a few years ago....
I got conned (agreed to when I was pissed) into joining in with a erm...re-enactment group...when they were off on a yomp to York for a coronation in York Minster of Eric the Bloodaxe.

so we all (me, my buddy Jon, my eldest son (12 at the time) Paddy (big burly guy who looked like Blackbeard) Paddy's girlfriend, Jon's dodgy brother who had a 'thing' for re-enacting WWII - as a nazi..hmm - and his equally dodgy wife) all hot foot it up to York, Friday night after work

(actually, now I've put down the list of who was going, I'm not that suprised it was quite hard to find somewhere to stay....)

Anyway! We all piled into the B&B that had allegedly been booked for us all, only to be told by the guy that was a spitting image of the nasty landlord in League of Gentlemen, that there was only one room - it was a pretty nasty place anyway - the front room was green, tiny, with a massive chandelier that was at my head height (I am 5'2"! - the other guys were like, 6ft and over!) so we scarpered quickly, leaving the nazi and his 'frau' to that one!

We drove round and round York, the time was getting on (about 10pm by now) and of course every B&B is packed to the rafters with carousing would-be Vikings, singing bawdy songs, quaffing beer just as the dwarfs in Terry Pratchett novels do...

We finally find one last B&B - straight out of a gothic horror novel (yeah, you're thinking it was right up my street, heh) and this shabby old bint shows us up 4 flights of stairs to the attic room - which contains 2 sets of bunkbeds and one 'normal' bed (the mattress was on a sheet of hardwood, held up by four pieces of random timber...

We took it, of course we did, we were knackered, and desperate!

The sheets were minging, made of that bizarre nylon stuff like you used to get in those Youth Hostel 'sleeping bags' and had a lovely 'broderie anglaise' effect from all the fag burns previous residents had left. The banging from the water pipes against the wall every time someone flushed the toilet kept us nicely woken up quite regularly - I guess this could have been construed as an authentic bit of preparation for a Viking Battle (um, the other side banging their shields during the night, or something)

We get up the next morning, feeling shittier than the other Viking brethren who'd spent the previous night getting arse holed, and wend our way down the rickety stairs to breakfast

Cue a glass of neat orange squash (I wish I was joking) tea that probably *was* dishwater, a 'rare' fried egg and a couple of sausages that looked like they'd been retrieved from the clanging toilet overnight...mm..delicious!

At least we had fun visiting Pizza Hut later that day after the 'coronation' and the 'battle' when we piled in, in full battle regalia (not me tho, I had to wear a fucking wimple!)

But I did sing some bawdy songs ;-D
( curvylittlegoth heard the voices in your head on, Thu 17 Jan 2008, 23:57, Reply)