear threshold point of the night is when paul begins to look like this, there is no going back from here, it's drink until you pass out stage. The meal of the first day was an interesting one, probably the least fattening day for food, we had pasta with salmon bits mashed in and a few vegetable things. Paul is very good at eating pasta and managed to consume his very fast, this posed a problem for me as I was sat next to him and knew he would head for the nearest source of food once he was finished. What ensued was what may have appeared to be a very homoerotic game of protect the pasta. I assumed a facing into sofa, crouched over the plate position, while paul stood behind me and thrusted for the food at any available opportunity. Dave got many pictures, fortunatly due to his ineptness with technology he also managed to delete them all.
Ah yes Fion, she will hate me for every picture like this, Fion hates having her picture taken and will hide from all cameras. As tempted as I was to spend a lot of time pretending to take pictures, I thought it unfair, instead we waited until she had drank lots and then took pictures while her reflexes were slow.
The night continued with more drinking and a little planning of what we could do in the days until the 31st. A small booklet featuring a hideous woman and a dog with two hats was used to decide on a whiskey tour for the morning.
As the night drew on I became interested with the weird pictures at the flat, here you see a strange cat with a transparent belly, he has swallowed a mouse whole. Jen mentioned that she had heathers on DVD, a fine film with hot chicks and murder
it was not far into the film that everyone got tired enough and went to bed, Paul and myself took a sofa each, I was told there was a bed one room away but that seemed a little far, plus I was determined to watch all of the film. I did drift in and out of conciousness a few times but I remember seeing the end of the film, by this time the drink had me in a near paralised state, I watched as the DVD ended and the tv switched to showing a little square bounce around the screen, it was the only source of light and I could not help but watch it. I believed that the box contained the words "press auto button" initially I reached for a controller but before I found one a thought came into my head - If the button is auto then why do I have to press it... This thought would not leave my mind and I continued to stare at the box travelling around the screen. About half an hour passed before paul spring to life mumbling about water, I began shouting at him to turn it off, he was startled by my awakeness but did as I said, I slept once more.
I woke again three or four hours later feeling fully refreshed, I knew that everyone else would still be asleep for a while so I decided to try eating all the roysters, this failed at about 5 packets so I hid the rest to annoy Dave, end of day.
Next up was Paul, We swapped somewhere near Doncaster, that may not seem far but getting out of linconshire is the tricky bit. I decided to celebrate my work being done with a beer, it was at this point I discovered beer and mints do not go. Dave and Jen seemed quite content in the back playing with batman, so I continued to point out the sights to paul.
Somewhere near Carlisle and another swap, Dave in the driver seat, a fresh supply of mints and a few sevice station snacks (sausage rolls etc). I took a back seat where I could reach a bottle of cherry brandy and became a little quiet, Jen went back to sleep and Paul got stuck into the liquour chocs. I checked out Daves batman and fashioned his cape into a very fetching suit/robe, before I noticed that Paul had left his sausage roll just behind the gearstick, well within reach. I pointed out a distant stoner indian mountain and the crime was commited. I should note at this point that although my 'stealing stuff through distraction' crimes are usually performed with style and elegance, I am not very good at disgusing the fact that I've done something. Dave realised very quicky that something was going on and within 3-4 minutes discovered that the sausage roll was gone.
Approching the final part of the trip, I was woosy enough to have a go at the pinapple thing. As was expected, it was the most foul tasting thing since pauls "I think they were there when I moved in" bourbons, not only did it have a nasty powdery buscuit outside it also had a chewy jelly inside, it was nasty enough that everyone needed to take a good shot of cherry brandy, good job no cops were about. There was enough for everyone plus some to throw away, it was that bad.
We finally arrived an set about the mammoth task of unloading the car, It was a similar feeling to that I would expect from emptying a beer truck. Booze sucsessfully transported, Paul set about filling some glasses while I took this picture. On show is, one box of roysters, two 5L boxes of redwine, one box of chunky kitkats, two boxes of fingers, four tubes of minging pringles, two boxes of 3L white wine, mince pies, christmas cake x 2, various other chocolatey treats, four bottles of sweet white wine, five 1L bottles of cherry brandy, one bottle of irish meadow (read baileys), one bottle of home made sloe gin, a can of caffreys, one bottle of bells, one bottle of tia maria and a few mixers.
Jen was delighted to be back, she spent much of the first night showing off her bewildering array of huge animal slippers, Dave on the otherhand started to become confused at the apparent malfunction of his camera, I had decided to get back at him for coating my clothes in pringles.
A clear threshold point of the night is when paul begins to look like this, there is no going back from here, it's drink until you pass out stage. The meal of the first day was an interesting one, probably the least fattening day for food, we had pasta with salmon bits mashed in and a few vegetable things. Paul is very good at eating pasta and managed to consume his very fast, this posed a problem for me as I was sat next to him and knew he would head for the nearest source of food once he was finished. What ensued was what may have appeared to be a very homoerotic game of protect the pasta. I assumed a facing into sofa, crouched over the plate position, while paul stood behind me and thrusted for the food at any available opportunity. Dave got many pictures, fortunatly due to his ineptness with technology he also managed to delete them all.
Ah yes Fion, she will hate me for every picture like this, Fion hates having her picture taken and will hide from all cameras. As tempted as I was to spend a lot of time pretending to take pictures, I thought it unfair, instead we waited until she had drank lots and then took pictures while her reflexes were slow.
As the night drew on I became interested with the weird pictures at the flat, here you see a strange cat with a transparent belly, he has swallowed a mouse whole. Jen mentioned that she had heathers on DVD, a fine film with hot chicks and murder