Stuart (Potatojunkie) and I set off to Whitby shortly before ten on Wednesday the 26th of October, in Erith's car, Horus. It was a fairly uneventful journey, though the weather was foul; much of the time we were driving through the insides of clouds. This had a peculiar effect on the balance of deaths we observed on the roadways; unidentifiable meat smears outnumbered identifiable mammalian corpses by eight to six. Birds still won, at twenty one, and we also identified two (different) shoes and a banana. In the brief periods when the weather brightened, we saw numerous farm animals enjoying the mild autumn climate. I noted that one group of sheep had got red on them. "Yes." said Erith. "They are zombie sheeps. That is where polyester comes from." Well, there's not much else to do when stuck behind roadworks on the A66 listening to the Stranglers' Hanging Around.
By an odd stroke of luck we arrived in Whitby at almost exactly the same time as the train, identifying a guy we'd ridden down with last time when we went into the cottage agency to collect the keys. Bad traffic and obnoxious pedestrians, however, made it very difficult for us to get close enough to April cottage to unload our belongings, so we missed Donald. Erith found him in the pub on going to meet TEP (the Emperor Penguin) and Adsevin. Stuart and I sorted out our things and then collapsed onto the couch with cups of tea. We managed a shopping trip later, to get food and related supplies, but after dinner he was so exhausted that he fell asleep. I went up to the pub with Donald to find many more exhausted people there. Preacher, who'd had only one and a half hours' sleep the previous night, was keeping himself going by drinking another pint every time he started to doze off. We chatted to strangers about beer and bands and Neal Stephenson. It was a pleasant evening, and pleasantly undemanding. Pints were bought for Erith in honour of it being his twenty fifth birthday, but he was to drag that out all week.
Before we arrived at our cottage, some kindly person from the agency had turned on the central heating so that it would be nice and cosy for us. It was already a warm October night. Donald and I had a bedroom at the very top of the building, and despite having the windows wide open all night we found it very difficult to sleep. I'd hardly drunk any beer, but I felt thoroughly hung over the next morning when I staggered downstairs for breakfast. Not the best start to the week. Still, I was revived somewhat by bacon, mushroom and onions. Then it was time for shopping to begin.
Once again, Stuart did best out of our trawl of the charity shops, finding a charming white satin top, a long silvery grey snake-print velvet skirt and a pair of velvet pinstripe trousers. I didn't find any clothing which really appealed to me, so, by way of compensation, Donald insisted that I buy a violin like the one I really wanted a year ago. I hesitated, unsure if I'd be able to do anything with it, but he said it would have value as a prop regardless, and that he'd enjoy borrowing the case so he could look like a gangster. After lunch in a nearby cafe, we took it home to try and work out how to make it go. Stuart had played before, at school, but had never set up a new one. Donald tried to tune it, and promptly broke the G-string.
By this time it was fairly late in the day, so we settled down to dinner and watched the news before proceeding to the pub. My legs were hurting a great deal, but Erith had chairs as promised, on the street outside the crowded Elsinore. Though it's difficult to socialise when chair-bound, I still managed to catch up with quite a few old friends; and, as the night wore on, Stuart and I came to the conclusion that we had the best seats in the house. Erith was approached by some woman he vaguely knew who wanted to introduce him to her single friend. They were both nice enough looking, but had awful boots. Erith was very drunk, still telling everyone it was his birthday, and he proceeded to launch into a ferocious argument with the first woman. Earlier, Stuart and I had discussed making Christmas-light displays of Marx and Engels to accompany any unseasonably early representations of God and angels which we might find about the town - now we watched class war ensue right before our eyes. At one point Erith, his middle-class virtues offended, announced "I bet you buy your meat from the supermarket." to which the confused woman retorted "I get cheap meat wherever I can find it!" This was to sum up the remainder of the week surprisingly well. Shortly afterwards, she started putting her hands inside Erith's t-shirt, whilst her shy friend insisted that she really ought to take her back to her husband. She then insisted on biting Erith's nipple. It seems she did this to several men over the course of the night - poor Malc was also quite sore - but Erith had to go and be the big macho masochist, and because he didn't protest, she kept biting. Only when she and her friend left did he start wailing and clutching the injured organ, which he proceeded to sulk about for quite some time. Thus was the Song of Erith formed.
After the crowd watching the biting had dispersed, I was able to make out Donald at the far side of the street, talking to Laura Waspish. They both came over, and Laura and I were glad of the chance to catch up. Erith, however, had other ideas, cornering her against a wall and endeavouring to seduce her. This process contained the admission "I have totally wanted to impregnate you for, like, three years. You are totally teh hezot." and the rather more obscure "I may be middle class, but I am thirty four percent wood fibre and that could probably be made into a bookcase or a table." When Stuart advised him that he may not be making the best impression, he retorted "Who are you to give me advice, with your leopard skin shorts?" "Stuart doesn't have any leopard skin shorts." I protested, to which he responded "That's what you think." This following shortly after an assertion that he and Laura had "so many exes in common: Jennie, and Donald..." (the latter never having slept with either of them, to my knowledge) I accused him of having secret affairs with both my partners, which effectively derailed his train of thought. They say it takes about six pints to make a straight man homosexual; I say that it only takes a few more to make him asexual, whether he likes it or not.
I was really tired that night, on account of the pain in my legs, so Stuart took me home a little before closing time. When Donald returned later, he brought TEP, Adsevin and Kara with him. We drank a bit of whisky and hung out, and Kara explained that she didn't have to work the next morning as the clothing being shipped in for her stall had been delayed in customs. All in all, this was probably a good thing. We sat up talking about literature and fashion until around three in the morning.
Later on Friday morning, when it came time to get up again, my right knee was hurting really badly. When I changed the dressing, a six millimetre lump of calcium carbonate came out of it. I didn't go into shock, as the actual extraction was pretty painless, but Stuart made me tea just in case, and I had to sit for a long time to avoid subjecting the wound to internal pressure. A breakfast of bacon and eggs was cooked for me and we sat around and talked until I had recovered sufficiently to go shopping.
Our first port of call on this shopping trip was the Resolution, which was far less crowded than previously - we assumed this was due to the bizarre bazaar now being spread over four locations. There were a few nice things there, but most were overpriced. Onward we went to the Spa, where Stuart got a pair of gauntlets with glow in the dark bones on them. I couldn't find much which interested me, so decided to invest the better portion of my shopping money in a dress by Morgana, with a wee black velvet lace-up bodice and a beautiful full, shimmery dark pink skirt. As usual, we saw heaps of our friends between the stalls, but it was far too crowded to stop and talk. I was glad I'd decided against wearing my long coat, even if its absence had caused me some difficulty in progressing up Whitby's steep streets, above the wind, without my hemline ending up around my neck. We took a break for food and refreshments after finishing there, then went on to the Metropole. There Stuart found a dark red cheongsam which looks really stunning on him, plus a nice soft black velvet shirt, and also a dark green Chinese shirt for Donald. My own quest was fruitless. I had better luck in he Leisure Centre, though it was a long hard slog to get there, and somewhere along the way I realised my knee was bleeding again. My compensation was a beautiful dusky pink satin and black lace bodice for just eleven pounds seventy, less than a third of the usual retail price. I was very impressed, and made sure to get the dealer's card - for Goththing. Next door was Kara's stall, which wasn't having much luck, probably because few people had managed to find the place and because, as a new company, they didn't have a wide range of stock, though everything was beautifully made. I hung around there and talked whilst Stuart found himself a cute little black and white dress for a fiver.
Our shopping for the day complete, I was exhausted. We managed to stagger down to the Elsinore, Stuart taking most of my weight, and there I ordered a whisky which went some way toward reviving me. Giolla was there, making plans for the bonfire, and we marvelled at how he'd got away with carrying a guy full of potassium permanganate and magnesium ribbon on the train. People compared their new purchases, and then we went home.
Because Donald is on a quest to hear more new music and because Stuart was reviewing the event for Alternative Nation, they both set off for the Spa immediately after dinner. I caught an hour's sleep, then took my time getting ready, listening to the Stooges. Shortly before eleven, I made my way carefully down the steps and across the swing bridge, where I managed to avoid local neds for long enough to obtain a taxi. When I arrived in the Spa it took me a while to locate the others, and by then I was exhausted again; everyone said I'd gone really pale, even contrasted with the goths around me. I sat and shook, trying unsuccessfully to slow my pulse down, until Stuart took me outside and sat with me in the cool sea breeze, helping me to relax. He told me I hadn't missed much, and that all the bands had been shite. Doctor and the Medics were playing when we got back inside. Before I went, someone had said that they were a pub covers band, but I had written that off as a mere figure of speech, so I was not at all prepared for what I heard, which included what must be the worst ever cover of Teenage Kicks. Lots of people gave up and left. I sat at the back of the main room, slightly more energetic, talking to Stuart and Laura and catching up with Aidan (it was something of a night of a thousand exes for me); he was making his first solo trip to Whitby for quite a while. Erith stopped by and made some inappropriate comments, and I advised him that if he wanted to talk about divorce he should get his own. EdwardS and Siani arrived then, and we talked for quite a while. At some obscure point, Donald started sulking. I took his hands and asked what was wrong, and he admitted it was the usual problem - he just didn't feel that Whitby was any fun for him. I pointed out that the most fun he had apparently enjoyed so far had involved picking on Erith, which he didn't feel guilty about on account of Erith's own frequently obnoxious behaviour. "Maybe you should try setting your conscience aside more often and just having fun." I suggested. Hmm. He's not usually up for these things, so I hadn't expected him to try it... All of a sudden, he started being entertainingly bitchy, and he looked much happier. Then he started talking to the Welsh woman whom his friend Joe had been flirting with for three days. When Stuart and I left to get a taxi back with Kara, he told us that he needed fast food and so was going to walk, and he'd catch us up, but he didn't seem to be in any hurry, with said woman perched on his lap.
When we arrived back at the cottage, Stuart was drunk and overtired and a bit sulky, collapsing onto the couch in his wedding dress. He'd wanted to look like the Corpse Bride - we'd spent ages on his blue make-up - but it never worked so well as at the moment of his collapse. Erith turned up then with bad red wine and tales of his own personal woe, which I indulged until about half past three, wondering if Donald was going to come home. By that time, I was really in too much pain to sit up any longer; I managed to wake Stuart for long enough to propel him up the stairs to bed, and that was that.
If Tim Burton's Corpse Bride was anything like mine in the morning, young Victor really did make the wrong decision; unless, of course, he liked his sleep, which was something I was already missing. I managed to doze for another half hour after Stuart got up, after which I was woken by the smell of the whole roast chicken he'd been out and bought from Somerfield. "There's something satisfying about bringing home a whole dead animal for breakfast." he said. In return, I offered to teach him how to make fire, since the house had grown colder again. We finished our breakfast with a liqueur chocolate course, then sat around drinking tea and talking whilst I tended to my injuries and summoned up my strength for the afternoon's expedition. Sometime in the early afternoon, as Stuart was finishing the housework, Donald suddenly arrived, complete with fast food. "You took your time getting served." I commented as he flopped into a chair with a big grin on his face. He told vague tales of long walks and uncomfortable floors and listening to Deathboy splitting up - slightly worrying news, as they were scheduled to play that evening. Then he stumbled upstairs and passed out on the bed.
That afternoon's mission commenced with a visit to the Whitby tea rooms, where we failed to encounter anyone useful and were squished by inconsiderate locals, though the tea and food was very good. Our shopping thereafter was not very successful; neither Stuart nor I bought anything, and I needed so many recovery stops that we ended up being too late to return to the second hand stall in the Metropole. We did meet a few good friends, though, and I arrived home less broken than previously. After eating a good dinner, watching the news, and shaking a bit of life back into Donald, we caught a cab up to the Spa. There we discovered that Deathboy had had second thoughts about their split, and were ready to play after all. The others went in to watch the bands whilst I sat by the windows with assorted friends. In my new dress, I co-ordinated nicely with Stuart, who was wearing his famous 'ethernet trousers' - EdwardS teased Kara about staring as he walked away, and she protested that she was only watching the seams - as a designer, she wanted to know how every interesting piece of clothing was cut. There wasn't a great deal of interesting stuff around, however. One woman had made an effort and dressed up as an angel, but, with her enormous wings, she more closely resembled a partition wall, which is an unfortunate thing to position beside a crowded bar. Other clothes were often flattering, but somewhat routine. All agreed that Whitby really needs to be re-gothed. Laura did her very best all by herself, arriving late and quite distressed. She'd been drinking heavily, had been involved in a complicated sexual encounter in the pub, and had found herself locked out of her flat, unable to shower or change; she curled up in a chair in her dark clothing and smudghed make-up whilst I tried to explain that this was very far from making her socially unacceptable. Stuart probably did more to cheer her up, mind; when he stood up, she said that she suddenly understood why people had compared his trousers to Iggy Pop's. He was pretty pleased, as he got the first snog with her that he was sober enough to remember.
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All in all, it was a good night. The other bands weren't up to much, but Glasgow's very own Rico blew the crowd away. Everybody was raving about them. I was glad to see them get the attention which they should have had years ago, and I hope this can help to launch a bigger career for them. It prompted Donald to buy their CD right away. He was hanging out with Rowan, the Welsh woman with the peculiar ears, again, and he briefly introduced her to me, though she seemed to feel uncomfortable about it; Adsevin planned to reassure her that this was unnecessary. Stuck in my chair though I was, I managed to meet a few other new people, including a different Rowan who has recently started going out on the Glasgow scene, and whom I hope to see around. Laura became still more inebriated and began obsessively telling me how much she cares about me, which I attempted to ensure her I already understood. Then I looked round... and Siani was sitting on top of Erith, snogging him passionately. Um. Those two have been squabbling intensely for years - their usual greeting is a mutual accusation of "You smell of wee!" Clearly, something had broken. Everyone sat around not quite knowing what to say, until Stuart and I, being once again very tired, needed to retrieve our coats from under their chair, at which point they each got a slap on the arse. It didn't seem to distract them for very long. They bounced past us, arm in arm, as we waited for our taxi. We didn't have quite so much bounce, and passed out almost as soon as we got home.
Sunday morning was quite confused, owing to the fact that the clocks were supposed to have gone back an hour for the end of British Summertime, but several organisations had failed to notice this. One of these was the BBC, or at least its Ceefax text division; another was St. Mary's Church. The church went on spreading lies for the remainder of our stay. Whitby gothic weekends can present quite enough chronological confusion without that sort of thing. To add to it, Stuart and I discovered that our kitchen clock had stopped, its hands contorted as if someone had tried to reposition them manually (instead of using the little twiddly thing at the back). It had stopped at six o'clock, about the time we'd heard Donald come in from Tal's party. When questioned, however, he denied all knowledge, eventually allowing that he might have 'bumped' it. We tidied the room and picked the eggshells up from the carpet and said no more. I settled to reading my text messages, which included one from Erith noting that he'd experienced a sudden attack of conscience - had he picked up what Donald dropped? - and had declined Siani's offer after all, not wanting to upset EdwardS. Apparently the latter then pouted about people not properly appreciating his woman.
Despite it being Sunday in a small English town, many local shops were open for the afternoon, eager to attract goth spending power. The three of us spent an hour or so wandering round them finding presents for our people back home. We had a delicious lunch in the wee cafe beside the marketplace, where gothed-up teenaged waitresses speculated on the things they wanted to do when they grew up - "not just getting married straight away and having kids" - which is bold talk in those parts. Stuart and I drank lurid milkshakes topped with cream and Cadbury's flakes whilst Donald gave us long-suffering looks from behind his sandwich.
Later that afternoon, assorted people converged on our cottage for a game of Zombies! It was fun hanging out, but the game didn't progress very far, as everyone was too anxious to get ready for 'Eighties Night. Donald left early to go to the pub. Seeing my violin, EdwardS tuned it and fixed up the bow properly and gave me a quick lesson in how to play it. He seemed very impressed with my attempts - I found it easy to produce smooth notes - and asked me if it was really the first time I'd picked up such an instrument. I was really surprised by how simple I found it once I knew what to do - I've never had such an intuitive relationship with any musical device before. After helping Stuart to get ready for his evening's dancing - by drawing the outlines of cuts of meat all over his body with a marker pen - I spent a good part of the night practising with it. I learned to make all five notes on each (remaining) string fairly reliably, and to play, albeit haltingly, the first wee bit of The Irish Rover. It was immensely enjoyable, and is something I intend to persevere with.
Having taken my fingers to the point where they'd be damaged if I played for longer, I made my way up to the pub, where I discovered a very drunken Donald sitting in a corner with a couple of distinctly inebriated locals and with Matt and Lindsey, two Glasgoths not known for their sobriety. Apparently, he had decided that his plan for the evening was to get as drunk as possible, and so he was drinking as fast as he could - about a pint every twenty minutes. He was extremely cheerful about the whole process, and so charming and sociable that the local couple missed their bus twice before giving up and phoning for their son to come and collect them. I kept a vague eye on him, but saw no reason to intervene, and sat talking to Lindsey and to a couple of strangers who made incredible balloon animals which included - by special request - Cerberus. Edvamp came in after they'd gone and told us he'd once met a guy who could make a convincing balloon chainsaw. He updated me on gossip which Donald had forgotten from the night before. I'd been a little concerned about Kara, given that she's monogamous and sometimes overly polite and given how Tal's parties tend to go, but it seems that she was treated as some sort of holy virgin, everyone in awe of unfamiliar innocence.
At closing time, Erith helped me to walk down the hill, which unfortunately meant that we lacked the resources to physically manouver Donald. Instead, he had to be directed by means of a series of shouts, though I hated to disturb sleeping locals. We met Tal, looking very glamourous in skimpy PVC; feeling ill himself, he was being escorted home by Karl so he could rest before proceeding to the Abbey. I noted that the famous hundred and ninety nine steps were closed for repair, but he said they'd take a taxi. Donald curled up against him and almost fell asleep standing, but we managed to get him moving again. On the way along the High Street, it took all my powers of persuasion to get him out of the way of cars - he said he didn't want to use the pavement and that, if they wanted to get past, it was their turn to do so. Then he zoomed off to the cottage too fast for us to follow, and we could only hope he'd be okay.
As usual, Erith set up our folding chairs in the street opposite Laughton's, and we listened to the last few (predictable) songs of 'Eighties Night. I talked to various old friends as they emerged - people I'd been unable to find earlier in the week due to my mobility problems. They were all exhausted. Adsevin, however, came out full of energy, having definitely pulled, though at that stage she wasn't quite sure which of the two interested parties she was going home with. Siani was also in a bouncy mood, having entertained the crowd by pulling down Aidan's trousers on the dancefloor to show everyone his bum ("I saw the whole of the moon!" she declared, prompting Stuart to respond "too fast and too soon.") I gave her my seat so she could snuggle up with Erith. EdwardS was still inside, reportedly not really wanting to leave after one of the best nights out he'd ever had - all because Kara had forced him to dance, and for a little while his self-consciousness had left him. There is, after all, no sense in worrying about how one looks when everybody comes out trashed. At least Stuart didn't have any serious injuries this time, probably due to the lack of Dead Kennedys. Where I had written 'brisket' on his upper chest, Giolla had rubbed away three of the letters to leave it saying 'risk'.
Because I couldn't stand for long, Stuart and I left fairly promptly, heading straight back to the cottage where we found Donald passed out on top of my violin bow. Fortunately it wasn't damaged, and a brief tune (notably less well co-ordinated than before I'd been to the pub) proved sufficient to wake him. I sent him directly upstairs to bed, where he fell over and slept like a log. In the morning, he woke up still drunk and declared his mission accomplished.
Whilst I breakfasted on chocolates and biscuits, Stuart, being rather more peckish, popped round the corner to get scampi. He met EdwardS, Siani and Kara wandering down the street, and Siani had to hide away from him because the smell of his breakfast made her feel so sick. "Do you need something for your stomach?" asked EdwardS. "Like a bag?"
That afternoon, Stuart and I accepted an invitation to visit Adsevin's cottage and admire her shopping loot. Stuart did very well out of it, receiving a pair of spiderweb gloves which didn't fit her. We drank tea and caught up on news and gossip, and saw Erith, whom we'd been trying to contact all day. He looked very much the worse for wear, and said he regretted having compared his interest in Siani to the Sevastopol campaign, as it had all ended with frostbite in the mud after she'd decided she wanted to go up to the Abbey. They had decided that nothing was ever going to happen between them again, Siani citing profound sexual incompatability and Erith citing musical differences. He was still sulking about his earlier injury, too, his cloven nipple held together with black sticking plasters.
Once he felt well enough to drag himself out of the house, Erith accompanied us to the cottage letting agency, where we booked our accomodation for both next year's events. Arriving at our close thereafter, Stuart and I found Donald descending the steps on his way back to the pub, but he came inside with us instead to talk and eat. We took a few hours to relax before heading down to South Beach for the fire. This was smaller than usual, due to a shortage of wood, but it was another unseasonably warm night, and we had no difficulty in making ourselves comfortable. The six pork and caramelised onion sausages which we handed over for barbecueing came back as just one each, but there were plenty of other tasty things going about. Squirrel fed us chocolate and looked confused when I said it was okay for him to eat some himself. He was on a mission to find people to bury in the sand with his plastic spade. I suggested volunteering for this to a woman who kept complaining she was cold, but she didn't want to ruin her top - not that there was much of it to begin with. Leaning over eagerly to make the acquaintance of strangers, she kept inadvertently introducing people to her tits. She said that she was more of a huggy person than a being buried alive person. Bloody hippies.
An excellent night was, sadly, marred by some thoughtless drunken locals who persisted in trying to throw stupid things (like domestic rubbish containing bleach) onto the fire. This made Erith angry and defensive to the point where it had to be pointed out to him that a small girl wanting to burn letters in celebration of Samhain was unlikely to be a terrorist. Another celebrant proved so nervous of the fire that she practically asked strangers to conduct her religious observances for her. People used the barbecues carelessly, and some local trod on Preacher's dinner, prompting Stuart to exclaim "You don't stand on another man's steak!" Meanwhile, Kara delicately consumed an enormous steak sandwiched into a small bread roll. Offered more, she assured listeners "I've had enough meat now." And so the weekend's adventures drew to a close.
Though the fire took place on Hallowe'en, it was, of course, just days before the four hundredth anniversary of Guy Fawkes' unsuccessful attempt to blow up the English Houses of Parliament. In honour of this, Giolla had saved up all year to buy fireworks for his biggest display yet. This opened with stage effects borrowed from Preacher - a huge cloud of green smoke and an accompanying speech before torch-bearers set the pumpkin-headed guy alight. As he burned, eventually swooning onto the sand, a spectacular firework display began, filling the sky with smoke and colour. It all went precisely to plan, and Giolla was very excited, especially when a subsequent collection accumulated sufficient funds that he might be able to buy an electronic firing box for next year. Sadly, Lee Chaos, who put on a small display thereafter, was not as accomplished, and several of his fireworks exploded disconcertingly at ground level. I made sure to keep a line of stupider goths between him and me.
One person who'd had quite enough of it all by this time was Laura. She'd spent the afternoon drinking with Joe, who is twice her size, and she'd been drinking pints when he'd had shots. She remembered another whisky in the Shambles and half a bottle of whisky on the beach. What she didn't remember was the other half bottle of whisky she'd consumed with SarahMum immediately thereafter, nor the quarter bottle of blackcurrant and aftershock she'd been fed by another friend. I'd seen her put away more, and wasn't too worried, but agreed that, since there seemed little chance of her regaining consciousness, she should be removed from the beach. Unfortunately, the state of my knee meant that I couldn't carry her myself, and most everyone else there was too drunk to know how to do it. EdwardS, who had also been limping beforehand, made a valiant attempt but collapsed under her weight. Stuart was too polite to assert himself with regard to the proper way of doing things, and Giolla and Preacher were too amused; so, in the end, a party of eight people, each grasping at a bit of a limb, bore her up the steps and along Church Street. Unconcerned for her personal well-being, she woke briefly only when they dragged her and she was afraid of damage to her boots. At some point in this process, she bit EdwardS, drawing blood. She was placed on our couch and Siani minded her whilst Stuart returned to the beach to collect me; we sat with her for an hour and made sure she was breathing properly, in a safe position, then let her be. Meanwhile, Siani rejoined the others, drank ridiculous amounts of Jack Daniels, and fell in the sea. She was found lying face down having thrown up, moving her forearms like a swimmer in an attempt to push sand over the vomit so that nobody would know she was drunk.
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Laura awoke and staggered round the house at some obscure time in the morning, whereupon we succeeded in getting her into a proper bed. She didn't want to drink water, but Stuart persuaded her by telling her it was special water with sex in it. Donald and Rowan arrived back not much later, so between all these disturbances I didn't get a whole lot of sleep, and I was sluggish in the morning. Stuart, much perkier, made breakfast, and not long thereafter Laura came downstairs, apparently fine and therefore almost certainly still drunk. She was a little concerned about having to drive home later that day, so we made sure she ate plenty and drank lots of juice. I contacted Siani to assure her that it had only been alcohol poisoning and not zombiism. She was pleased about this, admitting that she'd considered amputating EdwardS' arm and sterilising the stump.
When Laura was a little steadier on her feet, she and Stuart and I returned to the beach to dig for buried treasure - the potatoes we'd buried by the fire the previous night. It was a clear, bright day, with black dogs splashing in the waves. Erith's phoned instructions as to the location of our prize were confusing, and Stuart spent quite some time hard at work with the shovel, but ultimately it was all worthwhile. Slow-baked for sixteen hours, almost liquid inside, they were some of the best potatoes I've ever tasted.
That afternoon I met up with Stuart in the arcades, where he was taking second and third places on Star Wars Trilogy Arcade - he now has the top nine scores and he plans to make it ten next time. Because we'd never done it before, we decided to walk all the way out to the end of the main pier, even along the wooden bit which fishermen use. It was hard going for me, but well worth it. I love being close to the sea. We watched the sun set over the town, but then he was too cold, so I wrapped him in my stole and we returned to the shore to hit some crocodiles on the way home. Donald cooked a dinner of scrambled eggs and pasta, using things up, and then Stuart, exhausted, went to bed.
For our last evening in Whitby, Donald and I went up to the Elsinore to sit around and talk with friends and strangers, including two American women who were fascinated by all the coverage of goth events in the Whitby Gazette. Apparently tourists now visit the town just to watch us - and not just the old ladies I've talked to before, who like ogling young men in skirts. One very happy young man that night was Malc, whom I was glad to catch before I left so that I could give him and Ivy my congratulations on their engagement. He expressed some enthusiasm for the idea of visiting Glasgow in the next few months, though of course I shall need to work out how to fit it in with all the nasty medical treatment I'm looking forward to. Likewise Tal's suggestion that I visit him and Fury down in the English countryside. He was throwing yet another party after the pub closed, but I wanted to take it easy before the drive home, so I went home and tended the fire whilst Donald partied, getting back around three. Apparently Adsevin received an interesting offer at that party too, but had to put it on hold until next time, wanting to make sure she didn't miss her train in the morning.
When morning came, Donald left early. Erith was held up by traffic, and it took a while to load the car, so we left late. Erith and I said our goodbyes to Fury on Flowergate whilst Stuart queued to buy me chocolates with Adsevin, who was buying half the contents of the shop. As a consequence of all this, we arrived in Berwick too late to get lunch in the esteemed Queen's Head Hotel. We ate in a small cafe instead, Erith sulking throughout, though he cheered up a bit when he got a piece of tiramisu cake. We then drove toward Edinburgh, where roadworks made us miss the bypass and changes to the one way system kept us trapped within the city for thirty five minutes, Erith refusing to let us ask directions. When we finally made it onto the M8, traffic was held up by a serious accident, so we didn't arrive home until half past seven. Statistics for that journey were just ten dead birds, three dead mammals, six unidentifiable meat smears, a hat and an orange. We felt quite broken when we stumbled up the stairs into Kadath, but then Donald, who had arrived back just before us, cheered us all up with the news of David Blunkett's resignation.
Apart from the way it ended, and despite my difficulties walking, this was one of the best Whitby events I've ever been to. I am very much looking forward to going again.
You can read Stuart's coverage of the same weekend here.
This way to go back to Jennie's Whitby Gothic Weekend reviews page.
This way to go back to Jennie's personal pages.
Note: Most photos on this page are courtesy of Erith; the picture of Adsevin is by Donald; the picture of Stuart post 'Eighties Night is my own.
Last updated 25th November, 2005