In many ways, this most recent of Whitby Gothic Weekends went so smoothly that it seemed unreal, as if we were travelling through a picture postcard memory. This began with the weather, which, despite the time of year, was warmer than April, sunny and comfortable - as Erith put it, "a nice day for those who like that sort of thing." There was fierce driving rain and wild wind only at times when we were mostly required to be indoors. Despite the fact that the rest of the country was smothered in cloud, a bright band of light cut its way across the map on Wednesday morning, setting out a golden path for us to travel. We set off in good time, stopping only to take high tea in Penrith's George Hotel, where I had a compellingly unsafe looking 'lime' milkshake which left green flecks on my tongue. Unfortunately we dallied a little too long over our sandwiches, so that we were caught in traffic just past Middlesborough, and the last part of our journey, over dark and winding coastal roads, was very slow. My phone would work only at the top of hills, so I had a strangely disjointed conversation with Weeble, who had travelled in by train and was waiting for us in the pub. One other notable thing about this journey was that remarkably few small creatures had died along our route - we counted only nine birds, five mammals and two (different) shoes.
Fortunately we got into town just in time to pick up our cottage keys before the agency's office closed. Erith and Donald took Horus to the flat to unload him whilst I enjoyed a first pint in the Elsinore, keeping Weeble company and catching up with others, including the drunken Glasgoths who had been taking care of him. Tal was there, with his small hippopotamus companion, already getting into the swing of things, and I was delighted when Hatchet appeared, as I hadn't seen him for several years; we'd talked, but it was good to hug him again. He was looking surprisingly healthy, and told me about the chainsaw course for which he hopes to find government funding. This from a man who was dissuaded from joining the army because he's too keen on blowing things up... When the others returned, Weeble and I accompanied them to the Co-op to purchase supplies, including special gothic cheese - aged, strongly flavoured, wrapped in shiny black plastic, and very cheap. :) We then drove out to Captain Cook's Haven, to our strange cottage with its upstairs living room and downstairs bedrooms, where the heating didn't work for several hours, all but for the fire, incautiously positioned beneath the television, where I curled up to keep warm whilst Weeble plugged in his Nintendo for the first of numerous games of Perfect Dark. I crashed out not long after our late dinner, but could hear him and Erith shooting things until about four in the morning.
I woke early, pretty much with the dawn, due to the kind of curtains designed to send Al Pacino mad. Donald was already off upstairs, watching shite breakfast television. I moped around restlessly until the others finally emerged around eleven, and shortly thereafter we went into town. Fortunately, not many other goths had got there before us, so we still found some nice bits and pieces in the charity shops. I got a purply pink long velvet dress of the everyday comfortable lounging around variety, and also a similarly coloured silk velvet cloche hat with black printed flowers on it. I also stocked up in the chocolate shop, purchasing enough liqueurs to last me most of the week. Donald and I were not so fortunate on approaching the second hand bookshop in Grape Lane: all of the Wyndham and most of the Brunner had already gone; but we were less bothered later when we discovered that the culprit was Erith, and that we had those books already anyway. I did find a John Varley book, Demon, which had somehow escaped my attention previously, despite the fact that I'd read its two predecessors, so I scooped that up and browsed on it sporadically throughout the week.
Back at the cottage, there was just time to eat (a tasty meal of salmon atop potatoes and creme fraiche), get changed and do make-up before heading back into town. Already the Elsinore was packed out, but it was a warm night, so we joined the crowd in the street outside. I had my gloves, so didn't suffer the way others did from holding my cold beer. Unfortunately, the Lip Service boa constrictor gown which I'd looked forward to wearing was mostly concealed inside my coat, but it did keep me warm, as did the pumpkin torch which I carried around in my cleavage in celebration of Hallowe'en. It was quite sheltered in the heart of the crowd anyway. There I met Edvamp for the first time, after something approaching eight years of online friendship, and I was delighted to discover that I like him just as much in person, so we hung out and talked lots. Dag turned up too, and said, among other things, that he might be moving to Dundee, which would be exceedingly cool, since then we'd be able to meet up lots, as he'd be able to get to clubs and parties all over Scotland. I caught up with assorted other people whom I see only every six months, and had lots of fun. Meanwhile, based on a photo which I took in April (see below), Donald, Erith and Hirez decided to form a band, and Wasp Factory offered them a record deal. It was a good evening, but my feet hurt by the end of it; we caught a cab home, rather than going on to party elsewhere, since Erith and I had to work the next morning.
Getting up in the morning was once again quite easy, in those bright rooms; Donald, whom I had wished to avoid disturbing, was actually up before us, shooting hostile agents in a military base. I quickly ate some cognac-infused marzipan for breakfast, then Erith and I drove into town to set up Incarnadine's stall in the Bizarre Bazaar. Downstairs was really crowded, and we had an unfortunate position there next to stalls selling similar things, so we got moved upstairs into an excellent place where the light really suited our merchandise. There we sat for the next eight hours, each occasionally taking breaks to get food and to look around the other stalls. There were lots of lovely clothes around as usual, but very little which was innovative or really striking, so my shopping was limited; however, I was delighted to find a pair of knee-high lace-up leather boots of just the sort I have been looking for (since my last ones died about six months ago), on the bring and buy stall but actually brand new, with really good soles. They'll need a bit of breaking in, but be well worth it; and they cost only twenty quid. So that was me happy. Incarnadine did fairly well, selling a couple of skirts and lots of other bits and pieces, and generally attracting positive attention. It proved a useful place for people to find us, and there we met netgoths Siobhan, Axel and Astrid for the first time, after years of friendship, which was very cool. I also got to catch up with Jodi, who was around for daytimes only, due to her illness, but wo looked a whole lot better than she did four years ago, having put on the weight which I know she was really struggling for. I was impressed; and I've missed her, so it was great to get to talk for a while. Erith and I were both tired by the time the bazaar closed, though. Fortunately, Donald was making dinner, so after getting back to base we were able to doze on the couches for a while and then consume tasty mushroom pasta.
It was at some nebulous time during this long Friday that the process of Justification began, and I was provided with a Netgoth Inquisitor tag. This permitted me to provide justification stickers to all those blue-tagged people whom I knew to be netgoths in the traditional sense, users of newsgroups. All those approached agreed that this was a laudable and pragmatic procedure, enabling us once again to distinguish one another amid the morass of IRC-bunnies, LJ users and so forth. I've nothing against those people enjoying themselves at Whitby too, but they're not the same as us, they're not people we know and are looking for, so labelling them as if they were has become problematic. It was good to have labels which were functional rather than just being fashion accessories.
That night, I wore the other Lip Service gown I'd been excited about, made of alien skin, but I just faded into the background next to Donald, whose recently shaved head made a militaresque bondage shirt look all the more striking, and most especially Erith, taking a brave first step out of the jeans and t-shirt lifestyle, wearing his new stiletto boots and the skintight shiny black PVC catsuit which he'd found second hand in the bazaar. This created quite a sensation at the Spa, where several people offered me bribes to 'borrow' him and some woman standing behind him apparently stopped and licked her lips while he was talking to Lyssa. Augeus asked if this corruption was my doing, or if he'd been heading that way himself; we assured him it was largely the latter. It wasn't much of a drinking costume, though, and he and I were both tired still, so we found the only remaining (chairless) table at the back of the main room and spent most of our time perching there. On my wanderings, I encountered Silentq, a most excellent unexpected discovery, since she was another one who hadn't been around for a few years, so we hung out for a while. I also got introduced to Casper, whom I'd never met in person before, and had not expected to find there. A couple of my friends have longstanding crushes on him, which made more sense when I observed first hand his remarkably intense eyes; he was a good person to drink with, and we wanted to challenge each other on a national basis, but weren't sure there'd be an appropriate opportunity; I wasn't convinced I'd have much of a chance, anyhow, since he'd already proven that he could drink Dag under the table, and Dag is one of Norway's best. Anyhow, I proceeded on my way, and spent some time catching up with Aidan, who was distinctly wobbly from drink, but nevertheless we had the best talk we've had since he moved out, and got a lot of things cleared up.
As events in the Spa came to a close, I was invited to a couple of parties, but had to decline, being altogether too exhausted. Fury sulked that I was taking Erith away with me, but was very pleased that I left her Donald, who had quite a bit of beer in him by then and definitely wanted to party some more. So Erith and I went outside and waited in the rain for a taxi, and I discovered I wasn't so very tired after all, I really just had to get him home and chain him to a bed.
In the morning, I woke sweltering from the cottage's awful heating system, aware that it was too early yet unable to get back to sleep. Erith moped when I tried to make him wake up too, so I went off to my own room, where I found Donald slumped semi-conscious on the bed making happy but incoherent wee noises. Upstairs I checked my phone and found a message from Weeble to the effect that he'd gone to crash at Aidan's after everybody had started taking their clothes off. Fair enough, I suppose. I found some liqueurs cerisettes for a early breakfast, and then, when Erith joined me, we had duck and orange pate on toast, and cheese biscuits. Thereafter, we drove into town to take a second look around the bazaar (there being some different stalls there on different days), but we didn't find anything we wanted to buy. So we went to the pub, and ended up sitting on a windowledge outside, it being pleasant soft grey weather, nicer away from the crowd. There we hung out with Dag and Silentq for a while, and were visited by H Duffy and Trizia, who were around only for that day. We promised to visit Leicester sometime soon and try to catch up with everyone there. Trizia showed me pictures of her cat, Sugi, who has been very ill recently, and I was glad to learn that he's doing well. Later, Erith and I walked down to the arcades, where I beat the crap out of some sharks with a mallet, and then we went home, where Erith made tasty charred duck and onion pasta for dinner. Byu that time, of course, the others were returned and restored, playing on the computer, though Donald had a hangover. He'd woken up in the middle of an orgy, and had recovered himself sufficiently to have some fun. Later, other people were jealous that they'd had no action all weekend whilst he managed to do such things by accident. ;)
That night I put on clothes I'd made myself, prototype stuff, but lost an eyelet, so had to hold them together with my old standby, black carpet tape. This made my skirt a little shorter than I'd intended, so I had to get up and down carefully, since I couldn't bear to combine it with the only underwear I had, as that would have clashed. Donald just stayed in his t-shirt and jeans, and Erith wore his recently made t-shirt held together by a network of zips - I kept having to repair him when strangers had left his assorted panels hanging open (he did wear another t-shirt underneath to protect them from the disturbing sight of body hair). Incidentally, it should go without saying that on all these occasions Weeble simply wore a black shirt, t-shirt and jeans, but he did manage a bit of make-up too, and was complimented on his 'immaculately groomed' beard. He'd been looking for Victorian villain style stuff in the bazaar, but without success. Anyway, the Spa that night seemed full some way beyond capacity, and was certainly too crowded to enable proper socialising. As a result, we were not stationed in our usual place - my apologies to lurkers who may have tried to find us there. Instead, we joined the Cangoths at the top of the stairs, where we used flyers to wipe a section of floor dry enough to sit on. Giolla came by, resplendent in a long velvet dress and black feathered wings, and provided nourishing sips from hir assorted substance bottles. Thus fortified, I descended into the rabble beneath, to sort out some various business arrangements and to seek some of those who were reported as having been looking for me. I found my dear friend LilEvilMandikins, whom I hadn't seen for about three years, and we had lots of catching up to do. Upstairs, EdwardS and Siani had arrived, and there was much talk of movie deals and EdwardS' forthcoming zombie flick. I've had my share of bad experiences with small time movie making, but it was good to discuss it with so many committed and capable people; I'm certainly willing to contribute where I can. I also talked with Augeus, who successfully managed to flirt with some tiger-striped creature who thought he was pretty, so that was cool. Though I wasn't particularly looking for anything myself, there was a lot of flirting going on that night in general (and stickers in the toilets saying "Respect my bitches" - Pimp Tails).
When the Spa closed, crowds spilled out crazily as they do, huddling along the path beside the sea. Some wanker tried to pick a fight with Edvamp over the Twin Towers disater, and I thought I might have to deck him, but fortunately he was persuaded to shut up and fuck off. There'd been enough injuries for the evening, with some poor Edingoth having to be stretchered into an ambulance after skidding on the wet toilet floor, hitting her head and falling unconscious. We gathered our people together and promptly headed off to Scary Lady Sarah's party, in a lovely little mews house just behind Flowergate. This was crowded with more a.g. netgoths than I've ever seen in one place before (I think it might be a record for the UK - there were at least thirty four at the event altogether), and there were quite a number of other cool people there too. I stuck a can of irn bru down my throat to keep myself awake, and Aidan pushed his caffeine pills at me until I consented to just the one; then I got onto the beer. I hung out with Casper for a while, then he went off into the garden to take special care of a bottle on Finlandja vodka. Upstairs, I talked to Narnia, and (briefly) to poor Siobhan, who was too ill to participate in a party at her own house. Proper illness, too, not like Dave the Hat's decorating of the Spa with 'carpet pizza'. Down in the kitchen, I met Jamie from Libitina, again after a gap of several years, and I was pleased to learn that his band is still going; I must try to catch up with them, and to go to see them again sometime.
The latter part of the night I spent slumped in a comfortably darkened room getting down to proper netgoth gossiping. ;) It was really cool to spend so much time with so many people who have been my close friends for years, but whom I rarely see. Donald staggered through eventually and curled up at the feet of a Norwegian friend of Dag's, who obligingly scritched his head until he fell asleep. At half past seven in the morning, Erith and I decided that it was probably best to leave him resting there, and we made our way back to the cottage. There I slept for about three hours before the light made something in my brain go ping! and I was awake again, having no idea how early it was. Erith was not amused. I went upstairs and fuelled myself with Irish coffee liqueurs and cheese strings, then read my book.
We didn't go out in the daytime that day; towns like Whitby notoriously close on Sundays. I would've liked to hang out in the pub, all the same, but no-one would accompany me. So we just hung out in the flat. Erith and Weeble misjudged the time when the Co-op closed, so there were no fresh ingredients for dinner. Donald was tired and hung over and wanted to stay in the cottage, so the remaining three of us set off into town to get an Indian. Curious small town establishment with its waiters peering from behind large counters with haunted eyes, big letters on the menu stating 'the management reserve the right to refuse admission'. I hate to think what type of customers they're used to. They made damn fine food, though. I had the most delicious lamb passanda I've tasted in years, though unfortunately I was feeling to ill (with my usual health problems) to consume much more than half of it. Erith did his best to help, but was himself quite full of 'Whitby special biryani', which contained all manner of bizarre things, including a whole deep fried boiled egg. Even with what I had managed to eat, I became less and less certain that my purple snake-print PVC hipsters had been a good idea... ;) Anyhow, we proceeded thereafter to the pub, in defiance of the general urge toward 'Eighties Night and Sexy Sunday - I had become thoroughly disillusioned with the former on my previous visit, and it had come to my attention that the latter had on this occasion lost its chill-out room, which could be expected to result in overcrowding. So instead I got a comfy seat and hung out with my mates having a few beers, which suited me just fine, especially as I got the chance to talk lots more with Axel. I also saw Falcon, another old mate of mine from years ago (still protesting about the bronchitis which my compatriot Talia gave him in 1996), and I met his new wife, who apparently reads lots of my stuff online, but who was much more interesting to talk to than most of those whom I meet that way. It was a good night all round, but at the end of it we decided we were all quite tired, so we just got a cab home. The stars were stunning that night, so I lay for a while on a picnic table to gaze on their expanse. Then Erith decided that, no matter the scale of the universe, we were all better off being warm and having a nice cup of tea.
On Monday morning, Donald got up at about seven, thwarting my hopes of spending more time with him and also thwarting my own attempts to sleep. I dragged myself out of bed too and went upstairs to find him playing Perfect Dark. So I munched some food, read my book, got bored, sulked, and paced about waiting for some action. I was on the verge of flouncing off into town by myself when the others finally emerged, so more food was consumed and then Erith, Weeble and I drove into the centre. We went along the arcades, whacking sharks again, and also beating up some small mice, moles and flies. This was a good way to relieve frustration. Thereafter, Erith went shopping, and Weeble and I proceeded to the pub, where we found our friends in the middle of a pitched battle, paper missiles flying every which way. Preacher survived being hit in the heart by several, but when one speared his throat he collapsed backwards, overbalanced by the weight of the metal in his hair, and went crashing to the ground. After that the bar staff started giving us wary looks, so our violence subsided somewhat. We drank some drink and caught up on the gossip, this hard core remaining as the weekenders drifted out of town. When he was feeling a little more alive, Donald walked into town to join us. We went shopping, and Erith and I split off to search in vain for charcoal, then went up to sit on the seafront near the famous whalebone arch, where we met JV, who was supposed to be in Leeds; so we talked for a while, and he went off to look for somewhere to sleep, saying he'd see us at the fire that night. The others returned, and we drove home, where Weeble cooked tasty hoi sin chicken with peppers and spring onion rice.
That night we caught a cab to Whitby's South Beach, just behind that notable drinking establishment known as The Duke of York. A small 'pre-fire' was already blazing there, its boundaries marked out by glo-sticks, with a few Leicsgoths shivering around it. I powered up Erith's Faraday induction torch (which proved extremely popular, mostly because of the potential which it offered for innuendo) whilst he set to work with his new entrenching tool, digging a proper fire pit. Scavenging parties were sent out for wood, and then angels did come bearing charcoal. The fire took a while to get going, but, once blazing, worked divinely, providing a good amount of heat. Unfortunately, lots of people were playing with sparklers, whose sparks burn me (given my fragile skin), so I had to spend quite a bit of time huddled up shivering against the harbour wall. Everyone ran for the wall once Giolla got hir fireworks going. I believe the problem was that theey were multiple ones, and sie would hold them until the first one went off; upon being dropped, they might fly in any direction. We had sent Giolla a long way along the beach to begin with, but still several explosives came flying too close for comfort. Poor Elise was particularly worried, wondering what to say to hir other girlfriend should Giolla blow hirself up. It was a shame, because some of the fireworks were quite beautiful, but nevertheless we were all relieved when they were over.
Donald arrived at the fire late, having been too sleepy earlier; I was glad of his company, since everyone else seemed very busy, and I wasn't really in the mood for the teenage antics of some of the more recent arrivals, nor for the suicidal hippie chick who kept tryiong to sing Kum Ba Yah. Vixen kept talking about a party at her place, doubtless wanting to get her husband Odie out of there before he injured himself throwing more lighters into the flames, and I wanted to go, but no-one else would move. Erith seemed to be having a great time, despite setting his jumper of fire twice and burning several fingers when he foolishly tried to move a melting can by hand. Eventually, leaving the fire in the care of a band called Deathboy, the rest of us went up the hill to the Little Angel, where we had our last drinks for the night. Weeble and I got a pizza, we chatted for a while with an unintelligible local, then we all went home. We never did see JV. We learned later that somebody had tried to burn Deathboy's guitar, and that others had gathered by the fire around midnight to feed personal items to it; Fuzzy Dave fed it his bathrobe, and only afterwards realised that he'd forgotten to remove his cellphone from the pocket first.
On Tuesday, Erith and I wanted to go for a swim in the Captain Cook's Haven pool, but were annoyed to discover that it closed in November, a fact of which we had not previously been informed. Instead, we went into town. I got a cool half-pink, half-clear sphere out of a machine, which had what is apparently a Pokemon toy within it, though I must protest that I know nothing of such matters. Erith got fish and chips (I'd had to take a nasty pill and was feeling too ill to eat, but enjoyed smelling the food) and we went to sit by the bandstand and look out at the sea. Rolling pattern of waves along the harbour wall, each followed by a crash. Erith muttered something about those damned Atlanteans again. Most netgoths had become sick of hearing about the Atlanteans over the course of the weekend, but nevertheless he and I had succeeded in capturing photographic evidence of their campaign against goths (including the dreaded 'hangover mist'), which shall be released onto the web in due course. Anyway, war or no, it was nice to get a little quiet time with him; this is something which I hope to do many times in the future.
Donald was once again tired that night - these weekends still take a lot out of him - so after enjoying his delicious chicken, leek and potato soup, the rest of us said goodbye and drove off up to the Abbey. It was important to visit, you see, as Weeble had never been there before. Of course, it was quite dark. We were once again glad of the torch as we made our way along wee twisting paths, up and down steps, through awkward single-person gates and over obstacles like fallen fences. We didn't get inside the Abbey itself, but came close enough to admire its gargantuan structure. From the graveyard of St. Mary's church we could look down on the locals' Bonfire Night celebrations, and admire safer fireworks. I still think that place, looking out as it does across the vast blackness of the North Sea, is one of the most beautiful the world has to offer, and I very much enjoyed out sojourn there. Afterward, of course, we went to the pub. A last few visiting Scotgoths and Mancgoths were hanging out in The Little Angel, along with some of the local ones. We had a last drink and a discussion about deep fried things which reminded me of the reasons why I live where I do and love my home. After that we drove back to the cottage, where Erith promptly walked into a light fitting and fell over, catching his head against a coat rack on the way down. Eep! I'm sure nobody believes him when he tries to explain these injuries, and they all look at me funny. :\ Anyway, he was distressed but essentially unharmed; I sat up with him till three a.m., while we packed and he cleaned the kitchen, to be sure that nothing nasty happened to him as a result of concussion. Also, he was anxious to have everything ready for the following day.
On that last day, as it turned out, everything went very smoothly. We were on the road by noon and in Penrith by half past two. There I was relieved to discover that the chocolate milkshakes were back on, and also that, sometime during the week, the natives had invented salad, or at any rate advanced the concept beyond two bits of limp lettuce and a slice of cucumber. So we ate pleasant food, and parked Horus outside the House of Kadath at exactly six o'clock. Fifteen dead birds had been seen along the way, including a pair of peacocks; mammals were lagging far behind, at a mere five. All in all, a remarkably trouble-free trip.
This way to go back to Jennie's Whitby Gothic Weekend reviews page.
Last updated 13th May, 2005