to whitby for the annual ‘whitby goth weekend’ festival. we loaded up the car with plenty of clothes [it really is very competitive on the fashion front!], booze and unhealthy snacks. then it was off round to the less salubrious end of hulme to pick up chris, who, in exchange for �60 [and for the love of his company], was going to be ‘unofficially’ staying in our hired cottage with us.
thursday 28 october 2004
we left manchester – the oul’ isuzu laden with changes of outfits, sausages, booze, crisps and other healthy treats – at about one o’clock lunchtime after picking up chris, his sleeping bag and his seemingly unending supply of packets of dry noodles and headed off down the motorway to leeds, before coming off onto the A-roads for york and from thence whitby [via the A-road for scarborough]. trying to rememeber how long it had taken us last year; we’d allowed four and a half hours for the journey, but it only took us about 3.
livingroom [left] and bedroom [right] – boghall cottage, whitby
when we got to whitby we found our cottage more by accident than design, as the map of whitby that mazza had printed out from the interweb didn’t believe in giving away too much unnecessary information, such as the names of the streets etc. it turned out we were about 5-10 mins from the train station and a similar distance from the little angel pub [with about another ten minutes walk from the pub to the pavilion on the sea front].
the cottage was nice, but very small. just one bedroom, a bathroom and a livingroom/kitchen with a sofa bed – which was going to be chris‘s lair. supplies were a bit of a strange assortment; on the one hand we had a DVD player and a stash of DVDs to watch, as well as some items of food in the cupboards and mounds of towels, but there was no bogroll or soap. anyway, we dumped our luggage and had a quick freshen up and then headed off into town to get our wristbands.
chris hadnae got a ticket, so he went off to find someone selling one, while me and mazza headed to the pavilion and got our bands. then we headed straight back to the cottage. after traipsing up a few unnecessary hills and down the odd superfluous winding road in search of a shortcut on the way home, we came to realise that the route we had first instinctively taken into town was the most direct after all. although it’s only about 10-15mins walk, this was a bit of a disappointment, as you always look forward to finding shortcuts as you familiarise yourself with an area.
back at the cottage we had a few quoffs and [as a consequence of daytime red wine intake] a bit of an afternoon nap until chris turned up proudly sporting a wristband [he'd found someone selling a ticket without too much bother]. at this point we all started charging round the house like eejits, fighting for the shower and space at the various mirrors, getting ready for our first night out.
we headed down the pavilion for about nine o’clock for the first night’s entertainment. i have no idea who any of the bands were, as this is more mazza‘s scene than mine, but the line-up was pretty sparse and disappointing anyway. still – who cares? whitby‘s more about the dressing up and posing than the music. we met up again with a few folk we’d made friends with last year; ian, heather, simon, french krystel, johannes[sp?] and belgian krystel. i think french krystel deserves a special mention. last year when we met her and simon, she had a cold and was very quiet and reserved. this year she was running round like a crazy bonkers drunken loon every time we saw her and excusing it all with a slurred – “ah don’ care. ah am french!”
we also seen the scottish lot [shona, tracy and brian] whose house we went to for a party last time and even blarbed to a few new folks, such as big scottish brian – who got us tickets for sexy sunday at the metropole. chris meanwhile was on a one-man quest to pull – what with being newly single and all thon, but i’m far too much of a gentleman to dream of reporting how miserably, how repetitively and how often he failed in this mission.
me and mazza relaxing on the sofa [left] … til’ chris landed this lot on us! [right]
the ‘gig’ finished at about 1:30 am and me and mazza headed home. we did get invited back to simon and krystel‘s for a piss-up, but we weren’t expecting any after-gig parties on the first night and hadnae brought any booze out with us, so we played the lightweights card and buggered off home to watch DVDs and drink wine instead.
our relaxing unwind on the sofa was somewhat spoiled by the arrival of chris at about 3am, just as we were about to hit the sack. he had in tow four really irritating ‘friends’ he’d met up with; a girl called ‘pink-o-tron‘ [soon re-christened 'cusp-o-tron' by me and mazza], her boyfriend and two of their mates. things didn’t get off to a good start when they barged into the house with chris and i said “hi” to the bloke as he came through the door and got blanked by him. cusp-o-tron also ignored me and mazza who, shoeless and makeup-less as we now were, obviously were not worthy of her ‘explosion in a pink fur factory’ attention.
we managed to get a few words out of the other two girls but, after about half an hour i headed off to bed as they were all really winding me up. mazza joined me about half an hour after that and we sat in bed fuming and listening to chris‘s mates’ braying voices til about six in the morning when they finally fucked off in a taxi.
friday 29 october 2004
i gave chris a good bollocking for bringing a load of irritating wankers back to the cottage last night. he was man enough to admit he’d been out of order and promised not to do it again, so we took his belongings out of the fire and decided to get on with being terrific chums again.
we’d kind of arranged to meet the rest of our gang; ian, heather, simon, krystel, johannes and krystel in the little angel [everyone's home from home in whitby!] about 3 o’clock, but when we came out of the house it was pissing with rain and the car [which we'd parked at the end of the lane at the front of a builder's yard] had a note on it saying “please don’t park this vehicle here”. i got in the car to move it to the front of the cottage, where a space had become available and then, captivated by the dryness inside, thought “sod it! – we might as well drive into town”.
so we did just that and parked at the pavilion and then went in to check out the various stalls selling stuff. the whole thing was sadly like a “get your goth uniform here!” centre with stalls selling all the gear that the wannabe goth could desire; from boots to hats. strange. i remember when being alternative was about making up your own look. now it seems to have become just another conformity, like wearing a tracksuit and baseball cap.
after our non-shopping experience we repaired for our first pint of this year’s whitby to the little angel. and who should we find there but chris proudly sporting a new fur jacket which he’d bought off one of the stalls that me and mazza had so recently abandoned in favour of more liquid pleasures. [such a conformist that boy!] chris was still feeling bad about last night, so i took advantage of this by saying “yes!” instantly whenever he mused that he felt he should buy us a drink to make up for it. mazza, being made of less sterner stuff and more willing to look a gift-horse in the mouth was making “it doesn’t matter…” noises until i told her to shut up and avail of his guilty conscience while it lasted. unfortunately, since i was driving, i only benefitted from chris‘s largesse to the tune of a couple of alcohol free lagers – but it’s the thought that counts!
we’d only paid for three hours in the carpark, so about 3 o’clock we had to abandon the pub and head home – thus missing our supposed rendezvous with the others. so, back to the ranch with us – thankfully the parking space at the front of the cottage was still free so we nabbed that and left the banger there for the rest of the weekend.
once home i repeated the routine of yesterday; making a bit of lunch and washing it down with as couple of glasses of red wine and then going off to bed for a zzz for an hour or to. i think marie did the same, as she was snoring beside me at one point. however i can’t reliably report on chris‘s siesta status as, at no stage did i wake up to find him snoring beside me – and i’d like to make that perfectly clear!
my new ‘bed modelling’ technique
about 7-ish we started getting ready to go out. as a special treat for all the guys, girls and people of indeterminate gender, i decided to wear my kilt. thanks to my invention of a labour-saving new method , i was able to model the outfit for the camera without leaving the comfort of my bed.
once ready, we tootled off to the pavilion again and pretty much repeated the previous nights procedures; wander round, meet people you know, meet people you don’t know, meet people you want to know, meet people who want to know you… etc. etc. one improvement on the previous night was that we actually had a decent band on tonite. as a special concession to those of us who prefer a bit of guitar to annoying repetitive bleeps and doots from a computer, zodiac mindwarp were headlining – hurray!
two girls of our acquaintence [who shall remain nameless for fear of sullying their otherwise chaste reputations] were most impressed by my kilt and the silken loveliness of my smooth thighs and took advantage of my momentary inattention to grope my thighs in a most provocative fashion – ‘to see if i’d shaved my legs’.
we had actually brought out some booze wi us this time, in anticipation of more invitations to post-gig parties but, wouldn’t ye know it?! – tonite no-one wanted us. actually i think we did get invited to one party but it was friends of friends of chris‘s who we’d never met before, so we thought it would be a bit cheeky to inflict ourselves on them out of the blue like that. [hint! - to certain folk].
and thus the second day of our whitby adventure ended. tune into this channel er…. whenever i get round to writing the rest to read more. and in the meantime, in the vague hope that a few shoddy pictures will paint a thousand eloquent words, you can view my snaps from this years WGW on my all new consolidated photos page.
