We suffer mornings most of all...

Biped and I went to see Amanda Palmer live the other weeked. We may have mentioned this already, but I felt it could bear repeating. Especially since I tried taking a few little videos with my camera and this is probably the best way to stitch them together.

A disclaimer, before I begin: my camera takes extremely poor quality videos to start with, and uploading them to youtube made them even less good. Also, my hands are a bit too shaky, and most annoyingly of all my camera will not record more than a minute's worth of footage in one go. Therefore, you follow links at your peril. However, the audio doesn't seem too dreadful, so hopefully those of you who want to have a look will get something out of them - and if I tag them sufficiently, hopefully youtube will throw up links to better quality ones. Sorry...

I met biped in Camden after work on Friday, sitting happily near Mornington Crescent tube station until she showed up. As we queued down the side of KOKO (or the Camden Palace as was), a nice girl came down the queue handing out cheapo bubble wands. It turned out she was just another ticket-holder, but had thought it would be fun to have everyone blowing bubbles as we waited outside. She was, of course, right, and much amusement was generated from the hundreds of bubbles spiralling off in the cold evening wind - it also got everyone in the queue talking to each other, because it is hard to ignore people in a British way when your bubbles have just blown into their face. One has to at least apologise and talk about the weather. Sadly, we were of course not allowed to blow bubbles inside, so this was only a quarter hour or so of entertainment - but it was a great idea.

Inside, we looked around for a location to claim and settled on a side area of upstairs balcony railing. We took it in turns to hold our claim to this two-person space whilst one of us at a time went to the toilet, and then we watched with interest. At first there was some random couple of musicians playing just on the audience pit floor, but they packed up before a dapper little man arrived on stage and told us it was Saturday, and then the first official warm-up act came on. He was Jason Webley, a slightly crazy rock accordionist. Yes, I didn't think those two things went together either, but they sort of do. He was a lot of fun, getting the audience to join in with his songs and sway along to things. He only sang about three songs, and was then succeeded by Zoë Keating, who was very good but sadly somewhat talked-over by the annoying crowd who had been hyped up by the previous act and were in no mood for odd cello solos. She amused myself and biped because she was using professionally the kind of equipment that we had seen Pagagnini play with for comic effect at the Edinburgh Festival - she was playing a line, then recording the harmonies over the top as she went, becoming her own cello ensemble. It was quite fantastic.

(Note: links from this point on are to my videos on youtube or my photos on flickr.)

Then the lights went down, and we were asked to share the grief and mourning associated with the death of Amanda Palmer. For those who do not follow her career, her debut album recently released is called Who Killed Amanda Palmer? - which is both a Twin Peaks reference and some sort of metaphorical statement. Therefore, many recent performance stunts and her live show itself are themed around this fictional death of hers. Therefore, to start the show, we were welcomed and invited to share our grief with each other. And particularly with Neil Gaiman, who appeared on stage as if by magic and started reading a eulogy to the sadly departed Amanda Palmer, who had died in any number of ways according to the bubblegum cards being traded across America. While he read this, Amanda herself was slowly carried in by her entourage and propped up behind her keyboard like a corpse with rigor mortis. (At one point, she toppled over.)

Neil Gaiman and the Danger Ensemble faded away to the back of the stage, and the show opened on the same explosive beginning as the album: Astronaut. This is a song which I have been warming to ever since first listening to the album, slowly tying it together into a whole thing, and I think seeing it live completed that process. There was no disconnect between the loud and quiet parts, no inconsistency of atmosphere or character, and it was quite simply a superb opener. The still, calm parts seemed to echo the silence and eulogy we had begun with; the sound and fury resonating with the anger that lies a bare few inches under the skin of all her songs, and both part of each other.

Without a word, she finished that and went straight into her next song: Ampersand. At this point, biped was apparently worrying that she was just going to go through the whole album in order, but I wasn't noticing. As Em once said in an email, this song is good live - probably better live than it is on the album. It's a long discourse between singer an audience, a miniature stump speech with a proposal for life and how to live it, and as such it comes across stilted and slightly self-obsessed on the album. But in real life it works, she's talking to you and just sharing the craziness of the world.

This set list, by the way, is coming to you courtesy of what I scribbled down once back at biped's, when we were both exhausted and could barely even remember what we'd heard any more. For this reason, I am a not 100% sure of the song order, but I think it went like this: Blake Says next. A beautiful sad little song, executed brilliantly and with the assistance of some people (probably the Danger Ensemble although I didn't notice) who infiltrated the audience and acted out a little scene for us.

From thence, she segued out of sadness into violence, from her own album back into our first Dresden Dolls song of the night - but not one I would have personally chosen, Bad Habit. I must say though that although I thought 'meh' as it started, I thoroughly enjoyed it possibly because I don't listen to it often so don't know every chord and beat by heart. Also, the energy behind it was just fantastic - a short clip here (sorry about the stupid girl next to me suddenly sticking her arm out, pft).

Then we took a turn into the menacing and creepy, with Strength Through Music next. This is a song that I admire on the album but do not listen to much - partly too creepy, partly not musical enough for driving in my car and singing along to things. Here, after Amanda introduced the song in context of the Columbine and Virginia Tech shootings in America, the strange little voiceover at the start was replaced by a simple reading of the names and injuries sustained (shot three times in the leg... shot once in the jaw...). It was pretty intense and only a little bit spoiled by a girl behind us who just would not shut up nattering at this point, and sighing heftily over everything Amanda said. It is possible she had some emotional connection to school shootings that we should have been forgiving of, but... really, it was frigging annoying while the song was being played. I'm impressed with biped for not squishing her like an annoying insect.

As the song had progressed, the Danger Ensemble had come on stage dressed as schoolkids, the better to emphasise the point (and adopt various attitudes of painful death at the end). This then led in perfectly to a strong and bouncy Guitar Hero, as they jumped around the stage adopting game-player poses and eventually 'killing' one of their number (by pushing her off the stage). I later remarked to biped how thematically excellent it was to put these two songs together and link them so explicitly, since to me they deal with very much the same subject - whereupon biped needed reassuring that I don't actually think playing computer games leads to homicide. Which I don't, but I think the songs do...

The song ended, the stage cleared, and Amanda took a little time to talk to us. She started introducing a song for those who have broken up, who might want to sit in a smoky old bar... and I knew where we were going with this and grinned wide. I know the version that Em was so lovely to pass on to the rest of us of I Google You was live anyway, but I decided I actually quite liked the KOKO audience at this point, because they loved this song. You'll hear it in the laughter on my video (with gaps where I had to start the camera rolling again) - each line was carefully listened to and rang a chord of resonance in our sad little British bones - I think my favourite line is the would-be PhD from Chesapeake. 

From this, we moved to the guaranteed crowd-pleaser of Coin-Operated Boy. Much of the audience sang along, the Danger Ensemble did their best work of the night chasing each other through the audience, and Amanda herself dissolved into laughter a few times at their antics (she particularly enjoyed messing with their heads on the 'never be alone - go!' stuck record part, where every time she played it (and they couldn't see her) they had to behave like a stuck record too. I think we must have had it about twenty times before she finally relented and moved on, hee). I then recorded most of the bridge, with thoughts of Em. *grins*

The crazy and fun just carried straight on, with the awesomest thing of the night: Oasis. Amanda introduced it by saying she'd just shot the video for it recently, and it might possibly be the most insulting video she's ever recorded. Which is intriguing, although she says she's hoping for an Obama victory because otherwise she fears getting kicked out of America for it. So, the best thing about this was that Jason Webley and Neil Gaiman reappeared on stage, one with a guitar and one with a tambourine (and both with mikes) and proceeded to accompany her (I was laughing way too hard to keep the camera still... you can actually hear me laugh at one point). Seriously effing awesome.

And then, the calm after the storm.  A little more chat from Amanda, an explanation of who the Dresden Dolls are and why she was playing some of their songs, and then Mrs O. Which I do love and she performed it very nicely indeed, so that made me happy. But it has, of course, faded in my memory relative to the two songs that were, essentially, the show's real finale.

The first one was introduced by Amanda as her favourite song from her new album. I felt moved to tell biped that it is my favourite too, because obviously this makes me special. I fear to say that when she announced it I may have made some sort of high-pitched woo-oo noise and am surprised biped didn't move elsewhere...it is, of course. Have to Drive. And it is so beautiful in the way it builds and then sublimes somewhere around the middle section and the bridge. The violin and cello accompaniment did everything in their power to augment the beauty, and I videoed two sections (there is a lot of crowd noise on this video for some reason. It wasn't quite that bad... or if it was, I was so focused on the song I didn't notice) but chose to simply luxuriate in the rest of it and enjoy the moment rather than divide my attention between the show and the camera). Although the harmony and her voice sound rather rough as hell on the second section of that video, it was truly good live - it was an edge and a lament overlaid on the sheer loneliness of the lyrics.

And then, of course, things got even better. A long instrumental rambling fancy between the three instruments made me suspicious, bearing in mind one of the voicemails that Em left me from the Melbourne show, and I was right - we went into Half Jack, and it was awesome. Again, I mostly chose to revel in this rather than record it for posterity, but you can have a little bit of See! Jack! Run!

Ahh. So excellent. And from here, we entered the winding down phase of the show... firstly, an energetic mime along to Umbrella, followed by one those fake leaving the stage things which does at least serve the purpose of letting you know the show is coming to an end. After we cheered and hollered for a minute or so non-stop, they re-appeared and we got Amanda and Jason Webley covering Livin' On A Prayer, which on the one hand is quite strange but on the other hand I had been prepared for by talking to someone who'd seen her in Manchester earlier in the week. It is, you see, lyrically inconsistent within itself, and Amanda seems to want to share this with the world. It's also quite good for a general sing-along. Then Amanda talked to us all for a while, explaining how she'd broken her foot and building up into discussion of the final song, via an anecdote about having filmed the video for it in London only the month before, and having her agents pussyfoot around the idea that she maybe... you know, just maybe... might want to look at changing some of the shots because maybe... she looked a bit chubby in it? Part of the reason I love her as a performer is because that is just something that is never going to bother her, and you know it, and she laughed it off along with the rest of ('who do they think I am, Britney fucking Spears?'). And so, the end - which was, sadly, mimed, but at least she made that very clear (by ironically holding the mike away from her and yet cunningly the song carried on...) and just had a hell-load of fun with it anyway. I assume it was mimed because it's a great finale piece but it would be impossible to do live without a handy brass band - it was, of course, Leeds United. Which I really do not love very much at all but now cannot deny it is a damn fine gig song and left me feeling superbly alive and enthused at the end.

And so there we have it. Biped and I took our time moseying out of the venue, picking up my luggage and standing around outside for a bit as biped threw her bicycle to the ground for no good reason and got funny looks. She then cycled back to Hampstead, while I caught the bus, and she beat me. Hmph. We splurged squee onto the board, then sat trying to pull this set list together and relive our favourite bits (and get something other than Umbrella or Livin' On A Prayer stuck in our heads) until finally exhaustion claimed us.

What a truly excellent way to spend an evening.

Act III: Rome

I do believe it is time to kill this telling off. We arrived in Rome about four hours after leaving Venice, a journey which included a bus, a plane from which we got a good view of the Italian countryside ("Hills!" said cheeky, pointing excitedly), another bus, a short walk through a very dodgy metro station, a metro ride to Rome's central station and then a short walk through a few residential streets. Despite worries over how well we'd manage all of this, it all went very smoothly - in this direction. Coming back will be dealt with later...

We arrived at the hostel - another old building with fantastically high ceilings and wooden shutters on the windows - were checked in by a nice lady who was either actually British or had a phenomenally clear accent, dumped our bags and headed out for dinner. A few streets further towards the city centre, we found two little restaurants sharing the same alley, both with tables outside (by now, we were comfortable in summer clothes outside at all hours, and goulash was a distant memory), dithered for 5 minutes, picked one and considered the menu. Although we had dispensed with the order-your-meal-by-tv-reference method of food choice by now, it ambushed us in reverse as we discussed our menu choices and which tv characters they represented. It was decided that seafood risotto (cheeky) sounded wholesome but dull, and was therefore Apollo from BSG, while rigatoni a la carbonara sounded just plain dull and was therefore Duncan (VMars). However, when the meals arrived it turned out that cheeky's meal was no staid Apollo, but a full-out crazy Starbuck with pincers and antennae. My carbonara was indeed Duncan, but had had so much pepper added to it that we decided he probably hadn't taken his pills for a while. This was a nice meal, sitting outdoors in friendliness and warmth, and writing total craziness in the pad. But we were tired, so we went back to the hostel... and proceeded not to sleep very well. The road outside was loud, but the window had to remain open to keep us cool enough. There's nothing like motorbikes and road drills for a good night's sleep. Oh, and something that bit me.

The next day... which I think would be Monday? I have totally lost track now... would be all about the Romans. Well, all about the Romans and getting very warm and slightly sunburnt and lacking adequate hydration. But mostly the Romans. We went first of all to the Coliseum, walking there from the hostel through a park past the site of Nero's spectacularly opulent Domus Aurea, built over within twenty years by the Baths of Trajan, the ruins of which still stand on top of it. Anyway, we didn't have time for all that - we wanted to get to the Coliseum (sorry, Flavian Amphitheatre) before the queues got too long. We were mostly successful, probably queuing for only about 20 minutes. We hired an audioguide, noting as we did that it said you were only allowed to keep it for 2 hours, after which they started charging you something a little extortionate like €4 per minute. We scoffed at that but also felt safe because there was no way it would take us 2 hours to go round a single building, right?

We were within about 5 minutes of incurring that extra charge. Oops. It wasn't exactly that there was so much to see, or even that the audioguide had hours of information to impart, but we just spent much time staring at areas and imagining how they would have been - picturing the wild animals caged underneath, imagining how it was possible to have a single reserved seat for everybody, imagining the walkways full of togas and the arena full of ships for the day. Also it was very pleasantly sunny and warm, the views towards the forum were good, we kept getting asked to take other people's photos, and there were frequent breaks to reapply suncream as it was sweated off. (I missed a lovely triangle in the middle of my back which was extremely painful for weeks to come...)

After we found our way out of the Coliseum (more difficult than you'd think), the day was almost unbearably hot. We wandered the streets in search of a restaurant and eventually found a not-very-good one where we were almost the only customers and the waiters had a habit of stroking your arm. Hmm. Oh well, it had a ceiling fan. Grabbing some much-needed gelato afterwards, we headed towards the forum. Which we knew nothing about other than that our guide book said we Had To See it, and it hd been included in our admission price for the Coliseum. We rather unfortunately assumed that, as it stretches over a huge area, there must be places inside which would give us information, a map or some bottled water. We were wrong. Therefore, although we thoroughly enjoyed wandering around its many and varied ruins and indeed spent the whole afternoon there, we were restricted for information to what my very limited Latin could decipher from age-eroded inscriptions and we had to rely on the (thankfully ubiquitous) drinking fountains for cool water to quench our thirst and occasionally quench our sunburn and hot heads too (you would easily dry within 10 minutes). We also managed to entirely miss the palace of Tiberius and Caligula - oops. But on the plus side we saw lots and lots of other things, so much so that all these millennia-old ruins started looking remarkably alike and we got blase enough about them to just walk on them, sit on them, lie around in the sunshine between them, without even really paying attention any more.

As the sun fell down the sky, we stopped depetalling daisies on a comfy bit of grass and went back out into the city. We walked to the Tiber, crossed it and then crossed back on the next bridge down... and then went wrong. For this I have only myself to blame, as I didn't pay sufficient attention to the map, but it meant we ended up walking for about 2 hours - and only half of that was with nice scenery. Never mind - despite falling off the edge of the map at one point we made out way safely back to the hostel area, and some food which was a) not as good as the previous day's and b) more expensive. Boo. On the other hand, we had our second gelati of the day before retiring to bed. I picked up another three insect bites, and was unchuffed.

Tuesday. Egads. Not our best day, really - Rome just sort of got to us, being large and impersonal and so full of famous things that you couldn't appreciate any of them individually. However, we went to the Vatican and sort of enjoyed it until we'd been walking through it for two hours and it all looked the same. There is only so much gilding that should be allowed in one place, even if it has all been put there in degrees down the centuries. But seeing real friezes by Raphael and Michelangelo was sort of cool, I guess. It was just too big and too busy, though. St Paul's was slightly better although still overly grand for my tastes. We should have thought to go up the dome, but we didn't - instead we had our attention distracted by some Michelangelo statue called the Pieta. Hmm yes. Then my credit card stopped working, so we annoyingly had to go back to the hostel so I could retrieve my other cash card (and charge my camera for 5 minutes as it had died). Thankfully, after that the day perked up a bit - we were back to wandering through the city, and the free or cheap sights seemed to be much better, overall. The Pantheon was pretty cool, we loved the cat sanctuary set up within the ruins of some more Roman temples, Trajan's column is mighty and interesting, and we found more bits of forum across the road. Then we saw the Trevi fountain by streetlights and eventually made it back to the hostel, content that we had crammed as much into our time as we could possibly have hoped for.

The next morning had nothing in except travelling home - and we very nearly managed to mess that up. Thanks to a complete brain fart on my part, the alarm did not go off at the right time and we therefore left later than planned. The connection from metro to bus fell apart entirely as it turned out the buses were not at all regular, and then we might still have been fine except that the bus took the most ridiculous route imaginable, through every suburb such that we could see the airport for half an hour before we reached it. I was so nervous and despairing at this point - in the end, we reached the airport after check-in ought to have closed. We ran for the departures area, only to find - in ten minutes or so of thorough confusion - that not only had the check-in desks only just opened, thanks to Ryanair's wonderful organisation - but that there were many other people also just arriving having had difficulties with their own forms of transport (direct buses and even a taxi all apparently stuck in a bad rush hour). So, in the end, we made the flight fine, but I don't think my life expectancy has been helped by the experience.

On the flight home, we listened to ipod and mp3 player, which had had remarkably little to do previously (although cheeky went to sleep listening to hers each night). I remember miming along to various OMWF songs and giggling ourselves silly. Ah, fun. Then back to East Midlands, my car and my house. Oh hello, camera, I missed you...

I will not bother with another entry for the remaining 3 days that cheeky stayed - suffice to say there was a nice trip to London to say hi and bye to biped, a panic when cheeky thought she'd remembered her flight times wrong, a joint watching of the BSG episode that was out that week (President and Commander! Wah!) and eventually a fun drive to Heathrow with much singing along to tv songs (I giggle too easily when driving. Especially when, say, Right Here Right Now inspires my passenger to burst out with "I love Mercer!") Then an un-British farewell hug and off cheeky went to have lots of fun and sunshine at camp, while I went back to my British 'summer' and work. Darn her.

Act II: Venice

And I've left it even later to finish this. But I must do so, having started it... what kind of blogger would I be otherwise, eh? Yes, I know, an incredibly slack one. Like I already am, but let's pretend that all that time doesn't matter and finish this off before I attempt to use this blog rather more professionally again. (Stop quibbling, once upon a time I did try.)

So... where were we? Pulling into Venice in a grey 8am. There was a small amount of confusion because our tickets said Venezia Mestre (a suburb of Venice, across the lagoon on the mainland) rather than Venezia Santa Lucia (the station actually on the islands). The guard didn't make too much fuss about this, in the face of our grumpy unslept determination to get to Santa Lucia and his own lingering embarrassment from getting stuck in our compartment (he didn't seem half so chatty after that...). Hah. Getting out of the train, we were pleasantly surprised that although the skies were still as leaden as they had been in Prague, the day was significantly milder and felt positively pleasant. We found our way to our hotel (as we were only in Venice for one night, we actually splashed out the money for a room all of our very own, in order to get onto the islands themselves - we didn't want to spend all our time bussing back and forth to the mainland. Definitely money well-spent) and left our bags. Pausing only to change socks & shoes for sandals, we left again and were soon bravely ordering breakfast croissants in Italian (well, mostly pointing - I ended up with grapefruit juice because it took just 5 seconds too long to remember what 'pampelmo' might mean) and eating them in the brightening sunshine of a street cafe on the Lista di Spagna, the only main street in a city that has no such things. Not yet knowing our way around at all, although armed with a free map from the hotel, we wandered south along it, amusing ourselves with tourist shops and tourists. When we got to the Rialto bridge, we weren't paying enough attention to the map and went several streets beyond it before I realised we shouldn't have crossed it at all if we were going to the Piazza San Marco (as had been the plan). That finally plunged us off the wider, more traditional-looking streets (where there really is only one and a bit of) into the rabbit-warren of Venetian alleys proper. Still a well-beaten tourist track to San Marco, though, and we had no problem navigating a few narrow streets to emerge into the sunshine and grandeur of our destination.

There is no doubt that the Piazza San Marco is a "must-see," as our guidebook described it, and yet I find it a little strange that it is such an icon of Venice when, to me, it is slightly anathema to the city itself. Undoubtedly there are no other handily stunning landmarks to use on postcards and images around the world, but its very openness, its marble facades and its gilding, its statuesque beauty of pillars and lines and wide stone-paved areas, all seem subtly amiss in a city of twisting back streets where centuries-old buildings crumble slowly ever further into the warm green canals. There's no denying that San Marco and its environs are worthy of renown, but they do not feel representative of the city that managed to catch my heart in 36 hours. (That sounds like some kind of new reality/challenge show.)

Having been suitably awed by the gilding on the outside (and less so by the scaffolding on it at the time), we couldn't actually go in the Basilica di San Marco because it was still quite early in the morning and it wasn't open yet. Not bothering to read a guidebook or look for anything else worth doing in the area, we marvelled at the people feeding pigeons for a while and then just headed back the way we'd come. I think this was partly because we were extremely exhausted and had no wishes beyond sleep, but mostly because we were really enjoying the warmth and pleasant meandering after the cold and rain of Prague. Also, a lot of the indoor attractions in Venice seem to be art galleries, which interested neither of us when we had so little time to see the city. And so we walked, crossing the Rialto intentionally this time and doing a lot of window-shopping at all the pretty glass things, masks and colourful pasta. We found a cheap restaurant in a pleasant square with a church, and had pizza to properly welcome ourselves to Italy. It was good. Cheeky had one with eggplant on, because it made her happy in a world of fictional references. I was playing with my very limited Italian vocabulary whenever possible (it would appear that 'succo di pera' has stuck with me since age 6, which is quite an achievement) and cheeky was enjoying being surrounded by a language where you can at least take a guess at meaning or pronunciation based on Latinate words in English - we really did flounder a bit in Prague. After lunch, we wandered further into the labyrinthine alleyways to the north of the Rialto, ever following the helpful (and thankfully very ubiquitous) signs towards things in useful directions (such as the station, since we knew how to get back to the hotel from there). Exhaustion had finally caught up with us and, combined with post-prandial lassitude, we decided that we should go back to the hotel, check in properly (8am had obviously been a bit early for them to let us have the room) and take advantage of our beds for an hour or so's nap. Well, cheeky wanted a nap and I thought I would probably read or something and just enjoy resting (I'm not good with midday sleeping, it makes me disoriented and strange). Yes... that resolution lasted for about 10 minutes after lying down on my bed.

Three or four hours later, we woke up to find that sunlight had fled the tiny square outside our window. Feeling somewhat abashed at wasting so much time in a city where we had so little of it, we hauled ourselves to our first showers since Prague and then out into the streets again. Retrospectively, sleeping was a really good idea; not only because we needed the rest but also because it actually made me feel we'd spent three days in Venice instead of two - the two halves of Saturday are very separate in my memory. And in the end, we didn't really feel rushed for time - it was just right. Still feeling somewhat sleepy, we took a little wander up to the very northern edge of Venice (only about 5 mins from our hotel) and admired the lowering sun over the lagoon. We decided to aim ourselves towards San Marco again because I was feeling annoyed with myself for shunning the idea of going out for night-time photos in Prague and was convinced that we should go see the most photogenic bit of Venice by streetlights on our only night there - which, as it turned out, was indeed very pretty. And so we wandered south again, not bothering with Lista di Spagna this time but instead heading straight back across the Grand Canal by the station, meandering towards the Rialto Bridge through the districts of Santa Croce and San Polo. The Rialto and the Ponte degli Scalzi (the bridge by the station) are two of only four bridges that cross the Grand Canal - until the 19th century there was only the Rialto. We had discovered that the route using these two bridges brought us from the north to the south more directly, and more quickly - it was a 30-40 minute walk from our hotel to San Marco when just pleasantly strolling. 'Directly' is perhaps a misnomer, however, as I don't believe we ever went the same way twice. If we noticed that we were doing, we usually took an abrupt turn in order not to. This did lead to us going slightly circuitous routes once or twice, but the prodigious signposting and handy free map never let us down and if we were really going the wrong way we usually seemed to end up in the square with the dragon holding glass umbrellas, so that was handy.

Emerging into the Piazza san Marco as a warm dusk settled, we decided to hell with budgetary constraints and that we'd wander along the waterfront looking for a restaurant with a view. We actually found one with decent prices and so settled in for a nice meal as the night arrived, sitting outside under a canvas canopy surrounded by the scent of jasmine (grown on a trellis around the seating area. Beat that for two obscure tv references in one go). Feeling pleasantly wakeful after our earlier exhaustion, we had a good meal and lazy conversation about something or other that I have now forgotten. I think we were both quite relieved that we didn't seem to be running out of conversation - after all, going on a week's holiday with just one other person who you've only met twice in real life and to whom you've previously mostly talked about only tv is a bit of a venture into the unknown. Actually, it all worked out very nicely and I would not ask for a better travelling companion, so that was very cool. Hobblings are just awesome, that's all there is to it. After dinner, we walked slowly back through the heart of the city and cheeky had to cope with me delaying us many times while learning how to get my replacement camera to produce anything even half-decent in night shots. But the air was still warm and gelato was found upon our route, so I don't think she minded too much.

On Sunday morning, we got up and headed first for the bus station, to find out exactly when our bus to Treviso airport would leave that afternoon, to buy tickets and to establish whether there was anywhere we could leave our luggage. There wasn't, and even at the railway station the prices charged for doing so were quite extortionate, so before checking out we asked to leave our bags at the hotel again - which they were, thankfully, very happy to let us do. Determined to actually do something in addition to walking before we left Venice, we headed back towards San Marco and looked at the queue. Having established that the queue was currently purposeless, as the basilica wasn't open (we established this by joining the queue, shuffling forwards with it for 10 minutes and then being told that the basilica wasn't open...), we went and had an overpriced but conveniently nearby lunch. We then joined the queue again and got inside this time - but only after being phoned by Mr Ata to ask me to send him Keppet's mobile number so they could try to join up with the London meet going on that day. Slightly bizarre, but happy to help... Anyway. Shuffling round inside the church, on ancient tiles, gazing up at incredibly detailed gilded mosaics, I wondered once again just how much Britain lost of its religious heritage during the Reformation. On the one hand, I am much more fond of our plainer, simple and undecorated churches, but to think how much medieval art we must have lost does sadden me. The gilding in San Marco was at least to my taste - being older and more dulled than the ostentatious Prague churches undoubtedly endeared it to me, for a start.

Out of the basilica, and we had a limited amount of time remaining to thread our way back through the city to the bus station before climbing aboard a sadly boring, standard (but thankfully air-conditioned) coach full of pensioners on tour that would take us the 20 miles to Treviso airport.

Act 1 (Prague)

Right then. Shall I get on to writing an actual account of my holiday with cheeky, now that more than a month has passed? Why not, it should be fun to see if I can actually remember anything. I won’t bother to put photos in here, since it seems like a lot of effort when most of you have already seen them on flickr, so I hope you don’t find all this text too dense. Or find me too dense. Or whatever.

When we got to the airport, I found out I’d left my camera at home. I felt particularly clever. Cheeky savoured the moment, because apparently she is usually the one who forgets things or makes silly mistakes on holidays. As may be observed as this story continues, she certainly managed to pass that mantle to me quite effectively (although reclaimed it rather spectacularly on her final day in Britain). I ummed and ahhed about buying a new camera from duty free, and was eventually convinced to do so by our flight being an hour delayed. I perhaps learned that one should not choose cameras based on shiny blueness.

The flight was uneventful except that I made us sit next to a smelly guy. Oops. Due to the delayed flight, though, it was nearly 11pm when we landed in Prague. I had made us a shiny two-sides-of-A4 itinerary with all the info I had for the various places we were going, which included the hostel’s directions for finding them. Doing our best to follow those, we discovered we needed coins for the bus ticket machines. Obviously we didn’t have any Czech koruna coins yet, so we returned into the airport terminal to see if anywhere was open that would sell us something. McDonalds was, unfortunately, the only place still serving – on the other hand, we were already at that stage of cold and tired and nervous about not knowing what we were doing that the food was actually very comforting and almost…enjoyable. We bought our bus tickets, waited for the next bus at 11pm and chatted. Then we caught the bus and metro, exactly as described in the directions, but hit a small snag with the third mode of transport, a tram, when there were engineering works and it wasn’t going the same route as usual. We didn’t have a map including tramlines, we couldn’t work out how to even say most of the placenames, so all we could do was get on a tram with the right number and hope like hell that a) it would go to our stop and b) we’d recognise its name when it came round. But it was a rather deserted, very dreary grey and red plastic tram whose only other inhabitants were either unsocial or a little drunk, and by this time it was midnight and I for one was beginning to get quite worried about how we’d sort ourselves out if we ended up in anywhere except the place we needed to be. Luckily, the tram rejoined its original route and we recognised our stop name, found the right street and then the hostel, to a general sigh of relief.

There was a very helpful guy with excellent English on the hostel reception desk, who insisted on telling us where everything was and giving us a free map on which he very helpfully marked all the most useful tram routes, and then we took our key and headed up our room. Or rather, our 8-bed mixed-gender dorm. Which we couldn’t see at this point, since the lights were already out, people were asleep and we just had to dive into bed quickly, but I will describe here anyway. I think our hostel (Sir Toby’s, for anyone who wants a recommendation) may be one of the best I’ve ever stayed in – very helpful, very friendly, and with tons of atmosphere because of being in an old town house with high ceilings, large windows and wood panelling. Also extremely cheap, at about £12 per night for a bed in one of the dorm rooms. There was a well-equipped kitchen if you wanted it, but when we dragged ourselves out of bed the next morning we decided to try their breakfast for an added £4 ish each, because we just couldn’t be bothered. Turned out that their breakfast was very cool and included things such as cooking your own pancakes or scrambled eggs.

Neither of us really knew what one was supposed to do in Prague (or anywhere else, for that matter), so we consulted a guidebook and took a tram towards the castle area. We got off near the river and walked up the hill, gaining our first real views of the city as we went. It was a dull, cold, grey day, but still rewarded us with red roofs and the river. May I just say how much I like having a river in the centre of a city? It is both an invaluable aid to navigation and an excellently comforting landmark, because whenever you come across it you immediately have an easy way back to any other point on it you’ve been before. Plus the shape of a city with a river sticks in my head so much more easily than one without. Venice was obviously excellent along these lines also, as the position of yourself relative to the Grand Canal tells you everything you need to know, but in Rome I actually forced us to take a small side-excursion to the Tiber for my own peace of mind – which then turned into a long side excursion as we ended up off the map and went slightly wrong. Oops. But that wasn’t the river’s fault, it was mine…

The main, ceremonial sort of parts of Prague Castle didn’t really appeal to either of us – too modern for me, and too formal and unnatural for cheeky. We watched the changing of the guards, though, and then proceeded through to the more mish-mash older area of the castle. After observing the length of the queue for St Vitus’ cathedral, we decided not to join it just yet but watch how it progressed while we went to find an information office with a handy map (since we had no idea which bits we were supposed to be seeing). Map in hand, we could see that all the tour groups which had been in the queue were already inside the castle, so we joined the queue and fairly soon were stepping out of the cold gloomy day into the cold gloomy cathedral. Which was impressive enough in an old cathedral way, I guess, but I most enjoyed the quirky bits that made it different – such as fantastically colourful modern stained glass windows, or the strange and over-ornamented tomb of Saint John of Nepomuk. Here also started our ongoing holiday thing of spotting tv references in all the most obvious places possible, when we simultaneously stopped and giggled in front of a confessional. However, we were already getting cold and tired, so we popped into one of the restaurants within the castle grounds – expecting over-priced rubbish in uninspired surroundings. However, what we got was superbly warming goulash and bread dumplings, which were excellent in recharging our batteries. We also fulfilled the usual Hobbling/restaurant requirement of either chasing all other customers away or at least getting many strange looks from them… onwards, to the much older (and thus better) Basilica of Saint George, featuring Romanesque architecture, mosaics and headless statues. Then across the courtyard and into the old parts of the castle, of which the best bit was probably Vladislav Hall, built around 1500 and fantastically late-mediaeval in style; cheeky and I decided that it could have been built at Buckkeep subsequent to Tawny Man, as decadent Jamaillian influences met Buck practicality and Mountain simplicity. We considered having a look at the upper deer moat purely because in Czech it is the Horní Jelení příkop – and I accidentally read Prilkop for prikop, plus the fact that ‘horny’ is clearly amusing because we’re really 12 years old. But instead we wandered downhill and out of the castle via Goldsmiths Alley, with its many tiny houses and its exhibitions of evil chicken armour, and then had a short detour to a dungeon and torture equipment exhibition in one of the old castle towers. Because torture and life imprisonment are Fun – or so the hordes of children in there certainly seemed to think. We finished off the castle by standing around a bit on a kind of courtyard area, taking photos of the city below, admiring the pure white pigeon that kept wandering by and drinking a cup of hot red wine (well, I drank it. Cheeky tried a sip and said no to more). It seems weird retrospectively that it was cold enough in Prague for me to need hot red wine in a polystyrene cup to boost my flagging energy, but indeed I did. We then trekked back downhill, across the river and into town, discussing the thematic resonances within Les Miserables’ music as we went. This resulted in the first annoying earworm of the holiday, Cosette’s In My Life. Grr, stupid song.

At this point we thought we’d better go and buy our train tickets for getting to Venice the next day, so we walked right through the centre of town (via Old Town Square, if I remember correctly) to the main train station. Where we found the most unhelpful ticket desk woman ever, who listened to what we wanted, consulted her computer and then just said ‘No.’ When pushed for a little more information, she elaborated to ‘No. No train’ and pointed us in the general direction of ‘away.’ Hmm. Luckily, when researching this train journey, I’d emailed a travel agent based in the station (thanks to tripadvisor forums where I saw them mentioned) and so we looked around until we found ‘Wasteels.’ Which had an extremely helpful man on the desk who both spoke excellent English and also knew that what was going on was that there were engineering works, and thus no direct train. However, he sold us our tickets (at which point I got to rub it in a little that I am younger than cheeky, since under-26s get cheaper tickets) and printed us out a little schedule showing where we would first be getting the local train to, the destination that we then needed to catch a bus for, and the times for getting everywhere (Venice arrival time was exactly the same – we would work out how this could be a day and a half later, when desperately trying to sleep whilst being shunted around Salzburg station for an hour). Happy with actually being able to get to Venice, we left the station and wandered back through town, crossing the Charles Bridge as a few raindrops fell, and eventually realising we were cold and exhausted and not getting anything out of it. We caught the tram back to the hostel and found a local food shop to sell us such necessities as pasta, tomato sauce and tea. Although we upset the checkout girl a bit by not weighing and labelling our tomatoes, and then failing to understand her Czech instructions to please do so. Oops. Cheeky was happy though because we had found Cinnamon Toast Crunch, which you don’t find in Britain and which she was quite happy to consume in preference to all other food. We may have also stocked up on such necessities as large bars of Milka. Mmm.

Back to the hostel, and time for dinner. By this time one earworm had been replaced by another and for goodness knows what reason we were now both being driven up the wall by our brains’ incessant repetition of Umbrella. Aaaaargh. Luckily, my mobile had a few songs on it which it can play through a tinny little speaker, so while we had the kitchen to ourselves I played us It Never Rains In Southern California. This is an excellent earworm because it’s not annoying but it’s really catchy, and it pretty much stayed with us for the next week and a half – being judiciously used to squash Umbrella or In My Life whenever they tried to make a reappearance. Anyway, we made dinner and I made sparky fire in the microwave. Oops. I had failed to notice that the waxy cardboard tetra-pak which our passata came in was foil-lined. Well, it made for a little excitement…unlike the pasta, which we rather overcooked and had to force our way through. Ah well. We had originally thought that once we had had dinner, warmed up and regained some energy, we’d go back into the city in the evening and see the views of the castle and Charles Bridge all illuminated at night that are so famous. But…we didn’t. Bed seemed like a much more appealing idea.

On the Friday morning, we discovered that the hostel’s teabags made much better tea than the ones we’d bought… so we swapped some of ours for some of theirs. We packed our stuff, handed our key in and bought a single-use tram ticket to the station, where we left our bags in lockers manned by an overly-friendly security guard who really seemed to want to talk… Having escaped him, we walked through town again and this time did our best to see the sights, such as the astronomical clock striking the hour and all the environs of Old Town Square generally. Cheeky spent time making friends with the carriage horses waiting at a stand – for which she was rewarded with slobber all down her jeans. We peeped in the Church of St Nicholas, which we really didn’t like thanks to its absurd over-ornamentation. We then did our best to find the Church of Our Lady before Tyn (the main church that dominates the square, whose twin steeples are one of the iconic images of Prague) and despite going round in circles several times we did eventually find our way through a music shop to the front doors. I liked this church more, although they seemed keen to enforce the no-photo rule (which Prague Castle has too but I sort of dodged it) so there are no photos from me. Cheeky was a jammy sod and found the tomb of one somebody Adama, which gained her a ridiculous number of points on our unintentional references scoreboard. We chose a restaurant completely at random for lunch but were rewarded with some rather excellent Czech food – I had a pig knuckle which came with something called ‘grandmother cabbage crackles.’ They were very nice, anyway. The next few hours were spent wandering some more and also performing much tacky souvenir shopping – good fun. We spent our final few hours in Prague walking up Petrin Hill, which is a wooded hill opposite the castle’s hill and appealed to both of us thanks to its woodsy un-city-ness. In the cold rain it was particularly nice and fresh and clean. We sort of kept climbing for too long, though, and eventually had to descend faster than our knees would have liked, figure out which shop we could buy another tram ticket from, work out which tram we needed and where it stopped and all as fast as possible…but it was all fine and we got back to the station in enough time to collect our bags, find the way to the platforms (the engineering works extend to the station), find our train and indulge in reassuring a few lost Americans that this was indeed the correct train to catch.

This theme continued, as despite convincing them to get on the same train, they did keep popping along to check that we were still in our compartment – oh yes, a good old continental train with proper compartments of 3 seats facing 3 seats, enclosed with a door and very reminiscent of Harry Potter – you know, if the Hogwarts Express had been built under communism. At around sunset, our train stopped and we headed out into a small town and followed print-outs stuck to lampposts saying “Bus” and the like. Unfortunately, it then turned out there were three buses waiting for those of us who’d got off one train. Nobody in charge who spoke English (or indeed spoke at all that I noticed – it may just have been that nobody was in charge) so we were all milling a bit pointlessly for a while. Cheeky and I noticed that one of the buses had a piece of paper stuck in the window which said Horni Dvoriste, which is also what our kindly-printed-by-Wasteels schedule said. So we caught that one – and convinced the still-confused Americans to do the same – and sat on it trustingly as it drove us ever further into the deepening night in the Czech countryside. As it turned out, we were rather lucky in all of this because the other two buses did not go to the same place (which we had assumed) and as ours got us to the correct train… I don’t know where the others went. Anyway, train! Hurrah. With sleeper compartments! Hurrah – except that they were sleeper compartments made for hobbits. Skinny hobbits. The seats are not comfortable to sit on as seats and are certainly not comfortable to lie on as beds. I suppose I should be grateful that we could lie down but… I’m almost not, given how impossibly hard and narrow they were. Anyway, I’m skipping ahead of myself as we’d only just had dinner (warm and soggy cheese & tomato sandwiches – good thing we made them though as no food available on the train) when we boarded the train, which we were now rounding off with some cinnamon toast crunch. Our guard/ticket collector came round, sleazed at us a little in bad (Italian) English, then came back and sleazed at us a lot more while implying he could get us a compartment to ourselves if we bribed him. We refused that, trying not to laugh in his face, and then he showed us how the compartment door worked. Or rather, he very effectively showed us how it locked. He was less successful at getting it to unlock. This left him trapped in the compartment with us, repeatedly whacking the door to and fro and expecting a different result each time. It continued for probably a whole 5 minutes, by the end of which he was literally backing away from the door until he met the window, then charging the door and kicking it with all the force he could. Constantly muttering under his breath about ‘firma Italia’ – I think, cheeky and I were struggling far too hard not to dissolve into a hysterical giggle fit that I really wasn’t paying attention. Oh, so funny. Eventually, with the help of someone from a different compartment, he got the lock to unjam and escaped. Looking a little shamefaced, and dropping the sleaze, he suggested we move into the next compartment and then vanished totally, presumably so he could pretend that that hadn’t just happened. Which cheeky and I were quite fine with. Deciding that we weren’t going to sleep well on this train and might as well be tired before we tried, we discussed lots and lots of tv and eventually started playing the game that later made it onto the board at biped’s insistence – if 4 fictional characters were locked in this teensy tiny compartment, predict the outcome. It is a lot of fun, especially when you chuck superpowered people or mindreaders into the mix. Hee. That game alternated with shag/marry/push off a cliff, which turned into frak/marry/die by the end of the night. I would like to report that both of us married Mercer Hayes, but we really had no other options. And he is rather charming. Ahem. After midnight, as we arrived in Salzburg, we decided to try going to sleep. Yes… that was a bad idea. Spending an hour being shunted around a station, alternating between having no air conditioning or having a constant thrum from a diesel loco coming through your bed… not conducive to sleep. I think we probably drifted off at about 2am… and woke about 6 hours later, bleary-eyed as we neared Venice.

Prologue

An advisory note, before I begin: cheeky will be known as cheeky throughout this write-up. I am not good at replacing internet handles with real-life names, although I did at least remember to only ever shout ‘Kate!’ and nothing else when trying to get her attention in crowded public places.

And so, I’m going to write a little recap of our holiday. It may not be particularly original or witty (I haven’t felt witty for a long time), but it may provide a better record of actual activities than poor quality photos or our inane (and insane) ramblings in the pad that Kepp is now the proud owner of.

But cheeky came to stay at my house on the Monday prior to going on holiday on the Wednesday, so there was a little interlude which I shall recount prior to any exciting extra-insular experiences (sorry, got carried away by the ex factor there). On Monday night I picked her up from the train station after finishing work and she installed herself in the spare room in my house. (I do love having a spare room. And a house. It makes me feel so grown-up, and in a good way.) We had stir-fry for dinner, and watched no television whatsoever. I know, incredible. We did talk about tv quite a bit though…so that’s okay. Not much else was done this evening apart from cheeky laughing at the way I type and calling me scorpion girl. Hmph. That would be a stupid superhero. (Although not as useless perhaps as Grammar Girl, who I have just discovered (she does podcasts about grammar). Isn’t the internet a weird and wonderful place? Anyway.)

On Tuesday, I went to work and felt a little jealousy monster growl at leaving cheeky in bed. Sort of reasonable at 7am, but then I am rarely reasonable at 7am. I proceeded to do a minor amount of work at work, choosing instead to send quite a few pointless little emails to Keppet. As cheeky had my own computer turned on at home, she was a mute observer to this exchange every time gmail notifier beeped and showed another email arriving from Kepp. I found that strangely amusing. Cheeky herself managed to fill the day far more productively by catching up on Battlestar Galactica, so I also received excited emails containing many exclamation marks, descriptions of how she was shouting at the screen telling Anders to do various things, and gems like “I was bored of x, and now that x has been flown out the airlock x can go see Jammer and tell him all about how the people they trusted were Cylons and they can fume about it together.” This only lasted until she managed to kill my computer at about episode 5. Hmm. I think it just overheated with excitement – it was, thankfully, only a temporary thing. Or should that be momentary? She also tried one of my Fruity Oat bars (guess why I bought them), which later led to us dancing round the kitchen singing ‘make you bust out of your blouse!’ in fake squeaky Japanese voices. Ah, simple things…

When I got back from work, we hopped in the skitmobile and went off to Oxford to rescue Keppet from the physics department for an evening. Kepp and I had cocktails in Angels (it’s become a Thing now) – and no, we didn’t leave cheeky behind, I’ve just got myself in a grammatical tangle because she did accompany us but – cheeky had a glass of orange juice. Not a cocktail, even a virgin one. So there we go. We managed our usual effect on Angels – there were no customers to drive away this time with over-enthusiastic discussion of Angel episodes, but we did manage to make the bartender leave. She was so desperate to escape from us that she climbed a ladder into the ceiling. Seriously. From there, we walked into town to show cheeky a little bit of Oxford before the daylight faded, and basically just did a loop round Broad St, Catte St, Radcliffe Sq, the High and Conrmarket – popping into the Bodleian’s quad for a photo opportunity when we spotted its door was open (isn’t normally). We then dithered excessively about restaurants worthy of us, eventually plumping for Old Orleans. I ordered steak fajitas with (well, so did Keppet but she didn’t have) thoughts of a long-ago Bristol Hobbmeet. Jubal Early on ice! Anyway. They gave us a small bowl of salted popcorn, which cheeky and I devoured between us while they kept us waiting hours for our food. Our entertainment consisted of the kids’ menu and each other’s conversation…we read the kids’ menu. Apparently lemons have more sugar in than strawberries. *nods sagely* After dinner, we wandered back up to the skitmobile by way of G&D’s – the bestest little ice-cream shop (and other good things, such as those superb breakfast bagels we had once), where we had ice-cream…well, Keppet had tea. But I had ice cream. We then skipped the rest of the way back to the skitmobile, discussing how fun it is to act stupidly late at night, because passers-by just assume you’re drunk. You don’t get half so many weird looks as you would in the early afternoon, for example. Keppet got a lift back to her abode, and was probably unsurprised that the cd player was playing It Never Rains in Southern California. Certain things are predictable around me and cheeky…anyway, we then drove the hour back to my house and sat around in my bedroom playing more music while I started packing…until it got to midnight and I realised I didn’t want to die of exhaustion. So I went to bed, and as I drifted into happy dreams of a holiday, cheeky took over the living room and polished off season 3 of NZ show Outrageous Fortune, which she had already been watching that week and which I must find a copy of, I think. Anything that can provoke a text message saying ‘drugs rape & violence! Yay!’ has to be worth watching, right?

On Wednesday, I once more had to get up and go to work. Life is so unfair. But the day went fast and cheeky cajoled my computer into playing the final few BSG eps, so this time I got emails entitled, for example, ‘Jump!’ At 3pm I made a hasty exit (this was not really cheating, as I’d gone into work early), scooted home, packed all the remaining necessary things (bar one), locked up the house (having a few last-minute checks of whether I’d left the stove on) and drove us an hour up the M1 to East Midlands airport, on holiday at last.

Friday Farewells

And so farewell, Derby. You were my home for over two years - a town (okay, technically city) I'd never had anything to do with before, but which came to feel a lot like home.

So goodbye to 'the most central city in England' (which means nothing, you still get seagulls). Goodbye to the crazy half a ring road, goodbye to the all-too-frequent merging dual carriageways that caused havoc in rush hour, goodbye to the inconsistent cycle lanes liable to dump you at the wrong end of a one-way street. Goodbye to rows and rows of terraced red-brick houses - not that Derby is alone in having those, but it certainly has a lot. Goodbye to the badly-placed railway station which was being refurbished for the whole time I was there, goodbye to the bus station that was knocked down a year ago (anyone remember that news item about a protestor living in a caravan on a bus station roof? That was Derby) and will probably never be replaced.

Goodbye to the roads, the roads by which Derby navigates. Goodbye to Pride Park, the Wyvern, Traffic Street, London Road, Osmaston Road, Ashbourne Road, Pentagon island, Markeaton island, Palm Court island (I never even worked out which roundabout that one was), Kingsway, Spider island, Raynesway, the Cock Pitt and the Blue Peter.

Goodbye to the suburbs and villages with funny names, to Spondon, Chaddesden, Five Lamps, Chester Green, Quarndon, Borrowash, Chellaston, Swarkestone, Markeaton, Long Eaton, Little Eaton, Mackworth, Littleover, Allestree, Alvaston, Crewton, Normanton and even Sunnydale (although I never got round to finding it). Oh, and I never mentioned I've been living in New Zealand for the last two years, did I?

Goodbye to the Peak District, so handily close. Okay, I always drove for at least an hour to get up to the proper hills in the Dark Peak, but nonetheless it was great to know the hills and valleys and open wild landscape were all there if I needed them. Goodbye in particular to Edale and Kinder Scout, where I found something approaching the grandeur, beauty and sheer wildness of the Lake District or the Scottish Highlands. I'll be back, though - even from Northampton I believe the Peaks are still my closest hills.

Goodbye to the town centre, the shops and bars and pubs and restaurants we always ended up in. From Tonic and Limes with their delusions of grandeur and fashion, through Fat Cats with old books on the wall, the Brunswick (a real ale pub near the station; can you guess at the clientele?) and the Standing Order (a Wetherspoons housed in an old bank), to the old end-of night standbys of Varsity, Walkabout or the Scream pub. Plus, of course, the special little places - Sadlers with its 'mushroom lounge' as we called it (those bobbin seats), or the Dolphin pub dating back to Tudor times, with low beams to match. To the curry houses on Midland Road and the pricey little bistros of Friargate. To the new Westfield shopping centre that disrupted my daily life with roadworks and construction for 2 years, but finally enlivened it with yummy milkshakes and a gadget shop for the last two months.

Goodbye to Markeaton Park, scene of so many Sunday strolls, and to the paths and fields and villages beyond. To the river Derwent, which I never did manage to walk along beside, and to the bits of old canals and mill races lurking beside old mills in back streets. To the strange little back streets themselves, which you only found when cycling or walking around the city. In particular to that odd little route to Morrisons which led through an old factory site across a ford on a private road. That was strange.

Goodbye to the Playhouse, where I saw a couple of good plays and which has recently run out of money, and to the Assembly Rooms where I once saw some snooker.

Goodbye to Bombardier and Derby Carriage Works as was, with its huge long red-brick workshops, its portacabins, its running lines and traversers and forklifts and old carriages and bogies stood rusting in sidings. To its evil speed bumps, which I am not sorry to leave behind in the slightest, and to bacon cobs on Friday mornings from the canteen, which I am.

But most of all, farewell to the people. Goodbye to my own original graduate year, reduced as we now are, because we were a good group despite the odd range of people we had. To the people I worked with at Crewe and Central Rivers, not forgotten over the time since I last saw them (well, especially not the three from Central Rivers I am now working with here...), because I've never disliked a workplace group (of engineers) so far - they've all been great. To the RAM/LCC lot in Derby, for daily amusement through both insanity and stupidity, and for being generally great and friendly. To the others around - from the bunch of other 20-somethings-or-maybe-30-but-we-won't-talk-about-its I went out on Thursday nights with, good fun and pleasant company, to the fleet and system engineers who despite grey hair and revered wisdom could still come out with the best lines. "Crewe? A very good place for sick engines. It says so in Thomas The Tank Engine." And not forgetting the lunchtime canteen bunch - our conversations never failed to descend into the totally bizarre, usually with a good helping of smut and innuendo on the side. "Is that a chicken in your oven, or are you just pleased to see me?"

Sigh. Bye bye Derby. It was good knowing you.

Happy Hobblings and the Bad Cream of Death

Remember, remember the 5th of November,
Clotted cream, low clouds and mud.
With caves, stars and mulled wine, bright gorges and bonfires,
And murder – ‘cause we’re slightly odd.

Keppet’s account of the proceedings of the Cheddar Hobbmeet 2007 is more than fantastic, and I would not wish to rival it. (Because I’d lose.) But, comprehensive as it was (I just copied it into Word for a quick refresher, and – 21 pages!), I thought I should just commemorate a great weekend myself with a few extra little moments and memories.

Biped relaxing on Weston super Mare’s platform. Or else propping herself up so that she didn't fall over with boredom if I mentioned trains.

Biped declaring that Keppet wasn’t on the train that had just arrived, three seconds before she disembarked.

A little round of introductions to Blue, from us: “I’m Keppet.” “Biped,” “skittledog.” Nod and smile. “Ah.”

Why did Wookey Hole feel the need to accompany the huge and magnificent Cathedral Chamber cave with the tune of the Concierto d’Aranjuez adagio? I mean, it worked, but it wouldn’t be the first thing I’d think of doing in a huge cave…

The dinosaur destroying the pirate ship in the Graveyard of Fibreglass Statues.

Dwarf Hobblings!

The bonfire so large and fiery that it was enough fire to last me for weeks. I can still see its glorious colours and the sparks flying off into the cold night…

Playing board games until 2am, as the time slipped away amidst murder attempts and Lambeth Bridge; only the best of friends do this kind of thing, right?

Cookery, with biped and I often ending up in hysterics at how badly we were doing. Seriously, Keppet, you didn’t want to know what that roast lamb looked like at one point…

Keppet and biped reassuring me that yes, it is okay to use more than one clove of garlic in a sauce for three people (biped eating a raw clove proved nothing but did scare me…). Me and biped reassuring Keppet that yes, putting a small amount of sugar in a tomato sauce is a normal and indeed necessary thing to do. Keppet and I reassuring biped that no, a few washing-up suds left on the dishes will not kill us. (I suddenly want a Hobbling version of Kill Doctor Lucky…)

Keppet trudging around Cheddar Gorge with her little tribble coat on. How she didn’t explode of overheating, I know not.

Biped doodling a monster on the condensation on the inside of my car back window. I meant to take a photo of it, but sadly it has since been erased by other travellers.

All discussions over road atlases and maps… “oh, that’s where we went…”

Cock-a-doodle-dooooo! It’s 4am, and I am a manly rooster crowing for no discernible reason!

Me bringing my dvd player but forgetting the remote. Which made it impossible to watch anything but the first episode of anything. Oops.

Sky so nearly talking about mooncups in public.

Ah, the sherbet. The remainder emptied itself all over the inside of my backpack and is impregnating my possessions to this day.

Biped’s face when Keppet and I decided that all three of us should now occupy the same sofa. Mwahaha. *prod*

Spinning round while star-gazing to create personalised special effects.

The cheeriness of a muddy English seaside on a grey November day…with friends. *squelches and spins*

And a final farewell each time that – as Keppet has already said – really wasn’t a farewell at all. It was a see you later. It almost didn’t even sting – much as I didn’t want the weekend to be over, there was none of that ‘and now I won’t see you again for ages’ feeling. It was get home, turn the internet on and *prod* with immediate effect. Excellent.

@yawn@

Trend

Weekend 1: London. 130 miles from Derby.
Weekend 2: Cheddar. 150 miles from Derby.
Weekend 3: Lake District. 150 miles from Derby.
Weekend 4: Porthmadog. 140 miles from Derby.
Weekend 5: Stansted (for flight to Munich). 130 miles from Derby.

Is there some law about distance from Derby before places become worth going to?

Note for Stalkers and other Aliens

This is just a little snippet to say hello to any non-internet people wandering across this little corner of the internet. I know there are one or two of you out there now, and I know that very little of this blog is going to make sense to you, littered as it is with in-jokes and references to ‘Hobblings’ and the like. So I just wanted to say – well, tough, really. I’m not going to change who I’m writing for, because I just love in-jokes too much to drop them in case some of my audience don’t get them...and if you get too confused you can always just stop reading. Or gaze in awe at how interesting my life must be to generate all this oddness. Whichever...

Weekends, some more

20th/21st October: Belton-in-Rutland, with mother (and dog).

27th/28th October: London - friend's birthday Friday night, possible mini-meet with biped and cheeky Saturday.

3rd/4th November: Cheddar Gorge!

10th/11th November: Away with my mother for her birthday.

17th/18th November: Ffestiniog railway, again, some more.

24th/25th November - 3oth Nov/1st Dec: Holiday in Austria.

8th/9th Dec: change jobs, so hopefully either move house or start packing to move.

Remainder of December: Probably live as lodger in house with limited internet access.


...see you in 2008, aussie chat friends?