British politeness
I think Bea has pretty much covered the floods and pant washing, better than I ever could given that I’ve been floating about in Stroud where there is still water in parts.
What I want to draw your attention to is dogging. Again.
Chatting on msn yesterday, we both agreed that we’d probably laugh about Friday nights events…given time, but just now we’ve placed an embargo on any mentioning of it unless drunk. So sit back, let me regale you with what happened via the medium of text.
Firstly I managed to miss not one but two trains back from London. *ahem* I can only blame my awful map reading for failing to notice that I was actually rapidly disappearing off down the central line in completely the wrong direction. Arses. By the time I got to Paddington all hell had broken loose and was informed by herself that some tosser at Swindon had caused a security alert. No trains moved for 2 hours. I had to console myself in the bar, and later with 3 (yes, I’m ashamed to admit it) packets of pickled onion crisps.
Aaaaanyway, after finally arriving home at midnight. On a bus. From Swindon. I tootled off to pick Bea up. She immediately recognised that it was my car outside, due to the fact that I had parked it diagonally into a half space.
Hats were checked, and off we went. You see, this time to make us more prepared we decided the best course of action would be to pretend to be blokes – so how better to pretend to be a bloke? Yes. With a hat. It was a flawless plan.
My little car practically zoomed up the A417 to Birdlip *cough* and we arrived just outside the lookout point. It was time to put the hats on.
Even though it was getting on for 1am at that point, there were still a few cars chipping about, mainly heading off to the carpark themselves wondering why 2 girls had pulled over and were stuffing their long hair under some hats. Probably.
When we arrived it was actually quite busy up there – I think we must have come at prime dogging time. We decided to be brave, and drive slowly past everyone, leer a bit, and then pull up into our own little bay again. Within minutes cars were all driving slowly past us, trying to look into the car. We just sat tight, giggling.
I’d brought some beer for ‘er to drink but it took her a good 10 minutes to open it because I refused to put the interior light on for her to actually locate the bottle opener and then figure out how it worked. Dressed as men we may have been, wanting people to leer at us in the car we were not.
At one point, some very brazen doggers came up and knocked on the car. To be fair, we were already pissing ourselves about something else, so their knocking only caused us more mirth. Much more. I was unable to reply to them anything other than giggling. They soon gave up and went away only to be replaced by someone we called “cock in a box” for some reason. He was very persistent. He kept looking at us, looking at him. He also kept hiding his face as car headlights swept past, as were we. Damn the nearly full moon though for illuminating the area far too well.
Some chavs came up to the bay next to ours and had a number of pisses, and tooted their horns and flashed their lights as if taunting the doggers. They may well have been. They may also have just been stoned.
When things quietened down, Bea realised she was *bursting* for a slash, and so we had to venture out of the car to find a bush. It seems that this didn’t go un-noticed. Upon hearing her peeing, I decided that I too needed a wee so we were both there behind a tree praying that no dodgy geezers were about to jump out on us from anywhere. It was spooky. The hilarity of the situation reached a crescendo, when *someone* had wind. If they hadn’t noticed us there before, the parping and very loud laughing would have given our position away very quickly.
A quick march to the car later, after being accosted by a group of men who were, quite frankly not at all fooled by our disguises, tried to gain an invitation to our car. This was not forthcoming. We decided to take our leave of Birdlip and give one more nearby carpark a try.
Moments later we were in Crikley Hill Country Park. It was much more “intimate” shall we say. One small car park, lots of cars, lots of men in anoraks. Nevertheless, we parked up and were immediately given the once over by aforementioned dirty old men. It was not good – they stood just out of view behind our shoulders.
They were a little unsure about what to make of us, to be honest. I guess they don’t get many girlies up there on their own at that time. One of them (the oldest I think) was appointed as spokesman and came to ask us what we were doing up there. We replied that we were actually there to dog the doggers and this seemed to appease them…although we found out later that they didn’t really get it.
More whispering was done, and then we were told that they (the people in the next car) were about to “put on a show for us”. Ye gods. I’m shuddering as I write this. They were at least our parents age…some of the dodgy old men we commented later could actually *be* our fathers or uncles. This thought was then banned by the thought police for being too hideous.
We wanted to go. Big time. Sat in a carpark at about 2.30am with about 7 dirty old men about to get a “performance” from people very much like our parents was about to push us over the edge. But we stayed!
Yes, that’s right. We stayed to watch old people shagging on a car bonnet, out of politeness.
Oh. My. Lord. The squelching noises I will take to my grave, as they had in fact already “been out” once that night already. The dirty old men kept trying to lure us out of the car, saying that we were perfectly safe, whilst muttering about our tits from a few feet away.
Mercifully, the show was quite short. In fact I heard him apologise to her. We waited what we hoped was a polite amount of time before running the fuck away.
It’s going to take a hell of alot of mind bleach to get rid of that. Needless to say, our curiosity for dogging has been well and truly quenched.
To sum up dogging in a few words: dark, waiting, rain coats, squelchy, and old.
Moosh
Tags: Dogging, Birdlip, Crikley Hill, Dirty old men
Floods Two
Actually, ‘er, over there somewhere, has gotten off very lightly. She merely lost her water supply for a few short hours due to a small supply malfunctions, unlike I, who along with the good people of Tewkesbury, Cheltenham and surrounding areas, and the chavs of Gloucester are in the full hard-on grip of the total no-water situation. I say no-water, but there’s loads of the bloomin’ stuff. It’s falling out of the sky right now, as though it’s not rained all summer.
I have to endure more horrid sponge baths than is right, or normal. I’m not camping, I’m not at a festival! If I where I’d have the brain-deadening effects of beer to enjoy and thus wouldn’t worry too much about some greasy hair or slightly whiffy pits (they’re not, btw!).
I* have to seek out fresh bottled water supplies, and queue for the freebies or pay stoopid amounts of money for water. Incidentally I hate bottled water and all that the industry stands for. But right now, I do really fucking love it.
It’s I* who has to hunt for water in bowsers, and then fight of other grumpy gits complaining about my taking of said water. Finding a bowser that actually has water in it is quite an achievement in and of itself, due to the wonderful cuntyflap kids who think it’s a great laugh to empty the fucking things.
I’m the one who is slightly concerned about the amount of water that somehow is getting through to my ceiling, and then dripping on my head. That’s not a good way to wake up although it is very effective.
I‘m not the one who has lost carpets, or furniture, or precious photographs, or important documents, or a home, or loved ones due to flood waters pouring into my house. I may be a little bit damp, and quite wet about the situation, but I’m very lucky.
*Possibly not the entire truth, but you don’t need to know that. Just didn’t want to be outed as a big fat liar by herself.
_Bea Whale
Tags: Gloucester+Floods, Woe, Sponge+bath, bowser, cuntyflaps
A Big Public Thank-You To Herself
She didn’t have to do it, at all. But she did because she is a very nice person like that!
There have been some boiler problems here, and I’ve had forgo anything resembling a proper wash either in a shower or a bath for a week or so. Actually, for a long time no one would want to have a bath in our bath, what with it being full of dried detritus until the cleaning fairy paid a visit!
She offered up the use of her bath to me “anytime”, although I doubt that meant I could walk all the way over there and turn up in the middle of the night for a bath – that wouldn’t have gone down well. Unfortunately certain other events took over and not having hot water in the house soon become the least of my worries. Thus yesterday, once she’d escaped the hell of the menopausal women (or work as some of us call it) she dropped by here and helped me lug one-to-many bags of over-due washing. And then I got a shower at her place, in a very lovely and clean bathroom! Which makes a nice change as I live with oafs and a ogre. A proper hot shower! Without the hot water disappearing after 10 minutes! And clean hair for the first time in days! I keep saying it (not so much here, so far) but truly, it’s the very simple things that please me the greatest.
On the journey we were able to catch up on our favourite hobby – portaloo spotting. I tell you, it’s the future! and discuss important matters such as “could you actually jump infront of the very fast approaching train?” Mostly no, although I’m paranoid I would, for some bizarre reason. We noticed the strange and disconcerting phenomenon of ordinary people carrying buckets with them. This isn’t a seaside town so it’s not something you expect to see normally. And something else we witnessed which really narked us off considering what people are having to do to get clean drinking water – a garage offering a hand washing service for cars, instead of using their usual big automated car wash. Now, I know everybody has their own priorities, but really, is having a shiny clean car the greatest of them all?! I think not.
Anyhow, thank you Moosh. Thank you for the hot, clean water to wash myself and my clothes.
I’ve no idea how I’m gonna repay this debt, which is far bigger than anything I own to anybody in monetary terms.
_Bea Whale
Floods!
I can’t believe how much terribleness we have over ‘ere in Gloucestershire. I had my first flannel wash last night. It was not good.
On the plus side, we haven’t been in work until today. Woo!
It feels very much like some apolcolyptic science fiction film with riot police cordoning off water supplies. We’re all just 2 meals away from turning wild. Baaaah!
I’ll write more when I feel less spooked by it all
-moosh
Autumnal winds blow. Or something.
God, I feel like I haven’t written any nonsense for ages. I’ve been ill. Honest! Evil headache sore-throat combo from hell. The only plus side to this is that I’ve managed to spend alot of time in bed reading The Master and Margarita (in English unfortunately), which is just ace.
Anyway, in my absense I find out that my extended lunch hour did not go unnoticed by the carpet-jumpered freak, she actually concluded that I must have gone to a job interview. Hehehehe. I think I’ll let her think that. Next time, I’ll disappear off to town in my smartest shirt (ironed) and clean shoes…but coming back smelling of beer is always a dead giveaway. Feck.
Fucking shitty fucking wank-badger weather. It’s cocking awful. It feels like autumn and I *reeeally* don’t like autumn. I have procured a couple of bottles of Russia’s finest vodka and am trying to organise a vodka picnic in the park. Wanna come? This is not helped by the bloody rain. To be fair, Bea didn’t exactly seem enthused with the idea of vodka and cheese – but I just know it will be fab (have some faith, dear. When have I ever been wrong about vodka? Errr, don’t answer that actually.)
Also, I feel like I want to put a picture here. And I don’t know what of. Hmmm. I’ll pick a random image off my hard drive and shove it here, how does that sound? If you’re lucky it will be porn…if not, it’ll probably be of the septic tank in Moscow.
Oooo, hard drive roulette. Excellent.
Moosh
Tags: The master and margarita, Carpet jumpered freak, Vodka picnic, Hard drive roulette
*hiccup*
Shit.
I’ve just had a 3 hour lunch break. Thankfully the bitch queen from hell is on the phone so that she can’t give me a dirty look right now. I’ve just had a “knowing” look from the one cool employee who watched me stumble through the main doors.
There is only one person to blame for this. I think you know who she is 
I also hold her responsible for the reason that my handbag is now eminating a really strond Davidoff smell and putting me off doing any work far more than the wine & beer has. Damn you.
*shakes fists*
God knows how I’m gonna get anything remotely sensible done this afternoon. Not that there’s that much left of it. Meh.
-moosh
Borders crossed: 2.5
I have to say 2.5 as I technically only drove the car across the Bosnia Herzegovina border to turn around as they didn’t let me in. Twice. Boo. (I tried to sneak across what I thought would be an unmanned border in a tiny little village. I was wrong, it was still manned. Damn it) There’s something very annoying about border officials – if your paperwork doesn’t look exactly like they are expecting it to look then they wont budge. No common sense required or needed for this job. *ahem*
The other 2 countries on my travels were smashing. Croatia really was like their marketing spin “The mediterranean as it once was” (not that I knew what it was once like…but it’s how I imagine Cyprus was before it got spoilt by feckless tourists. D’oh!)
Slovenia made a lovely change from the rocky coastline that mostly makes up Croatia (a very clever wheeze to grab all of the coastline there, guys) it has an almost Alpine feel about it. And it was good.
Bestest of all was getting to tick off 2 capitals from my list. Much yayness. I love capital cities, so deciding to go and try and visit them all in my lifetime was a very good idea. Anyway, Ljublyana and Zagreb are now officially ticked.
Ljublyana reminded me of Amsterdam actually, with it’s bridges and weird little streets (only without loads of cafes with people staring at shiny stuff inside) and if I’d had more time there, I would have definately considered going on a boat trip there. As it was, I was trying to rush to see a big tank museum…only to find it closed, so I could have gone on that boat ride after all. Damn you hindsight.
Zagreb felt totally different – a big cosmopolitan city full of big shops and monsterously oversized blue trams. A fact that scared me quite a lot as I found myself driving in Zagreb during the rush hour and got caught on the tram lines behind traffic. It did a tram-like bbbbbbring at me, but there wasn’t actually anywhere I could move to, so I just hastily avoided eye contact with the tram driver – hoping that he/she didn’t scratch the hire car (a month old Opel Astra, since you asked)
One evening in the hotel I even managed to gate crash a German welcome party by just quietly sitting and smoking a fag with my beer. It was great, as they were handing out free champagne (not normally included in the free bar thingy during the evening meal). I managed to grab not one but 2 glasses of the stuff as they went around and also avoided any tricky questions in German, which is always good. I did, however have to watch (at the back of the group) a dubious looking woman giving an equally looking dodgy looking german chap a handjob under his bum bag. Good god, why is it always me who notices these things?!! It was at that point that I thought the free champagne just wasn’t worth it, so I staggered off to bed.
So anyways, the flight home was the scariest of my life. Somewhere nearish London, the plane suddenly just drops out of the air. No warning no nothing. Gaaaaah! It must have only been for a couple of seconds, max but it was enough for me to think “shit, I’m gonna fucking die on this plane”.
I floated up in my chair, held in only by the seat belt and people were screaming up and down the plane. I could see people’s hair thrown up in the air, and I also watched mesmerized at one woman’s drink as it wafted up to the overhead cabins, like it does in films about space. After that, the plane rapidly climbed again and I made a mental note to check as to whether or not I’d made a will (I haven’t).
Luckily, we landed fine and I took some very happy steps onto the ground again. On leaving the airport I can honestly say I’ve never seen so many police everywhere – it was quite eary actually.
When I got my car back from the parky-carky place I pulled out, naturally onto the right hand side of the road, only to be screamed at by my passenger. I thought I should probably take it easier and engage brain.
Thankfully I did, as we ended up in a traffic jam only a couple of minutes out of the airport. The reason became obvious soon enough – an RTA at the bus stop. Only, they hadn’t moved the body yet. I’ve never seen a body close up before – not a real one and the image has burnt itself onto my retinas. The poor guy must have been college age, and at the bus stop were lots of school children and other collegey types all stood quietly as if in a trance. There were 3 or 4 other cars all mashed up, and I suppose it had only just happened – the ambulance was there, but was treating the people who needed it (I don’t supposed the splatted guy actually needed anything).
It was quite a strange day all in all.
Moosh
Tags: Bosnia Herzegovina, Croatia, Slovenia, Planes falling out the sky
