Bear blog

We went for a quick jaunt round Carsington Reservoir on Sunday with Stu. It was the most abismally unpleasant and displeasing ride I've ever been on. And I wasn't even on a unicycle.

I thought reservoirs were meant to be flat. This one decidedly wasn't. We started off along a long open stretch of path that ran along the side of a wide expanse of jaggedy looking rocks leading down into the water. And it was windy. Windy enough for me to fear the expanse of jaggedy rocks, at any rate.

But having fought our way through the side-winds we got to the end of

the path. A bit of snappy-snappy camera action and then we were off again. And it was fine. For the first minute or two. Before the hills got us.

We were outnumbered. They were everywhere and we had nowhere to hide. Our only option was to carry on straight into their ranks. They made me their bitch. The rest of the ride was spent panting, wheezing and complaining in turns.  The unicyclists, meanwhile, were doing very well. P in particular was just cruising up and down without really stopping for breath. Oh he of the gigantic manly thighs. 

Just before we got halfway round Stu, Lizzy and I stopped for a geocache. It was my first one. We had to trudge through a bit of brackeny undergrowth to find it but it was shiny and filled with goodness. Lizzy left a lizard puzzle and a porcelain duck. We took a peg and Stu took the travel bug. I've decided geocaching is a good way to periodically get rid of all the tat that builds up in the house.  

After that it was back on the road. Alan was feeling rough and was worried that his car was going to get rained on so we bikey ones raced off ahead and left the others to their own devices. They eventually appeared back at the visitors centre, slightly sweaty and worse for wear, but not before we'd sat down to chocolate and chips and had to put up with hordes of screaming middle class children. Shudder.

We stopped off at the Knockerdown for a pub lunch before heading home. Alan gave up at that point and returned to his sick bed. The rest of us chowed down. P ate about three pounds of meat, Lizzy paid for an £8 meal with a £10 note and got £6.10 change from it. I had steak and chips. Nyum nyums.

I'm never going back to Carsington again. It's a horrible place designed for fit and active people.  

We've just got back from a lovely sunny weekend staring at shiny vans. It was good. Having failed, yet again, to meet up with anyone to convoy with, we trundled down on our own and were going well until we got just outside of Malvern and decided to stop to buy a drink. And then the van wouldn't start again. Bugger. So Pete got on the phone to Roger who told us he could come and sort us out but that he was at least an hour away, especially considering that his brakes had just failed. But then the man from the camper parked up just behind us came over and gave us a go on his battery booster. 'Huzzah!' we cried. But no. It didn't work. So Pete phoned Roger again. I could only hear half the conversation, but it went something along the lines of:

-Roger, it's not the battery. Whaddawe do? Whaddawe do?

-Ah, it'll be your starter motor then. Have you got a toolbox?

-Yes. It's at home.

-Ah. What do you have then?

-One spanner.

-Is it shiny and metal looking?

-Yes, it is.

-Get under the van then, and shove it about a bit between other metal looking things until you hear a fizzy-bang-pop sort of noise. And then you'll know you've fixed it.

To his eternal credit, it actually worked. Something to do with sparks and solenoids or something. There was a terrible crackly-bang sort of sound, but Pete emerged unscathed and off we trundled onto site.

Vanfest was busy this year, so before we could get into the queue to pay we had to sit in the holding area for about an hour. But it was fine. The sun was out, and people were chillin' n'that. Everyone had opened up their vans and were lazing around the place drinking and playing with barbeques and stuff. So we did a spot of juggling, and before we knew it we were camped up with the Colligan brood. And then a bit later Roger&Connie appeared, having successfully bodged their brakes. We sat around for a bit and had a barbeque and the Baxters turned up and were funny and northern. I may have accidentally, inadvertantly called Joe a cock-rider, but he didn't seem to mind that much. We missed seeing Showaddywaddy through sheer laziness and poor organisation. I may never know what their top-ten hits were now.

Saturday was spent buying crap. We had decided beforehand that all we were going to buy was three washers that we've needed forever. But it didn't work out like that. We did a tour of the trade stalls and came back up to the van with one washer, a new interior light, some new door panels for the cab, a shiny new t-shirt for me, and some rags. But the rags we made use of straight away by T-cutting the van to try to get some of the hideous scratches and scuffs out of him. It worked a treat. He's all shiny again now. Very handsome.

We spent the rest of the day alternatively lazing around the place and wandering about a bit. I fawned over all the nice dog-dogs, and we saw my doppleganger. She was more stylish, and slightly more emo, and she obviously had a professional haircut and was a bit less doughy around the hips than me, but she had the same mannish charm as I have. The resemblance was uncanny.

We all met up again in the evening. The enigmatic Keith turned up (although I never did get to see his fire-engine van) and played about on unicycles. Roger has a very girly pink trials wheel which is too sickly even for me. He's a big fat woman. We gathered for another barbeque and the tat competition. Tat being decidedly slim pickings this year, we failed to find anything that could live up to Miark's exacting standards and thusly were put on the judging panel with Roger and Joe. Wendy won with an exquisite porcelain chaise-lounge photo-frame which scored extra points for a) being bought with a straight face and b) being sold by a man who reportedly said 'yeah, that's lovely, that is'. After the tat, we went and saw The Commitments play, timing our arrival perfectly to hear Mustang Sally. We boogied heartily.

But then it was Sunday and after a quick ice cream and a trip round the Show & Shine to see some posh looking vans, we were packed up and back home. The cats were pleased to see us though. And we get to order pizza for tea because we're far too chilled out to think about things like cooking.

Friday was all about scary foreign films, seeing random people, and having curly toes. There were blankets and cushions and screaming girlies, skittery fingernails on floorboards, toilet related deaths, too much pizza and dubious sex scenes. Oh, and just in case you were wondering, you know fuck all about vampires.

Saturday was all about seeing Rod in a shirt and tie (tee-hee), letting parents do the majority of the work, and a trip to Halfords. There was wallpaper, a dirth of skill on my part, fat hairy men, and an unearthed garden. Having hoped to have got the hall/landing/stairs all nicely wallpapered and ready for painting, I was a little disappointed in our progress. But I've learnt many things. Like plumb lines are funny, and wallpaper makes me swear. The garden, however, is looking magnificently like a garden after Pete's dad took his northern prowess at hacking and slashing to it. There's even edging on the lawn.

Sunday was all about looking at our new garden and deciding that a barbeque was a much better idea than carrying on with the wallpapering. There was an abundance of food, an abundance of people, my first trip to the park, success with boomerangs, and gooey marshmallows. We saw Matt and Sarah, which was very nice, Lizzy and I threw things at each other very poorly and failed to catch them and once again, Pete and I went shopping for a barbeque and bought enough food to last us a month.

Monday was all about deciding that it wasn't worth doing any wallpapering at all until the new windows are put in, and pedalling pedalling pedalling around Rutland Water. There was an horrifically annoying number of people walking/cycling/standing around where I wanted to be riding, an horrifically annoying number of people without the least sense of spacial awareness or common curtesy, way too many hills for somewhere that's supposed to be flat, and a pair of rather achey legs at the end of it all. The sun was shining though, and Alby was good company in between his bouts of speedily dashing off ahead for no apparent reason. I slept well last night, at any rate.

My wonderful weekend included bikes, Londoners, barbequeing in the rain, Ajax, vinegar beer and a delicious plate of Suc Don Cok.

Alby and Pee took me on a mega bike ride up to Darren's on Saturday. It involved a serious amount of pedalling and an even more serious amount of bitching at Alby's idea of a 'pootling pace'. Pah. There were three hills. The first one nearly killed me, the second one finished me off. The third one I only managed to get up by singing the Rocky theme very loudly. And even then it took me a while. I'm a dab hand at gears n'that now though. I even used the ones on the right. I have also confirmed for myself that I don't like downhills. They're too fast. I like going at a pace where I can put my feet down and not have them taken off at the ankle.

For some reason, we decided that it'd be a good idea to barbeque on Saturday evening, despite knowing in advance that it was going to rain. It did. But we managed to wolf a few sausages before retreating indoors for beer and sleepiness. (Which reminds me that I've still got half a bottle of San Miguel in the fridge. Ooh.) Also, Alby told me the sickest joke in the world. It was very good but I'm not sure whether my mum liked it. For some reason she didn't reply to my text.

On Sunday we got visited by a couple of dirty Londoners. Me and Pete met up with everyone in the Swan, but not before going mental at the cooker with half a bottle of Ajax. It was terribly satisfying in a way that Cillit Bang really isn't. I think I've discovered brand loyalty.

The pub involved drinking Varschteiner shandy (very yummy) and classical tart sediment (appalling in every way) as well as enjoying the simple pleasures that hog lumps bring.

Then it was off to the nice Thai place again where the waiter was rather harried and rubbish and the prawns were soily. Apparently. But the prawn crackers were warm which has never happened to me before, and the company was good.

I think if your holidays are going to end, they should end with a weekend like mine.

I had a very nice birthday, thanks for asking.

Zumo gave me a free smoothie which I thoroughly enjoyed (although it was a bit watery) and Pete got me a blender (because that's what old people get one another) and a bike (because I need to conquer my fear...and get to work).

And I got lots of books and lots of music and lots of CSI to keep me occupied till Christmas. Pete's dad gave me £20 which I promptly took off down Waterstones. Me likee three for two.

We took the bike out round the back for half an hour. It's blue, by the way, which should give you an indication of how fast it goes. (Clurb's law of physics No. 3 states that red is the fastest colour, but blue's not bad). I didn't fall off, although my turning circles are mahoosive and I'm not very good at getting on and off the thing. Oh, and I clipped a wheelie bin with my handlebars due to my appalling lack of spacial awareness. But I managed to change gears quite a bit. And I'm still alive. Bargain.

Then my parents turned up and brought even more presents. Which was nice. I've got a lovely big jar of manuka honey to be getting on with, a tube that makes noises, and a big silver bouncy ball for rolling around on. 

Then Lizzah turned up and I got a new cup and a funny card with stickers in it.

And then Alan turned up and gave me his Euro Millions application form. Which I may well fill in. And some comedy.

And then we took my parents to Siam Garden which was ridiculously good. The fish cakes are a must. And the waitress had big eyes. After the shocking disappointment of Thai Orchid's puddings, we opted not to bother with pudding there but still managed to leave sated. Huzzah. We have found a place we wouldn't mind going back to.  

To end the day, Pete and I sat in front of Die Hard and marvelled at how badly Bruce Willis has aged.

Lovely. Ta very much.

I'm all Bungaylicious once more. It's a truly wonderful feeling. Being back at work today hit me insanely hard. It took me a good while to settle down to the fact that people were rushing about and looking harried.

This year's Bungay was nothing like last year's. I did altogether less sitting around in the big-top and much much more sitting around in the sunshine. Lizzy wasn't there this year to spur us into going off site and Doing Things. We didn't go to any museums, hug even one windmill, nor did I spot a single otter. Instead, I befriended a pony and marvelled at Alby's unicycling skillz. Pwnership commenced. Barnsey and I made the acquaintance of Milly and sat by the side of the road pondering upon such themes as fluffiness and friendship. We discovered a pub. A good pub. With food. Good food. It made for a couple of interesting evenings, watching LP struggle for breath and partaking of deep discussions about Books with Alex. Dave managed to choke down a couple of steaks. I reckon his body's getting on for about 40% beef by now. He'll be mooing next year.

But whilst we were terribly sociable and friendly in the pub, I barely spoke to anyone in the big-top all week. Such is the curse of sunny weather, I'm afraid. I decided quite early on in the week that I would be forsaking tent and cafe time for sunshine and afternoon naps. And I don't think I was the only one. The big top this year was actually used for juggling rather than sitting around. I probably went against the grain by spending less than an hour sat in the cafe all week purely because I wasn't interested in poker or board games, and the lounge was so inviting and fit for purpose.

The other thing about sunny weather is that it brings people with it. Lots of people. And whilst some of them disappeared during the week, by the last weekend it was busy. Super-mega-hella busy. For Suffolk anyway. We probably increased the total population of the county by 50%. Although having people around was a bit of a shock to the system they didn't really cause any major problems, other than having to get the toilets pumped at least twice and managing to trip over guy-ropes an unfeasable number of times. When you're all collapsed under the blazing glare of the sun, or snoozing in your tent, or wandering back and forth to visits pubs and ponies and supermarkets you don't tend to get too put-out by people. It would have been absolutely fine had Alby not turned up. I wouldn't have had to do any passing and therefore wouldn't have got grumpy at there not being enough room in the big-top for our gigantic patterns. Nor would Alby have wanged a ludicrously long and spinny club straight over my hand and into the back of some poor lad's head. He was very brave not to have cried. I certainly would have. I heard the 'thunk'.

I saw two owls, managed to stomach lots of beer without lemonade, ripped the piss out of Darren unmercifully for the whole week, laughed uproariously at and with Bri-Bri (just one Bri), saw Pirates in Norwich, played girly volley-club till a little bit of wee came out, made new friends, marvelled at burping prowess, ate lots and did very little to burn it all off, learnt new words (fo-sheesy!), re-affirmed friendships, enjoyed the feel of dewy grass between my toes at 8 in the morning, got sad when it was time to say goodbye, and generally had the best holiday ever.

I'm sat on my own in the library at the minute, gazing wistfully out of the window and thinking that it's a shame to have discovered what Real Life is, to then find that I only get ten days of it a year.  

(Photos to come.)

We like the Wii.

*Grunt*

Coming down from my Bungay high...getting narky with the real world...

Of course, the trouble with documenting a whole ten days of Bungay is that the place is so chilled time seems to stop. Days merge into days, activity can only be roughly categorised into none, or a little bit. Which makes it very hard to explain just exactly what was so good about the whole thing, and exactly what happened.

Philip did us proud. His new engine is now snugly in place and looking very shiny. He's not exactly purring, but there's none of that ill-tempered growl to him any more. He didn't fail to start. He didn't stall. He didn't glug petrol with quite his usual voracity. He didn't blow oil all over Farmer Paul's buttercups. He didn't leave us stranded half way down the motorway. A success.

We arrived mid-afternoon on Saturday to find portentous skies and Farmer Paul finishing off the last little bits of mowing. Popped our heads into the tent in an effort to pay up our registration fees only to be told to come back later once we'd settled in. Nice. Nothing was happening, of course. I think there might have been a few people having a bit of a sit, but that was about it.

Later on, Pete went to retrieve Lizzy from the middle of the Bungay wilderness. It turned out she was only a couple of minutes down the road, but she would never have found the site on her own, so well hidden as it is from people who aren't special enough to already be there. Then we had a nice friendly round of ping-pong and later still, with the introduction of a Barnesy, we invented volley-ping-pong. To great amusement and a little bit of childish pant-wetting. The first night was the one time I did any passing. I did about ten minutes of pretty inocuous six-club stuff with Darren, but it hammered my hand sufficiently that I never really got back in the mood for it. That, and getting bashed around playing volley club...

And then I'm afraid after that things start to get a bit hazy. I know there was a lot of sitting. Lizzy and I read our way through half of the literature in Suffolk. One night we went on an arctic expidition and read in our own tent by gas light. Our only provisions were chocolate digestives and a mug of hot chocolate each. To say that the arctic winds were blasting through the canvas, our provisions were rapidly dwindling, and our minds were racked with worry about whether the boys would be able to mount a successful rescue mission and cross the wastes to get to us, we managed quite nicely. In the end, the desolation of the place got too much and we had to journey onwards towards Philip, where we made ourselves nice and snuggly warm, and also managed to melt the roof with the gas light. Oops.

We went out on a few day trips. On Sunday we wandered into Bungay to pick up a few necessities, like a chair for Lizzy. We walked straight into the middle of a garden steet market. Lots of plants, wicker men, nice smelling food, and a jazz band. We saw a whole roast pig, and Lizzy bought herself a rather snazzy deckchair. St Peter's Brewery had a stall there. The boys decided not to buy their beer rations from the stall though, and instead went to the brewery itself only to find that the stall was doing cases five quid cheaper. Much fist shaking commenced.

I think it was Monday that we went to the aviation museum. I didn't have much hope of it being any good but it was huge. And free! They had a morse code machine. Lizzy and I spent about half an hour being crap at it. They had loads of planes sat around the place, and round the back there was a wildlife walk. We saw a pheasant, but we didn't shoot it.

Mid-week we managed to adopt Barnesy and teach him the Ting-a-ling Plop game which seemed to please him. We took him on a trek to a steam museum which charged extortionate entrance fees. So instead of going in we went to the garden centre next door and played on a chair swing thing until it started creaking, ominously. We went for a walk down what appeared to be the only road in Diss and found a chip shop to stop at. Then it started raining so we ran back and sheltered in Tesco's. We were looking for spinning balls but apparently they'd got rid of the stock to be replaced by crappy World Cup footballs. Bah. But we bought barbeque goodness, and later in the day Dave introduced us all the the wonders of Halloumi. Nyum-nyums. We also saw a nice windmill, of which there are a lot in Suffolk. It wasn't open so we just went up to it and hugged it a bit.

Our one and only unicycle ride was along a stretch of bendy road from Hulver Farm to St Peter's. It was about 2 miles and very pleasant. Pete has swapped over the cranks on my 24 so I'm now riding on 140s rather than 150s. The improvement it makes is incredible. I can actually steer now, and I don't get that pulling off to the right sensation. Barnesy came with us and, fair play to him, managed very well for someone who can't consistently freemount and hasn't done anything approaching distance riding before. He well and truly wussed out though. About five minutes' ride to the brewery, Mandy just so happened to pass us in her car. There was a bit of chatting with Dave, then a sudden sound of slamming doors and a squeal of rubber on asphalt as Mandy raced off into the distance with a new passenger on board. We met up with him at the brewery looking terribly shame-faced, and not a little shagged out. He bought us all a drink to make up for it though. On the way back Dave sliced my ankle on his pedal and I bailed out in a puddle and got my seat soaked. I got back on to conquer the puddle but it made me look like I'd wet myself, so Pete and Dave walked back with me to the site. A good little excursion though. We even saw a barn owl.

We took a day out at Great Yarmouth. Lizzy and I spent about an hour and a half building a sand-city. It had villages and a bridge and everything. Lizzy was Minister of Home Security. I was First Defence Officer and Commander-In-Chief. Then we had fish and chips on the sea-front and commented on how many fat people there were roundabouts. We bought ice creams on the way back to the car but Lizzy couldn't finish hers so she went walkabout and brandished it menacingly at some old ladies who were sat on a bench. They didn't want it so it went in the bin in the end.   

Back on site there was volley-club to be had. Barnesy was trying to play nice cause Lizzy and I were only girlies and weren't really used to this competitive stuff. I was going for the jugular. We were getting quite good by the end of the week. I have to work on my bad-ass returns staying inside the court though. They looked good, but none of them counted. Once Roger had turned up (to lots of girlish screaming) we invented the run-around variation of volley-club which I'm sure would work if we were just slightly more capable. Something else to practice, methinks.

The show was top-notch. Grant did a superb little one diabolo routine which made me realise how few people I get to see just doing one. It's all numbers numbers numbers with these new fangled diabolists. What's wrong with just swishing one around the place in an amusing fashion? Grant also put on the best effort at a hat routine I think I've ever seen. The addition of a cane and a good aim set the whole thing off to perfection. Colin and Anwin did their thing. It was alright, but dragged quite a bit. Anwen's bra was the thing that best held my attention. Highlight of the show was Barnesy doing my special request (touching his nose). Best bit of his whole act. He should do it all the time, and maybe branch out into other body parts. Who knows where it could lead.

I think the best thing about Bungay is how intimate and friendly it all is, and how chilled and happy everyone makes everyone else feel. I know a few people were worried that because of all the interest in it this year, there were going to be too many people around, and that was all going to change. But it didn't. I don't tend to make friends, but I've gained a Barnesy, and I've shared lots of happy vibes with a lot of very cool people. Yey us!

Oh and yeah, it did rain. But who cares?

A birthday outing to Terracotta. I purposefully wore my shorts with the elasticated waist, just in case. I think I undid the button after my third course. I'm wearing the same shorts today and they're decidedly more uncomfy around the middle. I'm sure there's a lot more gut spilling over the top of them today than there was yesterday. Ah, well!

Lizzy didn't bother coming because she's lazy and ungrateful. And her dad was making a 'special tea'. But it's a good job, because she would have made me part with my uni before I was quite ready to. I don't mind Jon taking it, but I still need time to grieve.

We did see other people though. Steve looked snazzy in his posh specs and arrived promptly, which was nice. Philipp and Camille arrived less promptly but did keep me entertained throughout the meal with banter and humourous eating.

A good night out, to be sure. Although I do rather regret the lateness of the hour that I retired to bed last night. It's just going to make me even more grumpy at BUC. Still, I don't mind putting up with myself. It's everyone else who has to suffer.

Having charged head first into this weekend with the intention of Getting Shit Done, I'm left with an unfortunate sense of utter failure. This being the only free weekend we had for the next month to do those niggly things like sort out our lives, I had actually wanted to get on and do things. I'm now reaffirmed in my underachievement.

We started off well enough. Went to get eye tests and fork out ridiculous amounts of money for new specs. The first spanner in the works was the stupid man who wouldn't let me have the nice red shiny glasses I wanted cause he reckoned they didn't fit me; without asking how they actually felt. If you're interested, I can't remember a time when a pair of glasses fit me so nicely. But there you go. Then he told us both that we couldn't pick up our new specs for a couple of weeks because it's such an arduous and supremely difficult task to put a bloody anti-scratch coating on them. But I didn't really mind till we went back in a couple of hours later to pick up the shades we'd ordered only to find that the man had ignored my specific request for a dark grey tint on the lenses and gone for a slightly bluish-grey tinge which was so pointlessly light that it defeated the point of forking out an additional twelce quid to get them tinted in the first place.

Went to see a car. It wasn't great looking but it worked and it was very cheap. Didn't buy it. Then picked up Lizzy and went for a drive-by of a potentially nice house in Knighton. Looked okayish from the outside, but the kitchen ceiling looked to be falling down. A doer upper.

Then we said 'sod it' and had a bit of a barbeque. And very nice it was too, but not particularly productive. Neither was sitting down in front of Napoleon Dynamite for two hours. Especially since I was the only one who found it in any way funny.

Sunday was good fun. We bundled Lizzy and Darren into the van and went up to Stamford Hall for the VW show there. I was dazzled by it. All that chrome, glinting in the sunshine. All the pretty colours. There were about a hundred Herbies knocking around the place. And all the splitties! Droooool. Also, rather a lot of dog-dogs wearing bandanas and looking hip to the jive. It was nice. We wandered around for hours and ate nice donuts but failed in our purpose of finding an engine. We found a company that could potentially supply us with an engine at extortionate cost, but nothing to take home with us. How infuriating. Bungay is looming ever closer and I know Philip just isn't going to make it there and back in one piece, yet Pete seems terribly fatalistic about the whole thing. It irks me terribly.

The best part of my weekend was undoubtedly weeing in a bush. Lizzy has an awful influence on me.