Last Monday, Dale, Darren and Pav travelled halfway down the country to visit me here on the Isle of Wight. It had been arranged for some months. Originally I decided I wanted to do something just because I had heard about the Malta trip as people inevitably do in this group and was not invited, I wasn't really surprised and to be honest, I thought 'well, it's Tom's place so really it's understandable if he wants to invite his best friends'. That said, I was more jealous of the time they would get to hang out than it's location. I like Malta, I haven't been abroad for like 18 years but a few years ago I was thinking of going with a friend, it didn't happen in the end. Anyway. I thought about it and just felt like I would like to spend some significant time with my best friends and I went about setting up this trip, initially it also included PJ and Dave although they both dropped out. Because of them dropping out, I thought so many times that the trip was off and indeed it was a number of times. Financially it would be very expensive because there were two less people covering costs. Despite this,I decided that if everybody was willing to pick up those costs, it was still worth doing. More than anything, I just craved some company. I speak to Dale and Pav every day on skype and up until a couple of months ago PJ also. And skype really only satisfies you for a period before you want to be able to hang out with the people you talk to.
I was very disappointed that both Dave and PJ didn't come. My natural paranoia has theories as to why they didn't, maybe they just couldn't and I should take people's word for things, maybe they could have come but didn't want to enough, whatever the reasons and I'll assume they were honorable. I missed them both and would have loved them both to have come down for the week. We also looked at getting either of the scots down but that didn't work out either. John had tickets to Russell Howard the night before and so couldn't get down to Birmingham in time for the car journey and the cost of flights and trains were ridiculous. Also the night before the trip, Ginger Chris asked why he was not invited down, to which I reminded him he had been several months prior, he told me I should have reminded him. We looked briefly at cost of coaches and the possibility of a spare of the moment decision to come but that didn't happen either. He has told me he'll be coming town to Southampton after summer in the city to hang out for the day. This may or may not happen, we'll see.
The lads drove down on Monday and got the 8:30pm ferry across with the car. We decided as there would be four of us, that having the car would be more cost effective and would be more convenient to get about the Island. Turned out to be a good idea because we used the car an awful lot over the week. Dale is a brilliant driver by the way, just thought I'd say. The guys came across so late and left so late because it worked out as £49 return for the car and 3 people after 8:30pm as opposed to £102 before 8:30. Made sense and seemed to work out really will.
I met them off the ferry and we parked up in the loading bay next to the ferry terminal so that I could get in. Just then a huge Iceland trailer lorry did a massive loop turn, it looked like it was gonna take out the pub wall but it didn't. The guy must have been a pro. Then he backed the lorry up with such speed, it looked like he was aiming right for us. He shouted some stuff at us as he passed by, I didn't understand him. But we got out of there pretty sharpish, after all, it had only been 2 minutes on the Island and we almost got killed by a madman in a lorry.
We took the chain ferry across from East Cowes to West Cowes and then drove up to Gurnard where we were staying. It turned out to be a really great place to stay although I think more than four people may have been pushing it. It's slept four quite comfortably but the lounge was a four person lounge so any more more have been tight. I have absolutely no idea what we did on that first night, I think we played some playstation. We had a few snacks that Pav's mum had packed including a box full of sugar cubes wtf? We didn't have any food in really that night but it was fine.
On Monday we took a short drive down to Gurnard beach and parked up. We walked along the seafront to Cowes beach where the lads had a bit of a skim off with whatever flat stones they could find. We walked up through Northwood Park and saw the tennis courts fully packed. We had decided to play tennis at some point over the week. It didn't happen due to a combination of factors including us not getting up early enough and the tennis courts everywhere being booked up. We walked on to Cowes town and drew some money out, then we bought some lunch at deckers sandwich shop which was a complete rip off. After we walked back through Cowes to Gurnard, we went to our local pub 'The Woodvale' and had a drink outside overlooking the beach. We then went on to Tesco's to get in the food. Somehow we were there for nearly two hours. I think we didn't put anything in our trolly for the first twenty minutes. I felt a bit sick from the car journey and needed the toilet which were damned impossible to find. In the end I managed to find them through an old school friend who worked as a security guard at tesco's. He was all ready for the big 'Hello, haven't seen you in ages chat' and my first words were 'You know where the toilets are don't you?'
I took a slash and washed my hands and then dried them using the craziest hand dryer ever. The power was than strong, it made your skin and in my case flab wobble all over your hand. It was crazy. Scared me at first because I genuinely thought it could possibly blow my hand off. After, I had the obligatory nice chat with the old school mate and went off to find the lads who in 15 minutes had managed to only put two things in the trolley, that being a pack of four baked beans and a loaf of bread. So we went round and got plenty of stuff. Mainly, sweets, crisps and alcohol. The weather at this point was gorgeous, the sunniest all week and we were inside Tesco.
We went back and probably played playstation and watched dvd's. I can't remember when we watched each dvd, we watched an awful lot over the week. It was cool. Very nice to sit and watch films again. I never usually have the attention span because of the blasted internet fooling me in to thinking there are better things to do online. We watched films I hadn't seen for years like Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs. Both excellent films. We also played Little Big Planet which the guys seemed to like but I thought it was wank. just walking along jumping and shit.
On Tuesday I think we were planning on going to Yaverland beach, we didn't leave the house till near 3 though and we were stuck in traffic, the weather looked like it was gonna rain and so instead we opted to go to Seaclose Park where the Isle of Wight Festival is held and it's right next to my old high school. The field was empty. It's crazy, sixty thousand people use it for a weekend but the rest of the time it is barely used, so we just had a kick about for a while in the field, ate some snacks and dicked about with the camera recreating the video styling of certain youtubers. Dale also managed to miss the funniest thing ever as he turned of the camcorder just before it happened.
So, we were dicking about ripping off videos and I thought I'd run out of the bushes which a big stick going 'arrrrrgggghhhh'. So immediately, you understand that a fat person running is gonna be funny. So anyway, the guys turned round and I assumed that Dale was ready with the camera. So I ran out of the bushes shouting and unknown to me, there was a tree root under the leaves on the ground so I ran, my foot slammed against the tree root and I fell flat on my face. It was majorly embarrassing but even I could understand that there is nothing funnier in this world than a fat person falling over and so I was happy that we had it on camera. Then Dale said he wasn't recording and I was gutted. Probably could have gotten £250 out of that. It was that good! Trust me.
We drove back to the house and decided to go get takeaway because I couldn't be arsed to cook and the prospect of chewitts and doritos for dinner wasn't appealing. So we were searching for the telephone number of the Chinese takeaway so we could order it before and have it ready for when we picked it up. First we found the number for Golden Dragon and Pav called it and gave me the phone. I said 'Pav, this is a mobile number', he said 'some businesses just have mobile numbers'. Anyway, there was no answer so I hung up. Immediately I got called back and had a Chinese person on the other end 'WHA YOU WAAN?', 'YOU JUST TRY AN CALL ME?' I was scared and hung up. So we rang up the other Chinese takeaway and ordered from there. Mind you I could barely understand a word of what she was saying either.
We drove down to pick up mine and Pav's Chow Mein's and spare ribs and Dale and Darren nipped round the corner and got kebabs and chips instead. I think that was the night we watched the film 'Falling Down' with Michael Douglas which is just a brilliant film, if you have never seen it, I would recommend you do.
On Wednesday, I think we spent most of the day in the pub playing pool. We rotated teams and played alternate shots. Me and Dale drank alcohol, Pav and Darren were on coke. I think Darren had a couple of beers later on. I was drinking Strongbow. I never drink, not because I'm against it, just cos I don't particularly enjoy it and I have no friends so I have nobody to drink with. So I am a mega lightweight. I could feel I was gone after two pints, over the night I continued to four pints and I can't remember but possibly a fifth. I was fucked, We walked back from the pub to the house. About a twenty minute walk. I was adamant that I would cook a curry when we got back, they didn't believe me because of the being pissed thing. So we walked back and I remember that we all held hands and Pav was telling passers by, mainly kids on bikes that we were gay. I didn't actually care, at that point I was more concerned with remembering how to walk.
We arrived home and true to my word, I cooked a curry. I was very nice except we had no sieve and so draining the rice was extremely difficult, I used the lid of the saucepan as best I could but it was a bit watery still. Was nice though, people seemed to like it, although Darren proclaimed it to be the hottest curry he's ever eaten to which we LOL'd because it wasn't very hot and Darren was being a big girls bra. After we ate, I had sobered up although the kitchen looked like a bomb site. We went and watched some films or something. I think we may have watched Garth Marenghi's Darkplace that night. Finally Pav understood where all our references were coming from. I think we slept pretty early that night, about midnight because we were all fucking knackered from pub times.
On Thursday I woke earlier than the other lads, about nine I think and I went to get a cup of tea. Then I saw the state of the kitchen after the previous nights curry and spent the next hour and a half getting the house clean. We left the house about 1pm after everybody had showered and went on to Carisbrooke Castle because castles are the new cool thing and we wanted to be in with the cool kids. I think we were supposed to pay £6.80 each to get in but we wasn't sure and just walked in because the gate was open. We walked around the grounds of the castle, taking photo's of things like canon's and walls which made me wonder 'How thick is wall?' we walked all round from top to bottom and I realised that actually castles are really dull, it's just like derelict walls, but it was pretty and we got a lot of nice photographs.
On the way out, the gate we had walked through on the way in was shut and locked and at that point we thought we probably should have paid. We were worried that on the way out of the gates, they might make us pay, so we tried to escape, but we forgot that it is a castle and is surrounded by a huge moat that had like at the least 8ft drops. Pav didn't care and jumped it, but I thought, with my weight, if I try and jump that, my legs with shatter, so Darren went with Pav and escaped and Dale and I walked back to the entrance/exit and realised that we could just walk through the gift shop and get out, so we did that. Inside, there were model swords made of wood that cost like £9, they were well expensive. There was a wooden bow and arrow strong enough to maybe fire a pencil a couple of feet and it was £28. So we left the castle and played a hilarious joke on Darren and Pav. We told them we had to pay when actually we didn't, but as it turns out, Dale is the worst wind up ever as he laughed about two seconds after we told them. To be fair, it wasn't funny in the first place.
We left the castle and drove to Ryde to go bowling. We parked up in the high street and got some more money out and then went and had a wimpy! Wimpy is quite frankly the best burger joint ever. In the 80's it was so popular before McDonalds just overran the place with their fast shite. I used to go quite often with the family from the ages of six to fourteen, but in the past ten to twelve years I have barely gone to Ryde. Maybe once every few years and so if I ever do, I have to get a Wimpy. It reminds me of my childhood, but also tastes amazing. God knows how it manages to keep going though. We walked in and there was nobody in there apart from us. Wimpy is still brilliant, they trust you to eat with real plates, glasses, knives and forks and they trust you to pay after you have eaten. It was so good, still the same taste as I remember when I was young. Dale had a quarter pounder and Pav had a halfpounder, Darren had a bacon cheeseburger I think. I noticed that the quarter and half pounders came with like a brown bap and I wanted exactly what I remembered from years back and so I stuck to 2 regular wimpy hamburgers. They were amazing, as was the chocolate milkshake, was well thick and icecreamy.
So, we all ate our meals and went and paid, worked out about £2.50 dearer each than a McDonalds. Well worth it!
We went to the bowling alley and bought two games which cost like £28 for the four of us which is silly money. Only lasted like half an hour but it was like, aint paying that much for extra. We were also put in a lane next to a group of annoying old people like between 45 and 65 and they wouldn't shut the fuck up. Laughing like nobody in this world laughs, the loudest laugh of all time, this woman sounded like she was in pain and I so wanted to punch her in the face. Why do bowling alleys do that? There were ton's of free lanes but they always stick you right next to somebody else as opposed to in an empty part of the alley. Anybody know? Answers on a postcard please. Dale won both games by the way. On the way out, we had a couple of games of air hockey, was way fun but cost loads, like a quid for singles and then this larger doubles machine was £2 a game. It was really fun but didn't last very long.
We left the bowling alley and walked along the seafront to Appley beach. Was about 7:30 by this time so there was nobody on it however the weather looked ok. The beach at Apply is gorgeous. Not very big, but beautiful sand. It was fantastic because there was nobody there. Had it been earlier and a tad sunnier, there would have been so many people there so I was pretty happy. We went and had a little paddle and the water was surprisingly really warm. I splash pav and ran. Then I realised how difficult is to run up a sand bank and almost fell over again. We hung out on the beach for about 45 minutes and then I saw our wallets and cameras laying on the beach unattended while Dale drew a massive cock jizzing on Doug in the sand. Then I saw some black/muslim people casually walking towards them. They were like a family I think, they had like a young child but as I saw it, they still could have stolen our stuff and so I walked out of the sea and tried to casually stand by our stuff without it looking like racism. But then, the whole beach was empty, why come stand by our things? So soon after we picked up our stuff and moved over to the wall. I wanted a place to sit anyway and my legs were wet so I didn't want to sit on the sand. It probably did look racist that we moved away as soon as they stood by us but fuck it. And soon after we took our stuff away, they walked back up the beach, so I reckon the child was cover for their secret thieving!
We sat on the wall for a while and re-enacted a fail blog video where a woman gets tapped on the back of the head and then fains injury. At that point I remember saying 'I don't like the look of that cloud up there, we should probably go' the cloud was big and black and I was being racist again, PJ would have enjoyed it. We didn't leave then and ten minutes later, It started raining pretty hard, we had to run back to the car barefoot, The rain was pretty warm and we found shelter till it died down before we got back to the car. The rain started up again on the drive back towards Newport and by the time we drove down the dual carriageway back to Gurnard, you could barely see out of the windscreen because the rain was torrential and there were flashes of lightning. We got back to the house about nine and the rain had just stopped and the sun came out. We got home and ate snacks and watched Pulp Fiction, which Pav and Dale hadn't seen and maybe Darren also. I was quite shocked they hadn't seen it. I hadn't watched it since I was about seventeen and yet I remembered it so clearly. I love that film. Two of the lads favourite quotes were both Samuel L Jackson quotes. First one being "DOES HE LOOK LIKE A BITCH?" and the second, also a favourite of mine "SHUT THE FUCK UP FAT MAN, THIS AINT NONE OF YOUR GODDAMN BUSINESS!"
We didn't go out at all on Friday because it rained pretty much most of the day. It's crazy how soon the day goes. I have no recollection of what we did in the early part of the day although I believe this was the day we cooked a big ready to cook lasange that we bought from Tesco. The oven was shit. It took ages to cook and the oven chips were almost raw. Then, because it was a gas oven, I noticed a funny smell, a burning smell, I had just put peas on and i looked at the bottom of the pan to see if it was that and nothing. In the end, I looked in the oven and the plastic tray that housed the lasange had melted in one corner because it was too far back in the oven and the gas flame had melted it onto the flame. We took it out, it still tasted really nice actually, Dale got the plastic off the element and so it was okay. I also managed to break two glasses that night, both accidents in the space of an hour.
We also went in to Cowes to pick up some replenishments. We had gotten through all the fizzy and so we needed more. Dale decided to wear his Garth Marenghi style lensless glasses in to the shop for a dare. He kept saying that he felt like a twat. He looked like one too! Me and Darren got packs of Pepperami's. We ate loads of pepperami's over the week because they sold them in the pub too, although they were warm and greasy in the pub. We got some more Tango and Ribena and also crisps and sweets. It was another successful and healthy shopping trip.
Because it had rained all day, we watched movies pretty early on and had a bit of a film night. We also drunk all the alcohol. Dale was on bottles of cider I think, Darren and Pav had massive bottles of blue stuff called WKD. I had a pear cider which I hadn't tried before. I prefer apple cider. So I had 4 500ml cans of woodpecker. I got rather drunk again and began to get rather angry at people. I wont go in to details on who and why. That night we watched three films I think. We started off watching Resevoir Dogs, then we watched Stand By Me, which happens to be my favourite film along with Forrest Gump. Finally we watched Groundhog Day and finally we watched Groundhog Day. See what I did? That was a joke haha fat chance. After Groundhog Day, I went to bed because I was drunk and bitter and tired. The lads stayed up a little later I think.
Saturday was a bit of a drive. Driving on the Island is so nice because everywhere is beautiful scenery, fields, forrests, cliffs and beaches, although the roads are very poor and when you don't know how to get to the place you want to go, you have to rely on the sat nav which as we found out on Saturday, takes you down some pretty narrow winding roads. We packed a load of sandwiches and set of for Yaverland beach about three. We got out at the vantage point and took a photo looking out on a beautiful view. It then rained, we drove on to Yaverland carpark, I took a quick photo or two of Dale. My instruction to Dale was to look up like he's praising Allah, I happened to say it just as a muslim family walked past. I had seen them get out the car and I guess that's what made me think of Allah. Wasn't the greatest thing to say but we found it funny.
We sat in the car for a bit eating our sandwiches hoping the rain would surpass. It did after about 15 minutes although was very faintly spitting. We decided to chance it and take a walk up the beach. Yaverland is a lovely beach, was hard to tell that day. The coastline is obviously beautiful however the weather let it down. There were a few very bad windsurfers about. We got moderate enjoyment seeing one constantly get on and then fall straight off. I took some photo's on the guys on the beach and Dale got a photo for Pav's Dailybooth. Dailybooth is extremely important to Pav for some reason and we were always looking for photos. I was like 'whatever, cant get a less interesting photo than you sat in your room holding up the nearest thing you find'.
Half way along the beach it rained quite heavily so we walked back to the car. We drove back through the winding roads of Ventnor and up a road called 'Zig Zag Road' which Pav decided he wanted to live in because of the name. The weather was quite nice on the way back and we drove trhough a lot of little villages.
When we got home we ate super noodles and then watched Forrest Gump, another film that Pav had never ever seen :o I just adore Forrest Gump, I hadn't watched it for a couple of years and I really loved it. Afterwards we watched a cult 80's film that you twenty plus people may remember 'Weird Science' about two geeks who have no friends that decide to create a woman using one of their computers and it works and they get really popular. I love it. Darren thought it was shit, I dunno what Dale and Pav thought, I think they just thought it was really weird.
On Sunday, we drove over to Compton Bay for several reasons. Firstly the beach is awesome, but secondly the drive along the Military Road is breathtaking. Stunning, you see the dramatic coastline the whole way along. I haven't been along there for years because I don't drive. If I could, I'd go there all the time because I love it. Because I hadn't been there for years, I was actually taken back by how beautiful if was. Firstly we overshot it and ended up in Yarmouth, so we got out, took some photos of the beach and Dale bought some sticks of rock. Darren went in for what he described as a shit momento of the Island and then didn't buy one because they were shit, so he bought a white chocolate Magnum instead.
We drove back along to Compton and Darren and Pav got bacon rolls. It was seriously windy because we were on top of the cliffs but when we got down to the beach, the wind virtually disappeared. The weather wasn't that bad either, wasn't hugely sunny but the sky was blue and it was pretty warm. Dale, Darren and myself went into the sea. Dale and Darren were both wearing jeans that they had to roll up. The current was so strong, we could feel the tide suck back the sand under our feet and then as we got slightly further out there was like a sudden dip that took you deeper than you wanted to be. At one point, Darren and Dale ventured in a little further and got smacked by a wave that went over the belt line and up the stomach. It made me laugh. Dale eventually went fully in (in his jeans). We also dicked about filming a load of shit. Dale may be able to salvage a couple of minutes for a youtube video.
I think we were there about an hour and a half and then we drove back. Dale was wet through and had to drive back bare feet and in his underpants which were actually boxer shorts but underpants just sounds funnier!
We drove in to Cowes and tried to find a chip shop. The first one we found was closed but the second wasn't, so Pav being the only dry person went in and got some chips which we took home and ate in front of series one of Peep Show. I then went and slept for an hour and texted a few people, not while I was sleeping. About 7, we walked to the local pub. When we got there it was really busy with people eating and so we sat outside. That lasted about five minutes because it was freezing, so we went and sat inside. After about an hour, the place almost cleared out completely and so we could use the pool table. By about 9:30 it was empty apart from us. We played some more pool, I stuck to coke's this time and we left about 10:45.
When we got outside, it was really calm and much warmer than a few hours before when we had walked down. We walked back in the dark, which was fine because it was lit by lampposts until we got to the bottom of Cockleton Lane where we were staying, which incidentally was on a farm and had no houses around it, just horses in fields, was a very pretty rural lane. But when we reached the bottom of the lane, it was very dark and earie. It was definitely the sort of road you could get raped and murdered in! But thankfully we didn't, which I put down to good parenting.
We got home and watched some Alan Partridge and then went to bed. Dale and Darren fell asleep about half one and me and Pav stayed up on the iphones till gone half three. It was a nice time. We hung out for the last night we had. It felt close.
On Monday, we were up about midday. Dale had been up a while and had cleaned up like a good boy. We decided we wanted bacon with our breakfast and so Dale and I took a stroll up the top of the lane to a tiny Happy Shopper and got some bacon. By the time we got back, Darren had been told that we needed to be out by two and it was quarter to one at the time. That was shit because none of us were packed and we had a race against time to get everything packed and straighten up the house before we left. Dale cooked some bacon sandwiches and the fire alarm kept going off so one of us had to stand fanning that. In the end we rushed through and got out with five minutes to spare. It was two o clock and the lads ferry wasn't until 8:30 and so we had to find something to do. Firstly we went to my house and sat in the garden and had a cuppa for about forty five minutes to an hour and then we walked in to Newport and had a brief look around the shops, Sports Direct, Gamestation, HMV and then finally we went in Instore and I found a really nice huge cityscape wood mounted canvas print for £7.99 and a nice clock for £2.49 and so I thought 'why not'?
We walked back with me holding the huge canvas and then the lads bought a McDonalds. I went and got a final tenner out for the pub and saw how precariously close to my overdraft limit I was and then we walked back to my house. I dropped in the canvas and the clock and the we drove back to the pub and played some pool for an hour or so. We took a few photos and then drove back to Cowes and got the chain ferry back across to East Cowes. The lads tried to get on the 7:30 ferry but there would have been an extra £16 charge and so we just drove around for half an hour. We went past my old school and down a little road called Beatrice Avenue which I used to walk down when I was little, halfway along it, I was preparing to see my middle school and then suddenly I was like "WHERE THE FUCK ARE WE"? And they had built a massive housing estate halfway through the road. We finally found the start of the other half of the road and found my middle school, but the road had changed beyond recognition. There used to just be fields all around and now there were houses and roads. It was actually very sad.
Finally Dale dropped me off in the carpark where I was getting a lift back. We took a few photos and had our goodbye hugs and then they were gone!
It didn't take me long to get back into the whole online lark although it did feel weird being alone again after all the time we spent together. I loved every minute of it and I'd love to do it again. The lads drove back safely and today was just spent uploading all the photo's to facebook, and fuck knows when I started this blog. Was like four hours ago. I probably have missed little bits out however it's a pretty good account of the week. Whether you wish to read it or not is up to you however I wanted it so detailed for my own recollection. I wrote a very long blog when I went to Southampton in February and I asked you to leave me a comment if you read it all, so I'll ask the same again. I doubt nearly as many will now though because seriously, this is like a book!
Oh yeah and lastly, I managed to break a duck ornament a couple of days before we left. I was so clumsy. But it's all okay, she was happy with us and said we could go back anytime and it would be much cheaper if we do it the winter. So who knows :)
5969 words and seven full pages of open office. Crazy!
Bye x
I was very disappointed that both Dave and PJ didn't come. My natural paranoia has theories as to why they didn't, maybe they just couldn't and I should take people's word for things, maybe they could have come but didn't want to enough, whatever the reasons and I'll assume they were honorable. I missed them both and would have loved them both to have come down for the week. We also looked at getting either of the scots down but that didn't work out either. John had tickets to Russell Howard the night before and so couldn't get down to Birmingham in time for the car journey and the cost of flights and trains were ridiculous. Also the night before the trip, Ginger Chris asked why he was not invited down, to which I reminded him he had been several months prior, he told me I should have reminded him. We looked briefly at cost of coaches and the possibility of a spare of the moment decision to come but that didn't happen either. He has told me he'll be coming town to Southampton after summer in the city to hang out for the day. This may or may not happen, we'll see.
The lads drove down on Monday and got the 8:30pm ferry across with the car. We decided as there would be four of us, that having the car would be more cost effective and would be more convenient to get about the Island. Turned out to be a good idea because we used the car an awful lot over the week. Dale is a brilliant driver by the way, just thought I'd say. The guys came across so late and left so late because it worked out as £49 return for the car and 3 people after 8:30pm as opposed to £102 before 8:30. Made sense and seemed to work out really will.
I met them off the ferry and we parked up in the loading bay next to the ferry terminal so that I could get in. Just then a huge Iceland trailer lorry did a massive loop turn, it looked like it was gonna take out the pub wall but it didn't. The guy must have been a pro. Then he backed the lorry up with such speed, it looked like he was aiming right for us. He shouted some stuff at us as he passed by, I didn't understand him. But we got out of there pretty sharpish, after all, it had only been 2 minutes on the Island and we almost got killed by a madman in a lorry.
We took the chain ferry across from East Cowes to West Cowes and then drove up to Gurnard where we were staying. It turned out to be a really great place to stay although I think more than four people may have been pushing it. It's slept four quite comfortably but the lounge was a four person lounge so any more more have been tight. I have absolutely no idea what we did on that first night, I think we played some playstation. We had a few snacks that Pav's mum had packed including a box full of sugar cubes wtf? We didn't have any food in really that night but it was fine.
On Monday we took a short drive down to Gurnard beach and parked up. We walked along the seafront to Cowes beach where the lads had a bit of a skim off with whatever flat stones they could find. We walked up through Northwood Park and saw the tennis courts fully packed. We had decided to play tennis at some point over the week. It didn't happen due to a combination of factors including us not getting up early enough and the tennis courts everywhere being booked up. We walked on to Cowes town and drew some money out, then we bought some lunch at deckers sandwich shop which was a complete rip off. After we walked back through Cowes to Gurnard, we went to our local pub 'The Woodvale' and had a drink outside overlooking the beach. We then went on to Tesco's to get in the food. Somehow we were there for nearly two hours. I think we didn't put anything in our trolly for the first twenty minutes. I felt a bit sick from the car journey and needed the toilet which were damned impossible to find. In the end I managed to find them through an old school friend who worked as a security guard at tesco's. He was all ready for the big 'Hello, haven't seen you in ages chat' and my first words were 'You know where the toilets are don't you?'
I took a slash and washed my hands and then dried them using the craziest hand dryer ever. The power was than strong, it made your skin and in my case flab wobble all over your hand. It was crazy. Scared me at first because I genuinely thought it could possibly blow my hand off. After, I had the obligatory nice chat with the old school mate and went off to find the lads who in 15 minutes had managed to only put two things in the trolley, that being a pack of four baked beans and a loaf of bread. So we went round and got plenty of stuff. Mainly, sweets, crisps and alcohol. The weather at this point was gorgeous, the sunniest all week and we were inside Tesco.
We went back and probably played playstation and watched dvd's. I can't remember when we watched each dvd, we watched an awful lot over the week. It was cool. Very nice to sit and watch films again. I never usually have the attention span because of the blasted internet fooling me in to thinking there are better things to do online. We watched films I hadn't seen for years like Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs. Both excellent films. We also played Little Big Planet which the guys seemed to like but I thought it was wank. just walking along jumping and shit.
On Tuesday I think we were planning on going to Yaverland beach, we didn't leave the house till near 3 though and we were stuck in traffic, the weather looked like it was gonna rain and so instead we opted to go to Seaclose Park where the Isle of Wight Festival is held and it's right next to my old high school. The field was empty. It's crazy, sixty thousand people use it for a weekend but the rest of the time it is barely used, so we just had a kick about for a while in the field, ate some snacks and dicked about with the camera recreating the video styling of certain youtubers. Dale also managed to miss the funniest thing ever as he turned of the camcorder just before it happened.
So, we were dicking about ripping off videos and I thought I'd run out of the bushes which a big stick going 'arrrrrgggghhhh'. So immediately, you understand that a fat person running is gonna be funny. So anyway, the guys turned round and I assumed that Dale was ready with the camera. So I ran out of the bushes shouting and unknown to me, there was a tree root under the leaves on the ground so I ran, my foot slammed against the tree root and I fell flat on my face. It was majorly embarrassing but even I could understand that there is nothing funnier in this world than a fat person falling over and so I was happy that we had it on camera. Then Dale said he wasn't recording and I was gutted. Probably could have gotten £250 out of that. It was that good! Trust me.
We drove back to the house and decided to go get takeaway because I couldn't be arsed to cook and the prospect of chewitts and doritos for dinner wasn't appealing. So we were searching for the telephone number of the Chinese takeaway so we could order it before and have it ready for when we picked it up. First we found the number for Golden Dragon and Pav called it and gave me the phone. I said 'Pav, this is a mobile number', he said 'some businesses just have mobile numbers'. Anyway, there was no answer so I hung up. Immediately I got called back and had a Chinese person on the other end 'WHA YOU WAAN?', 'YOU JUST TRY AN CALL ME?' I was scared and hung up. So we rang up the other Chinese takeaway and ordered from there. Mind you I could barely understand a word of what she was saying either.
We drove down to pick up mine and Pav's Chow Mein's and spare ribs and Dale and Darren nipped round the corner and got kebabs and chips instead. I think that was the night we watched the film 'Falling Down' with Michael Douglas which is just a brilliant film, if you have never seen it, I would recommend you do.
On Wednesday, I think we spent most of the day in the pub playing pool. We rotated teams and played alternate shots. Me and Dale drank alcohol, Pav and Darren were on coke. I think Darren had a couple of beers later on. I was drinking Strongbow. I never drink, not because I'm against it, just cos I don't particularly enjoy it and I have no friends so I have nobody to drink with. So I am a mega lightweight. I could feel I was gone after two pints, over the night I continued to four pints and I can't remember but possibly a fifth. I was fucked, We walked back from the pub to the house. About a twenty minute walk. I was adamant that I would cook a curry when we got back, they didn't believe me because of the being pissed thing. So we walked back and I remember that we all held hands and Pav was telling passers by, mainly kids on bikes that we were gay. I didn't actually care, at that point I was more concerned with remembering how to walk.
We arrived home and true to my word, I cooked a curry. I was very nice except we had no sieve and so draining the rice was extremely difficult, I used the lid of the saucepan as best I could but it was a bit watery still. Was nice though, people seemed to like it, although Darren proclaimed it to be the hottest curry he's ever eaten to which we LOL'd because it wasn't very hot and Darren was being a big girls bra. After we ate, I had sobered up although the kitchen looked like a bomb site. We went and watched some films or something. I think we may have watched Garth Marenghi's Darkplace that night. Finally Pav understood where all our references were coming from. I think we slept pretty early that night, about midnight because we were all fucking knackered from pub times.
On Thursday I woke earlier than the other lads, about nine I think and I went to get a cup of tea. Then I saw the state of the kitchen after the previous nights curry and spent the next hour and a half getting the house clean. We left the house about 1pm after everybody had showered and went on to Carisbrooke Castle because castles are the new cool thing and we wanted to be in with the cool kids. I think we were supposed to pay £6.80 each to get in but we wasn't sure and just walked in because the gate was open. We walked around the grounds of the castle, taking photo's of things like canon's and walls which made me wonder 'How thick is wall?' we walked all round from top to bottom and I realised that actually castles are really dull, it's just like derelict walls, but it was pretty and we got a lot of nice photographs.
On the way out, the gate we had walked through on the way in was shut and locked and at that point we thought we probably should have paid. We were worried that on the way out of the gates, they might make us pay, so we tried to escape, but we forgot that it is a castle and is surrounded by a huge moat that had like at the least 8ft drops. Pav didn't care and jumped it, but I thought, with my weight, if I try and jump that, my legs with shatter, so Darren went with Pav and escaped and Dale and I walked back to the entrance/exit and realised that we could just walk through the gift shop and get out, so we did that. Inside, there were model swords made of wood that cost like £9, they were well expensive. There was a wooden bow and arrow strong enough to maybe fire a pencil a couple of feet and it was £28. So we left the castle and played a hilarious joke on Darren and Pav. We told them we had to pay when actually we didn't, but as it turns out, Dale is the worst wind up ever as he laughed about two seconds after we told them. To be fair, it wasn't funny in the first place.
We left the castle and drove to Ryde to go bowling. We parked up in the high street and got some more money out and then went and had a wimpy! Wimpy is quite frankly the best burger joint ever. In the 80's it was so popular before McDonalds just overran the place with their fast shite. I used to go quite often with the family from the ages of six to fourteen, but in the past ten to twelve years I have barely gone to Ryde. Maybe once every few years and so if I ever do, I have to get a Wimpy. It reminds me of my childhood, but also tastes amazing. God knows how it manages to keep going though. We walked in and there was nobody in there apart from us. Wimpy is still brilliant, they trust you to eat with real plates, glasses, knives and forks and they trust you to pay after you have eaten. It was so good, still the same taste as I remember when I was young. Dale had a quarter pounder and Pav had a halfpounder, Darren had a bacon cheeseburger I think. I noticed that the quarter and half pounders came with like a brown bap and I wanted exactly what I remembered from years back and so I stuck to 2 regular wimpy hamburgers. They were amazing, as was the chocolate milkshake, was well thick and icecreamy.
So, we all ate our meals and went and paid, worked out about £2.50 dearer each than a McDonalds. Well worth it!
We went to the bowling alley and bought two games which cost like £28 for the four of us which is silly money. Only lasted like half an hour but it was like, aint paying that much for extra. We were also put in a lane next to a group of annoying old people like between 45 and 65 and they wouldn't shut the fuck up. Laughing like nobody in this world laughs, the loudest laugh of all time, this woman sounded like she was in pain and I so wanted to punch her in the face. Why do bowling alleys do that? There were ton's of free lanes but they always stick you right next to somebody else as opposed to in an empty part of the alley. Anybody know? Answers on a postcard please. Dale won both games by the way. On the way out, we had a couple of games of air hockey, was way fun but cost loads, like a quid for singles and then this larger doubles machine was £2 a game. It was really fun but didn't last very long.
We left the bowling alley and walked along the seafront to Appley beach. Was about 7:30 by this time so there was nobody on it however the weather looked ok. The beach at Apply is gorgeous. Not very big, but beautiful sand. It was fantastic because there was nobody there. Had it been earlier and a tad sunnier, there would have been so many people there so I was pretty happy. We went and had a little paddle and the water was surprisingly really warm. I splash pav and ran. Then I realised how difficult is to run up a sand bank and almost fell over again. We hung out on the beach for about 45 minutes and then I saw our wallets and cameras laying on the beach unattended while Dale drew a massive cock jizzing on Doug in the sand. Then I saw some black/muslim people casually walking towards them. They were like a family I think, they had like a young child but as I saw it, they still could have stolen our stuff and so I walked out of the sea and tried to casually stand by our stuff without it looking like racism. But then, the whole beach was empty, why come stand by our things? So soon after we picked up our stuff and moved over to the wall. I wanted a place to sit anyway and my legs were wet so I didn't want to sit on the sand. It probably did look racist that we moved away as soon as they stood by us but fuck it. And soon after we took our stuff away, they walked back up the beach, so I reckon the child was cover for their secret thieving!
We sat on the wall for a while and re-enacted a fail blog video where a woman gets tapped on the back of the head and then fains injury. At that point I remember saying 'I don't like the look of that cloud up there, we should probably go' the cloud was big and black and I was being racist again, PJ would have enjoyed it. We didn't leave then and ten minutes later, It started raining pretty hard, we had to run back to the car barefoot, The rain was pretty warm and we found shelter till it died down before we got back to the car. The rain started up again on the drive back towards Newport and by the time we drove down the dual carriageway back to Gurnard, you could barely see out of the windscreen because the rain was torrential and there were flashes of lightning. We got back to the house about nine and the rain had just stopped and the sun came out. We got home and ate snacks and watched Pulp Fiction, which Pav and Dale hadn't seen and maybe Darren also. I was quite shocked they hadn't seen it. I hadn't watched it since I was about seventeen and yet I remembered it so clearly. I love that film. Two of the lads favourite quotes were both Samuel L Jackson quotes. First one being "DOES HE LOOK LIKE A BITCH?" and the second, also a favourite of mine "SHUT THE FUCK UP FAT MAN, THIS AINT NONE OF YOUR GODDAMN BUSINESS!"
We didn't go out at all on Friday because it rained pretty much most of the day. It's crazy how soon the day goes. I have no recollection of what we did in the early part of the day although I believe this was the day we cooked a big ready to cook lasange that we bought from Tesco. The oven was shit. It took ages to cook and the oven chips were almost raw. Then, because it was a gas oven, I noticed a funny smell, a burning smell, I had just put peas on and i looked at the bottom of the pan to see if it was that and nothing. In the end, I looked in the oven and the plastic tray that housed the lasange had melted in one corner because it was too far back in the oven and the gas flame had melted it onto the flame. We took it out, it still tasted really nice actually, Dale got the plastic off the element and so it was okay. I also managed to break two glasses that night, both accidents in the space of an hour.
We also went in to Cowes to pick up some replenishments. We had gotten through all the fizzy and so we needed more. Dale decided to wear his Garth Marenghi style lensless glasses in to the shop for a dare. He kept saying that he felt like a twat. He looked like one too! Me and Darren got packs of Pepperami's. We ate loads of pepperami's over the week because they sold them in the pub too, although they were warm and greasy in the pub. We got some more Tango and Ribena and also crisps and sweets. It was another successful and healthy shopping trip.
Because it had rained all day, we watched movies pretty early on and had a bit of a film night. We also drunk all the alcohol. Dale was on bottles of cider I think, Darren and Pav had massive bottles of blue stuff called WKD. I had a pear cider which I hadn't tried before. I prefer apple cider. So I had 4 500ml cans of woodpecker. I got rather drunk again and began to get rather angry at people. I wont go in to details on who and why. That night we watched three films I think. We started off watching Resevoir Dogs, then we watched Stand By Me, which happens to be my favourite film along with Forrest Gump. Finally we watched Groundhog Day and finally we watched Groundhog Day. See what I did? That was a joke haha fat chance. After Groundhog Day, I went to bed because I was drunk and bitter and tired. The lads stayed up a little later I think.
Saturday was a bit of a drive. Driving on the Island is so nice because everywhere is beautiful scenery, fields, forrests, cliffs and beaches, although the roads are very poor and when you don't know how to get to the place you want to go, you have to rely on the sat nav which as we found out on Saturday, takes you down some pretty narrow winding roads. We packed a load of sandwiches and set of for Yaverland beach about three. We got out at the vantage point and took a photo looking out on a beautiful view. It then rained, we drove on to Yaverland carpark, I took a quick photo or two of Dale. My instruction to Dale was to look up like he's praising Allah, I happened to say it just as a muslim family walked past. I had seen them get out the car and I guess that's what made me think of Allah. Wasn't the greatest thing to say but we found it funny.
We sat in the car for a bit eating our sandwiches hoping the rain would surpass. It did after about 15 minutes although was very faintly spitting. We decided to chance it and take a walk up the beach. Yaverland is a lovely beach, was hard to tell that day. The coastline is obviously beautiful however the weather let it down. There were a few very bad windsurfers about. We got moderate enjoyment seeing one constantly get on and then fall straight off. I took some photo's on the guys on the beach and Dale got a photo for Pav's Dailybooth. Dailybooth is extremely important to Pav for some reason and we were always looking for photos. I was like 'whatever, cant get a less interesting photo than you sat in your room holding up the nearest thing you find'.
Half way along the beach it rained quite heavily so we walked back to the car. We drove back through the winding roads of Ventnor and up a road called 'Zig Zag Road' which Pav decided he wanted to live in because of the name. The weather was quite nice on the way back and we drove trhough a lot of little villages.
When we got home we ate super noodles and then watched Forrest Gump, another film that Pav had never ever seen :o I just adore Forrest Gump, I hadn't watched it for a couple of years and I really loved it. Afterwards we watched a cult 80's film that you twenty plus people may remember 'Weird Science' about two geeks who have no friends that decide to create a woman using one of their computers and it works and they get really popular. I love it. Darren thought it was shit, I dunno what Dale and Pav thought, I think they just thought it was really weird.
On Sunday, we drove over to Compton Bay for several reasons. Firstly the beach is awesome, but secondly the drive along the Military Road is breathtaking. Stunning, you see the dramatic coastline the whole way along. I haven't been along there for years because I don't drive. If I could, I'd go there all the time because I love it. Because I hadn't been there for years, I was actually taken back by how beautiful if was. Firstly we overshot it and ended up in Yarmouth, so we got out, took some photos of the beach and Dale bought some sticks of rock. Darren went in for what he described as a shit momento of the Island and then didn't buy one because they were shit, so he bought a white chocolate Magnum instead.
We drove back along to Compton and Darren and Pav got bacon rolls. It was seriously windy because we were on top of the cliffs but when we got down to the beach, the wind virtually disappeared. The weather wasn't that bad either, wasn't hugely sunny but the sky was blue and it was pretty warm. Dale, Darren and myself went into the sea. Dale and Darren were both wearing jeans that they had to roll up. The current was so strong, we could feel the tide suck back the sand under our feet and then as we got slightly further out there was like a sudden dip that took you deeper than you wanted to be. At one point, Darren and Dale ventured in a little further and got smacked by a wave that went over the belt line and up the stomach. It made me laugh. Dale eventually went fully in (in his jeans). We also dicked about filming a load of shit. Dale may be able to salvage a couple of minutes for a youtube video.
I think we were there about an hour and a half and then we drove back. Dale was wet through and had to drive back bare feet and in his underpants which were actually boxer shorts but underpants just sounds funnier!
We drove in to Cowes and tried to find a chip shop. The first one we found was closed but the second wasn't, so Pav being the only dry person went in and got some chips which we took home and ate in front of series one of Peep Show. I then went and slept for an hour and texted a few people, not while I was sleeping. About 7, we walked to the local pub. When we got there it was really busy with people eating and so we sat outside. That lasted about five minutes because it was freezing, so we went and sat inside. After about an hour, the place almost cleared out completely and so we could use the pool table. By about 9:30 it was empty apart from us. We played some more pool, I stuck to coke's this time and we left about 10:45.
When we got outside, it was really calm and much warmer than a few hours before when we had walked down. We walked back in the dark, which was fine because it was lit by lampposts until we got to the bottom of Cockleton Lane where we were staying, which incidentally was on a farm and had no houses around it, just horses in fields, was a very pretty rural lane. But when we reached the bottom of the lane, it was very dark and earie. It was definitely the sort of road you could get raped and murdered in! But thankfully we didn't, which I put down to good parenting.
We got home and watched some Alan Partridge and then went to bed. Dale and Darren fell asleep about half one and me and Pav stayed up on the iphones till gone half three. It was a nice time. We hung out for the last night we had. It felt close.
On Monday, we were up about midday. Dale had been up a while and had cleaned up like a good boy. We decided we wanted bacon with our breakfast and so Dale and I took a stroll up the top of the lane to a tiny Happy Shopper and got some bacon. By the time we got back, Darren had been told that we needed to be out by two and it was quarter to one at the time. That was shit because none of us were packed and we had a race against time to get everything packed and straighten up the house before we left. Dale cooked some bacon sandwiches and the fire alarm kept going off so one of us had to stand fanning that. In the end we rushed through and got out with five minutes to spare. It was two o clock and the lads ferry wasn't until 8:30 and so we had to find something to do. Firstly we went to my house and sat in the garden and had a cuppa for about forty five minutes to an hour and then we walked in to Newport and had a brief look around the shops, Sports Direct, Gamestation, HMV and then finally we went in Instore and I found a really nice huge cityscape wood mounted canvas print for £7.99 and a nice clock for £2.49 and so I thought 'why not'?
We walked back with me holding the huge canvas and then the lads bought a McDonalds. I went and got a final tenner out for the pub and saw how precariously close to my overdraft limit I was and then we walked back to my house. I dropped in the canvas and the clock and the we drove back to the pub and played some pool for an hour or so. We took a few photos and then drove back to Cowes and got the chain ferry back across to East Cowes. The lads tried to get on the 7:30 ferry but there would have been an extra £16 charge and so we just drove around for half an hour. We went past my old school and down a little road called Beatrice Avenue which I used to walk down when I was little, halfway along it, I was preparing to see my middle school and then suddenly I was like "WHERE THE FUCK ARE WE"? And they had built a massive housing estate halfway through the road. We finally found the start of the other half of the road and found my middle school, but the road had changed beyond recognition. There used to just be fields all around and now there were houses and roads. It was actually very sad.
Finally Dale dropped me off in the carpark where I was getting a lift back. We took a few photos and had our goodbye hugs and then they were gone!
It didn't take me long to get back into the whole online lark although it did feel weird being alone again after all the time we spent together. I loved every minute of it and I'd love to do it again. The lads drove back safely and today was just spent uploading all the photo's to facebook, and fuck knows when I started this blog. Was like four hours ago. I probably have missed little bits out however it's a pretty good account of the week. Whether you wish to read it or not is up to you however I wanted it so detailed for my own recollection. I wrote a very long blog when I went to Southampton in February and I asked you to leave me a comment if you read it all, so I'll ask the same again. I doubt nearly as many will now though because seriously, this is like a book!
Oh yeah and lastly, I managed to break a duck ornament a couple of days before we left. I was so clumsy. But it's all okay, she was happy with us and said we could go back anytime and it would be much cheaper if we do it the winter. So who knows :)
5969 words and seven full pages of open office. Crazy!
Bye x
9 comments:
:) this was lovely, i loved reading it!
Rawrsome book Dom!
Sounds like funtimes.
<3
I read it all, even though I was there xD. It's good though to look back on, so we don't forget :)
I read... The majority!
Wish I could have made it, if Chris is talking about heading down maybe we could make a thing of it. =)
I read it! I'm fucking impressed with myself and your memory. I can't remember what i did this morning let alone a few days ago AND in such detail!
Sounds like you had a lovely time =] <3
@Sophie I did thanks, helped to have Pav's dailybooth so I could refresh the memory of when we did what.
@Dave a thing sounds good!
I enjoyed reading it, Dom. Glad you were able to have good times with friends for a week. I used to do that when I was younger. I'm lucky if I can get a couple of days together once a year now!
Are you familiar with StressedTechy (John) on Blogger? You should read his recent blog on Moods and Friendship - good advice, I think. He's quite a character, I guess, but he seems to have wisdom from life experience.
I created a blog recently, titled Thegenealogist. Haven't done anything with it yet, but since I like to read others, I should try it myself.
Paul
Read it, nice account of the week that twas. =]
It took me a few sittings, but I finally made it through. Sounds like a lovely island, I'll have to put it on my to-visit list. =]
-frumpyframpton
(my word verification is "fightlad" pretty awesome, no?)
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