lnr | The long and the short of it (Reply)

Thursday

Lift to station with E-J and Simes. Met Mark/Tasha, bought coffee and caught train. Change Ely, Peterborough (buy booze), Darlington (full of goths! all dashing to catch the train cos we were late), Middlesborough, arrive Whitby on time, and perky. Met Libby on last train, and was invited to join her at her friend Gemma's wedding on Monday. Checked in and met David at the Elsinore, for snakebite and black, then red wine in the nice caff across the road. Didn't buy 5 quid fishfinger sandwich. Did have enough nachos to sink a small ship. David and I headed to the Metropole to check out their music, but it turned out to be crap, so despite the possibility of drinking alcoholic dandelion and burdock we headed back along the beach and then up to the Elsi and got even more drunk, before finishing off in the hotel bar with a nice whisky and some rather good magic tricks from Keira, who we'd met that evening. The sheer weight of all that booze eventually overcame me though, and I was somewhat ill. Back in the hotel room Trevor defended E-J's dignity, much to the amusement of all, and we rounded off the evening with a bedtime story from Scarlet (the magazine that turns women on). Which bizarrely felt the need to asterisk out the word c**t even in the sealed erotic fiction section. Weird. Gloriously warm day.

Friday

After an excellent hotel breakfast (a regular feature) Friday was shopping day. We headed to the spa, and having tried on a fab skirt that was too large at Wisteria's stall we headed downstairs to look for Gabi of Gothic Haven. E-J was looking for another corset, and it seemed like a good time for me to give up on getting back into a 26" waist for the time being and try something more my size. So I tried on a couple and one of them accidentally found itself being bought. Plus a gorgeous long bondage skirt in pinstripe from Gallery Serpentine. A very large dent in the bank balance, but a very happy me. We kind of skimmed round the rest of the stalls, trying on a few odds and ends of accessories ("Hey, this is a goth shop, where the hell is a mirror?"). Found a rather mad but excellent veil anyway, which proceeded to blow merrily around in the wind. We soon bumped into Tasha, who was looking for nice shoes. He has some lovely lovely outfits, most of which make his army boots look a bit out of place. The spa only had one shoe stall though, and we didn't find anything in the Metropole either, which was a shame. And we didn't find out who made the rather mad rubber riding crops either, shame. Still, food called, so we wandered into town where we had Fish and Chips and Hadleys and E-J had her first experience of battered haddock, seemingly pleased with the results. We then pottered through the old town where we bought wool and rock, then back over the river where we found Mark a lovely lovely pair of kickers in a trendy little clothes shop. Mary Janes with a little wedge heel they looked great. And to add to our odd collection of shopping we picked up plastic pint glasses and pink flannels from Woolies, before it was disco-nap time, and then time to head out to the Spa, dressed in some of our new finery.

On the way in we were told we *had* to see The Modern, who were on first, and we discovered it was an excellent piece of advice. Much more indie than goth to my eyes they had a lot of electronica with a guitar and drums over the top, and vocals shared between three of them, but mostly by a very very pretty lady. Not that that influenced us at all. Anyway the music was good too, and I'm defininitely glad we caught them. Most of the rest of the evening was spent hanging out in the chillout area talking to assorted people and watching the world go by. And being very moderate with the gin in my case, since I was still feeling the effects of Thursday a little (though not as much as the hotel landlord: his wife told us he was suffering from the first hangover of his life and swearing "never again"). We were determined however not to miss Dr and the Medics. Which seemed a bit of an overenthusiastic determination as far as I was concerned, knowing only their 80s hit Spirit in the Sky. It turns out it really is their only decent tune (they played us their followup to it, and one more recent track) however what they do do is a great lineup of cheesy rock covers, with a great stage style, some funny patter between songs, and a mad almost midget dancer, whose red hair dye eventually left him looking covered in blood. I really hope they got a video of an entire room of goths doing the Timewarp. There was lots of jumping up and down (and jiggling breasts) with E-J, Libby and Kath who is lovely too. We all need to swap LJ usernames at some point (see postscriptum). Anyway, they were brilliant - like a cheesy disco but live. E-J's turn to read the bedtime story, we were still not terribly impressed. If you find us giggling about "dripping centres" you know why. At least this one had no c**ts.

Saturday

Apparently E-J and I kept David awake by snoring, so we left him for a post-breakfast nap and went to have another look at things in the spa. E-J bought pink ringlets, and I bought glitter. And then we found a couple of free seats upstairs and made a brilliant discovery: that if you sit behind the stairs you can watch the entire world go by all morning. Oh yus. People who'd got it right. People who'd got it horribly wrong. Teenage goths with their mums and little sisters in tow. Cybergoths, tradgoths, perky goths, eat-more-pies woman, just about *everyone* went past it seems, and few of them passed without comment. Though we were quieter with the rude comments not many people reacted, but those who did mostly grinned. A very pleasant way to pass the morning. We then dragged David off for lunch, before hitting the sack for a while ourselves until it was time to drink more booze and pretty ourselves up again and hit the Spa once more.

I caught even less of the music this time: as Neon Zoo were so bad everyone deserted them about halfway through the second song. We did pop back in later and I caught most of Deathboy's set. He can certainly sing, and I think I might have to look up their music and see how I get on with it on record. A little more industrially in sound than I normally go for but I enjoyed them. Especially watching the tradgoths stompy-dancing along - very incongruous. The main source of indignance for the evening was the small bunch of people who thought that Nazi uniforms complete with swastica armbands were an appropriate method of dress. I did actually go up to the first girl after we'd been muttering for a while, and tried to politely say that while it was entirely up to her it was making some of my friends uncomfortable and we'd like her to remove the swastica at least. I don't think I made much of an impression but at least it was something. After a second girl was spotted, with SS flashes on her collar too, Jess and E-J actually went and had a word at the desk with the organisers. I don't think they could do anything much then, but perhaps it'll make a difference long term.

Apart from that cloud though it was a very pleasant evening. We sat in a corner and drank lots of gin and talked nonsense. Libby was checked for net-bottom, E-J had her arse slapped for dust, and the rest of us all had our breasts named. Since my puppies were spotted with stars at the time they seem to have been christened Pongo and Perdita. It seemed like a good idea at the time, and Kari and Oki (Jess), Faith and Buffy (Kath) and Dec and Ant (Karen) were also named. Jake and Flora (E-J) and Dastardly and Muttley (Libby) had names already. As we headed back to the hotel we realised we'd entirely forgotten to take photos before we went out, as a nice chap called Hayden and his friends asked nicely if they could have our photo. And we exchanged signatures on the cast on his broken arm for a couple on David's face, since he'd missed out when he broke his jaw. David's turn reading the bedtime story was much improved when he switched to saying quim instead of trying to pronounce the asterisks in c**t. It still wasn't very good.

Sunday

Leaving E-J to nap after breakfast David and I wandered off and found ourselves a boat trip round the bay, on a 40% model of Captain Cook's ship. Entertainingly we had it all to ourselves, bar two crew members and a tape recorded, which played sea shanties and bits of history. Then we wandered round to the other side of the bay to see if we could get down to the little pebbly beach there, but the sea was too far in. David did his best to slide down the slipramp into the sea though, and we had a nice scramble on the rocks, and very effectively skimmed some pebbles on the sea. Provided one splash counts. Was fun anyway. And then it was time to wake E-J for lunch. It wasn't a bad lunch though, at the Captain Anderson Bistro just round the corner from the Elsi. Excellent yorkshire puds. Though in other respects I think the Carlton actually does it better. Probably worth giving them a try on another day later though, because the rest of their menu looked promising. David wandered off to watch the annual goths v locals football match (we lost) and E-J and I headed off for yet another nap. Waking for another amusing half hour of getting dressed while David paced impatiently.

Taking the last of the vodka and kahlua with us in a 2 litre pepsi bottle we headed for the queue for the excellent 80s night at Laughton's, DJed by Bmovie's own sexbat and charliemouse. We were joined in the queue by Libby, her friend Rachel and Mark. qOnce we had no-queue-jumping tickets we sent David off in search of chips and drank some dreadful alcopop called Mad Frog and got really quite tiddly. Tiddly enough to give Rachel the names Pinky and the Brain, which she seemed quite pleased with. An excellent night followed anyway. There's something wonderful about a bunch of goths getting giggly and having a really good time to cheesy 80s pop. Rachel proved to have a great enthusiasm for dancing to it too, which was excellent, and we alternated between jumping up and down on the dancefloor, and observing it from the balcony with more gin. The lady dressed as Cheetara was the star of the dancefloor, and it was amazing how well she could dance in 6 inch heels, never mind skip in them during the skipping song. There was the locomotive, spinning right round like a record baby and (safely watched from the balcony) Nellie the Elephant and the Irish Rover. And Libby and I danced on the balcony to Who Put the Bop... as they came to a close and we headed out to find some fresh air and pepperoni pizza on the way home for another bedtime story, this time set on the london underground.

Monday

Halloween, and the imaginary Gemma's wedding. And we finally met Gemma and her soon-to-be husband Scott, half an hour before they were due in the registry office. We'd been expecting to fade into the background, but it appeared that including me and E-J there were a whole 7 guests: three of whom had driven from Bradford that morning to fetch the rings, and headed off again straight afterwards. A quiet little ceremony where the groom looked miserable and uncomfortable most of the time, but the bride giggled and the rest of us had an excuse to dress up. Completely bizarre. Afterwards we had a drink in the pub, then the happy couple disappeared off to bed and weren't seen again til the next day. The rest of us (joined by David again) had an excellent lunch in Java, which is the best cafe ever, and then eventually headed out to the goth beach party with 6 litres of wine, a block of parkin, and a turnip lantern bought pre-carved from Somerfield. Spooky Simon next to us by the fire named him for us: and so Dick Turnip was born. And much admired among those who thought him far more traditional than the handful of pumpkins that were around. There was fire poi and gossip, and a nice girl called Claire and her bloke Dave who got his chest out for the lasses. Giolla provided a fabulous firework display, which was well worth putting all our change in the hat for. And David and I went for a paddle. And OK it *was* a bit bloody cold in the water but worth it.

We gave up before it got too late though and headed back to Libby and Rachel's cottage (their housemates having left), for more wine and pizza and a game of trivial pursuit that turned into strip trivial pursuit. Not that any of us was sober enough to work out in advance that it was a bit pointless given one was always guaranteed to get a question wrong each go and hence have to take something off. Still, it was fun, til we got too tired and left David with the girls and took ourselves off to our beds. When he finally got back David and I talked into the night a fair bit, somewhat drunkenly and with a certain amount of maudlinity, and got to sleep v late.

Tuesday

And Tuesday was hometime. We said goodbye to the lovely landlady of the hotel, packed up and stopped at the cottage and admired their impressive tidying skills on the way down to the station. Our exit enlivened by a last minute bit of panicked cleaning of the kitchen table, and leaving a dressed crab in the fridge. Libby talked nonsense with us as far as Middlesborough, then texted nonsense to us the rest of the way, as E-J and I giggled nearly all the way home, exhausted but happy.

Is it April yet?

Pictures

Not many, and including a few from Rick's birthday last month:

http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/ucgi/~eleanorb/gallery/pics/rick-whitby

Cast: