Post by ambersalamander on Jul 9, 2007 10:22:30 GMT
It was tinpot. Truly tinpot. It was, as Medibot said, a comedy of errors! And we still managed to have fun.
Hannah, medibot and I met martello in Sutton (as he's the one with the car) on Friday evening. Martello had to finish work, get home, sort himself out and get from Eastbourne to Sutton before we even started, so we didn't even manage to get going until sevenish.
The first thing we did was take a wrong turn off the A3. This was not entirely our driver's fault as someone boxed him into the wrong lane (in fact, I recognised this person as a Sutton fan, so I shall be having words with him at a later date). However, getting back onto the A3 was surprisingly difficult and once we did so, we were heading in the wrong direction. In fact, we had to go all the way back to the junction we'd come on at in order to turn round But fortunately, we were in tinpot spirits and the whole thing was still amusing. I then got a call from Amber Aleman with details of the B&B we were staying in. It turned out that because we'd got a discount on the rooms, it was a B rather than a B&B. That is to say, no breakfast.
No further tinpoticity occurred (apart from martello nearly killing us all a few times ) until we approached Peterborough, where we were staying. I had some maps, but they were only relatively large-scale maps of where we were staying, and nothing in the way of how to get into Peterborough from the right direction. The roads were not particularly well signposted and the whole of Peterborough seemed to be taking part in an energy-saving exercise with respect to street lighting. We eventually found what was probably the A15, which we required, but may or may not have been heading in the right direction OK, I sent us the wrong direction down it, then we turned round, but at this point martello got fed up of it and took a random turning in the vague direction of the city centre. This made me unreasonably cross, because I knew that the A15 went straight past the road our B&B was situated off. However, I can't 100% guarantee that we WERE on the A15 at the time. It was tinpot.
We were all a bit stressed by this point, and martello helpfully drove randomly around Peterborough until I spotted a street name that featured on one of our maps. We were on completely the wrong side of town, but I managed to direct us to the right place. We only drove past the B&B once before managing to park, so that was progress. It was about 10:30, but someone was still about torob us of all our cash take our money for the rooms. We had been going out for a drink, but I was too stressed and tired and so was martello. I have no idea what Hannah and medibot got up to though.
The room was decidedly tinpot. One of the beds was so horrible you could feel all the springs. The curtains had several hooks missing and refused to meet in the middle. Like the rest of Peterborough, the bathroom light was so dim that you more or less had to guess where your toothbrush was in relation to the toothpaste. And some joker had programmed the TV so that the numbers on the remote control didn't correspond to the channels on the TV. We were also presented with tea-making facilities- teabags, sugar, cups and a kettle- but no milk, only cream! I made myself and martello a cup of tea, but I think he was too polite to say how horrible it was.
Because of the lack of breakfast, we woke rather later than we ought to have done. After popping into town for a quick breakfast at Wetherspoons, we headed towards the station, got our tickets and Amber Aleman led us to the platform where we all saw "Stamford" included on the list of stations on the display screen. We got on the train.
After a pleasant journey of a few minutes, we encountered a ticket inspector who looked at all our tickets and said with a certain glint in his eye, "So...we're going to Stamford, are we?" We replied in the affirmative. "Pity this is the Lincoln train then," he said. "The first stop is Spalding, and then it goes on to Lincoln Central. See that branch line over there? That's for Stamford."
Balls.
Fortunately, he was nice and didn't issue us with penalty fares or anything like that, and when we eventually reached Spalding about three months later, we'd decided that rather than get a train to Peterborough and wait 20 minutes for another train to Stamford, we'd find a cab. We wandered over to a taxi rank a little way from the station, and then realised that as there were five of us we'd require a larger car. Amber Aleman sorted this out while the rest of us nipped across the road to have a good look at Spalding United's very tinpot ground. I took some pictures- it's so tinpot there's actually a garden centre in there (although it's not exactly IN the ground, just separated by a chain-link fence I think). Martello then pushed me into the gates in a play-fighting kind of way; there was an ominous clink and the gates creaked open as the chain holding them together seemed to fall to pieces at our feet. Tinpot or what? I shrieked, "EASTBOURNE! You've broken Spalding United's house!"
Fortunately at this point our taxi arrived and we were, finally, off to Stamford. It took about half an hour. We were dropped off in the town centre, where medibot decided to use his superior knowledge of Stamford to get us more lost than usual. We walked in a huge circle around town before finding the pub we were meant to be in. At this point, it was well into lunchtime and I was a bit annoyed that we hadn't yet made it to the festival as it was our reason for going all the way up there! I then realised that I had left my camera in the taxi, which meant that it was now in Spalding. Then I realised that I had left my hat in Wetherspoons in Peterborough. It was becoming a satisfyingly tinpot day.
So we eventually made it to the festival and went straight for the beer tent. Things got a little less tinpot here and more beery. Until a CERTAIN Salisbury fan decided it would be AMUSING to deliberately create a huge 6-inch rip in my trousers. This problem was eventually sorted by the purchase of festival-stall clothing.
Details that follow are somewhat hazy. We got a very crowded train back to Peterborough- as far as I could make out martello nearly got in a fight with an obnoxious lady at this point - and I was so tired that I could only stay awake by ripping paper into tiny little squares and counting them. However, when we got off at Peterborough I was wide awake once more! A quick return to Wetherspoons was indicated by their possession of my hat, which I was able to recover. However, a drink was out of the question as Hannah was unable to produce ID.
We went for dinner instead at a pizza place down the road. We were pretty much full to bursting when a decidedly down-at-heel lady walked in, came up to our table and started asking if she could take our leftovers for her dogs. We rather warily said ok, she could. At this point, she started taking pizza off martello's plate and eating it herself! The staff asked her to leave, but we said they could give her a takeaway box of our leftovers and they did so. Most bizarre experience.
The following morning, we were again away slightly later than we might have been, especially given that medibot was meant to be at work in Brighton by 3pm. We had breakfast in Wetherspoons again, then made the trip to Spalding to get my camera back which took a rather long time. It was in the cab office, and I had to walk up some rotting and scary stairs to get it back. When we got back to Peterborough, martello went to get petrol, stalled the car and somehow managed to immobilise the engine. We managed to push the car into a nearby parking space, but despite having instructions in the manual, nothing seemed to work. The car was as unresponsive as Mark Watson in the 80th minute of a game. While we were waiting, I received word that a friend of mine's dad had just died, then got told off for using a mobile phone on the forecourt
After a while, Amber Aleman trekked off in search of a garage. Martello managed to sort out AA membership via his dad, and they came out quickly. The bloke locked and unlocked the car doors, then put the key in, turned it and the engine started immediately All we had to do was wait for Amber Aleman to come back. Medibot was pretty much late for work already, so Martello drove like an absolute maniac and nearly killed us all again ;D He was still very, very late though
A satisfactorily tinpot weekend
Hannah, medibot and I met martello in Sutton (as he's the one with the car) on Friday evening. Martello had to finish work, get home, sort himself out and get from Eastbourne to Sutton before we even started, so we didn't even manage to get going until sevenish.
The first thing we did was take a wrong turn off the A3. This was not entirely our driver's fault as someone boxed him into the wrong lane (in fact, I recognised this person as a Sutton fan, so I shall be having words with him at a later date). However, getting back onto the A3 was surprisingly difficult and once we did so, we were heading in the wrong direction. In fact, we had to go all the way back to the junction we'd come on at in order to turn round But fortunately, we were in tinpot spirits and the whole thing was still amusing. I then got a call from Amber Aleman with details of the B&B we were staying in. It turned out that because we'd got a discount on the rooms, it was a B rather than a B&B. That is to say, no breakfast.
No further tinpoticity occurred (apart from martello nearly killing us all a few times ) until we approached Peterborough, where we were staying. I had some maps, but they were only relatively large-scale maps of where we were staying, and nothing in the way of how to get into Peterborough from the right direction. The roads were not particularly well signposted and the whole of Peterborough seemed to be taking part in an energy-saving exercise with respect to street lighting. We eventually found what was probably the A15, which we required, but may or may not have been heading in the right direction OK, I sent us the wrong direction down it, then we turned round, but at this point martello got fed up of it and took a random turning in the vague direction of the city centre. This made me unreasonably cross, because I knew that the A15 went straight past the road our B&B was situated off. However, I can't 100% guarantee that we WERE on the A15 at the time. It was tinpot.
We were all a bit stressed by this point, and martello helpfully drove randomly around Peterborough until I spotted a street name that featured on one of our maps. We were on completely the wrong side of town, but I managed to direct us to the right place. We only drove past the B&B once before managing to park, so that was progress. It was about 10:30, but someone was still about to
The room was decidedly tinpot. One of the beds was so horrible you could feel all the springs. The curtains had several hooks missing and refused to meet in the middle. Like the rest of Peterborough, the bathroom light was so dim that you more or less had to guess where your toothbrush was in relation to the toothpaste. And some joker had programmed the TV so that the numbers on the remote control didn't correspond to the channels on the TV. We were also presented with tea-making facilities- teabags, sugar, cups and a kettle- but no milk, only cream! I made myself and martello a cup of tea, but I think he was too polite to say how horrible it was.
Because of the lack of breakfast, we woke rather later than we ought to have done. After popping into town for a quick breakfast at Wetherspoons, we headed towards the station, got our tickets and Amber Aleman led us to the platform where we all saw "Stamford" included on the list of stations on the display screen. We got on the train.
After a pleasant journey of a few minutes, we encountered a ticket inspector who looked at all our tickets and said with a certain glint in his eye, "So...we're going to Stamford, are we?" We replied in the affirmative. "Pity this is the Lincoln train then," he said. "The first stop is Spalding, and then it goes on to Lincoln Central. See that branch line over there? That's for Stamford."
Balls.
Fortunately, he was nice and didn't issue us with penalty fares or anything like that, and when we eventually reached Spalding about three months later, we'd decided that rather than get a train to Peterborough and wait 20 minutes for another train to Stamford, we'd find a cab. We wandered over to a taxi rank a little way from the station, and then realised that as there were five of us we'd require a larger car. Amber Aleman sorted this out while the rest of us nipped across the road to have a good look at Spalding United's very tinpot ground. I took some pictures- it's so tinpot there's actually a garden centre in there (although it's not exactly IN the ground, just separated by a chain-link fence I think). Martello then pushed me into the gates in a play-fighting kind of way; there was an ominous clink and the gates creaked open as the chain holding them together seemed to fall to pieces at our feet. Tinpot or what? I shrieked, "EASTBOURNE! You've broken Spalding United's house!"
Fortunately at this point our taxi arrived and we were, finally, off to Stamford. It took about half an hour. We were dropped off in the town centre, where medibot decided to use his superior knowledge of Stamford to get us more lost than usual. We walked in a huge circle around town before finding the pub we were meant to be in. At this point, it was well into lunchtime and I was a bit annoyed that we hadn't yet made it to the festival as it was our reason for going all the way up there! I then realised that I had left my camera in the taxi, which meant that it was now in Spalding. Then I realised that I had left my hat in Wetherspoons in Peterborough. It was becoming a satisfyingly tinpot day.
So we eventually made it to the festival and went straight for the beer tent. Things got a little less tinpot here and more beery. Until a CERTAIN Salisbury fan decided it would be AMUSING to deliberately create a huge 6-inch rip in my trousers. This problem was eventually sorted by the purchase of festival-stall clothing.
Details that follow are somewhat hazy. We got a very crowded train back to Peterborough- as far as I could make out martello nearly got in a fight with an obnoxious lady at this point - and I was so tired that I could only stay awake by ripping paper into tiny little squares and counting them. However, when we got off at Peterborough I was wide awake once more! A quick return to Wetherspoons was indicated by their possession of my hat, which I was able to recover. However, a drink was out of the question as Hannah was unable to produce ID.
We went for dinner instead at a pizza place down the road. We were pretty much full to bursting when a decidedly down-at-heel lady walked in, came up to our table and started asking if she could take our leftovers for her dogs. We rather warily said ok, she could. At this point, she started taking pizza off martello's plate and eating it herself! The staff asked her to leave, but we said they could give her a takeaway box of our leftovers and they did so. Most bizarre experience.
The following morning, we were again away slightly later than we might have been, especially given that medibot was meant to be at work in Brighton by 3pm. We had breakfast in Wetherspoons again, then made the trip to Spalding to get my camera back which took a rather long time. It was in the cab office, and I had to walk up some rotting and scary stairs to get it back. When we got back to Peterborough, martello went to get petrol, stalled the car and somehow managed to immobilise the engine. We managed to push the car into a nearby parking space, but despite having instructions in the manual, nothing seemed to work. The car was as unresponsive as Mark Watson in the 80th minute of a game. While we were waiting, I received word that a friend of mine's dad had just died, then got told off for using a mobile phone on the forecourt
After a while, Amber Aleman trekked off in search of a garage. Martello managed to sort out AA membership via his dad, and they came out quickly. The bloke locked and unlocked the car doors, then put the key in, turned it and the engine started immediately All we had to do was wait for Amber Aleman to come back. Medibot was pretty much late for work already, so Martello drove like an absolute maniac and nearly killed us all again ;D He was still very, very late though
A satisfactorily tinpot weekend