I Heart Carlisle

Sun 4 Jun

I made sure I got to the train station on time; I didn't want a repeat of what happened when I left Wirri in Manchester! I got there with 20 mins to spare so I grabbed some breakie and found my seat on the train. My trip to Carlisle was 5 hours long, via Birmingham, and was spent reading "Catcher In The Rye" and listening to my iPod.

Meg was at the station when I arrived, so we wandered back to hers having a good old catch up. I impressed her with my kitchen prowess as we cooked up a storm before watching a strange (quick perhaps) film called "I Heart Huckabees".

Mrs (Sweeney) Todd

Sat 3 Jun

We woke up, packed up, talked our way out of paying Mrs (Sweeney) Todd's 20% and fled Buxton for biker-mad Matlock. We had a loverly lunch in the sun, watching balding men with beards strutting the streets in their full biker regalia. The drive back to Ken's was fairly uneventful and I snoozed the afternoon away.

Claire woke me up with a Cognac and redbull as we had planned to go out, but it turned out that the best thing to do was to have a quiet one and catch some Zzz's. I will be back in Nottingham next Friday for the start of the World Cup, Andy's 30th and my Monday flight to Berlin to meet Aaron, until then I will be in crazy old Carlisle.

Level 2, Palace Hotel

Fri 2 Jun

I was summoned to Claire's office for a Swedish massage (she is a holistic therapist) around noon. This was an hour of pure heaven...I think I even fell asleep! Once I had come to, I met Clare for lunch at her local..."The Robin Hood". I ate my burger watching a chav family. Horrific.

We went for a big walk around [insert name here] Park. There was a nice greenhouse and a friendly squirrel. Another group of chavs were playing pitch 'n putt, but one got a 60m hole in one, so I was duly impressed. We walked back to Rachel's and packed our bags because Claire was picking us up so we could I go on an overnight trip to Derbyshire.

We hit the road and made it to the biker's haunt of Matlock which was pumping, but we ventured on to Bakewell. We had called ahead to try and book and B & B without any luck so we decided to just rock on up and rely on our good looks. Everywhere was taken except the Youth Hostel, but curfew was 11pm and it was already 10!

Onwards to Buxton. The only place we could get here was The Palace Hotel. There were two weddings here so it was pretty packed but they managed to find us a room: a twin room (single beds!) all for the princely sum of £150. Old T-Rex struggled a bit with that one. We unpacked the car, had a few drinks and wandered into the "city". We found some dingy pub and had a chat to the yellow-teethed locals. We got some good pointers about which bars stay open "late" (aka 2am) so when we were kicked out we had somewhere to go (once we helped Clare put the toilet roll back).

Some lad showed us to the first club on our list but the police were sorting out a fight, so we headed to the second (and final) club on our list: Level 2. I think the girls talked their way around the cover charge so we headed up to level two to take a looksie. Seemed ok, pretty busy, but everyone seemed to know each other so therefore we stuck out like sore thumbs. After a few boogies, it all closed up so we walked back to the faux-luxurious hotel to cause some mischief (and recieve a complaint and have to pay 20% of someone elses bill for disturbing them!).

Ye Olde Trip To Nottingham Castle

Thu 1 Jun

A scrambled egg breakfast and a bus to the centre of town later and I was buying my return ticket to Carlisle (Car-lizzle if you are in the know) where I would be going on Sunday for five nights to stay with my cousin Meg. Once I had been screwed over by Virgin Trains, Clare and I walked through the city to Nottingham Castle. We schemed it in because "we were locals". It was just before 3pm, when the cave tour began, so we decided to do that. It was an hour tour under and around the castle and we were regaled with all sorts of history from medieval times; very little of what I knew about already. Josh would have been correcting the guide I'm guessing.

I looked around the castle for half an hour (there was an art exhibition on) and then met Clare for a photo with the Robin Hood statue, and beer and peanuts at "Ye Olde Trip To Jerusalem". This pub claims to be the oldest in Britain, but about 19 others do too. At least this one has cave access from the castle!

A highlight at "The Trip" was seeing the dude from the corpse house again (where we ended up after Dot To Dot).

We picked up dinner stuff on the way home and created a mackerel salad for dinner with Rachel. Claire joined us, and so did Rach's friends Al and Les (Rush). Pretty late night, and the funniest thing was when we all tried on the pink boxing gloves (photos to come).

So Long Tent

Wed 31 May

I don't know if I am supposed to write this in here, but I spent the morning updating my blog (!) and getting through a few emails. After this Clare, Sue and I went for a walk and ended up at the local for a boozy lunch in the sun (it was hot, finally). Once we got home, we enjoyed the afternoon's sun with some music and Becks in the backyard before the boys joined us for a kick around.

We packed up the tent, and bid everyone a fond farewell. Sue and Simon were so kind, having me to stay for so long with never having met me before. I am indebted, big time.

We cabbed around to Rachel's for some red wine and dinner. Not a super late one, and not too hard to adjust to sleeping in a house again after five nights in a tent.