» Have you ever seen a dead body?

Blowing in the wind
I saw my Dad die a horrible painful death from cancer a few years back and felt, as you'd expect, pretty shit about it. All that stuff you read about people slipping away is bollocks. My Dad died waving his arms around terrified of whatever he saw coming his way. Nasty stuff.

Anyway, moving swiftly on, he was cremated and my Mum, brother and I took his ashes to the cemetary where his Mum and Dad are buried. I hadn't got the guts and Mum was in pieces so my Brother did the scattering thing.

Now, my brother didn't really think things through on this one because rather than crouch down and carefully scatter the ashes of our recently departed loved one he stood up and just tipped him out. Cue a particularly strong gust of wind which blew most of my Dad all over my brother's trousers and shoes. The rest of him blew in all our faces and was duly ingested into our lungs. Now, I don't know whether you've been around someone with advanced cancer, but it has a very particular smell which is a long way from pleasant. I'll always remember breathing in and realising that I'd just snorted my Dad. Not in the Keith Richards (allegedly) way, just by breathing.

I had to turn away at this point as I was pissing myself laughing at the ghostly figure of my brother covered in dead Dad's ashes and thought Mum might find it a tad inappropriate. I managed to get it together and some hours later when I got him on his own I asked my brother what he'd thought when Dad blew all over his trousers and shoes. "I thought it was bloody hilarious" he said, adding "He always was getting under my feet". The best bit is, my old man would have pissed himself laughing just as much as we did. RIP Dad. :)

P.S. Without a word of a lie, I smelt that cancer smell my Dad had twice in the next 6 months in 2 different places when I was on my own. I reckon they do hang around a bit you know...
(Fri 29th Feb 2008, 14:17, More)

» Hotel Splendido

Chester - i think
Okay, so myself, a mate of mine and his lady friend are off to the Menai Straights for a weekend of wind surfing. Were a bit delayed so decided to stop in Chester on the way. Now, this hotel had been "recommended" by a dodgy looking geezer we met whilst pounding the streets looking for accomodation. Slightly hesitant, we parked up in the car park of this somewhat scary looking hovel. We went into reception and rang the bell. After about 5 minutes a chap looking suspiciously like John Virgo but with a longer beard but slightly more booze inside him than Len Ganley ever consumed in his life, informed us that he only had 1 room and it had 2 beds, a double and a single. On arriving at the room we found it had no lock or even door handle. Inside we found filthy stained bed clothes and filthy stained mattresses. Of course, my mate and his girlfriend had the double and I had the single bed. To my utter despair the double bed squeaked like a mouse in distress with the slightest movement and guess what, my mate and his partner decided to spend most of the night shagging. Oh joy. During the brief periods of sleep I awoke to find someone trying to get into the room. Luckily, due to the lack of lock we'd wedged a wardrobe up against the door so they never got in. I manfully pulled the filthy stained quilt over my head until they'd gone of course.

The next morning, we went downstairs to find he hotel deserted and the promised breakfast missing. Never mind we thought, we'll just go back to car and carry on to the wind surfing. However, having failed to get into or room, our night time friends had instead emptied my car of everything of any value, including everything in the boot. We found some of the stuff in a nearby hedge, but most of it was lost. We went back into the hotel but couldn't find anyone to tell so we moved on.

Now a small addendum to this story is that my mate at the time kept some very dubious company (not me of course!) and I heard on the news that this particular hotel had burned down a week later, arson suspected. I never asked him if he'd organised it, I was too scared. Still I hope the thieving bastards burned.

Length ? 3 stories, 10 bedrooms, pile of ashes about 2 feet tall.
(Sun 20th Jan 2008, 22:37, More)