So, last week, I embarked back to the Mother Land with my fellow prog-rock band freak for a weekend of live music and debauchery… And debauch the Friday night was too…
So, after having ran around the house like a mad woman on the Friday morning, ensuring that everything was packed and then promptly falling asleep again until half past nine, I set off for my friends house and a what would be a few black holes in my already patchy memory…
In a way, the Friday could be classed as a disastrous and drunken day. We had walked for all of 20 seconds when my friends wheel fell off her borrowed suitcase – on a downhill slope. The prices in the first pub were extortionate… (£7.10 for two bottles of Peroni… In the words of everyone in the town I live… ‘Arrrrrrrr much?!?’). The train to the Mother Land was 26 minutes late – and the kind people at the station failed to inform us until it was already 24 minutes late. We then struggled to find the bottle opener in my suitcase and I managed to take us on a massively unnecessary detour from the Mother Land train station to the hotel along some cobbled streets – much to my friends disgruntlement as she was dragging her suitcase by this point.
Anyway, we got to the hotel (amid some swearing from my friend when she realised the extent of the unnecessary detour) and got to our room. Dumped a load of stuff and embarked to the nearest shop for some snacks and bits and pieces. While there, my phone started to ring with a number I didn’t recognise. As I was being served at the time, I let it ring out with a mental note to ring back when out of the shop. Let’s just say, I’m bloody glad I did… It was the ticket company where we’d bought the tickets for the concert explaining that I’d got myself into a bit of a situation. Namely dropping the all important tickets out of my bag on the train while we were hunting for the bottle opener. Ooops. No, scrap that. Very big oops. Anyway, it turned out the couple that found the tickets heading back to the station where we’d embarked would be returning to the Mother Land tomorrow and were more than happy to meet us with the tickets. My already disgruntled and annoyed friend after the unnecessary detour was at this point vowing to murder me if the couple didn’t turn up the following afternoon.
Fast-forward a couple of hours. Myself and my friend were now pleasantly merry. We had hit a couple of bars, had the most tonic-y Gin and Tonic in the world – ever (I can still taste the tonic – bluegh) and decided to head on to a nice cocktail bar with some live music pouring out of it. My friend then went on to order two MaiTai’s with added Quantro… Which cost her £27 (another ‘Arrrrrrrrrrrr much?!?!?’ moment) and then things get hazy. We walked down to one indie club I used to regularly attend when I was home from Uni. Queued up, politely and quietly with all of the jail bait – and then got refused entry on account of being too old. Slightly astounded, we then trekked half way across the City Centre to the other indie nightclub I used to frequent to be told the same thing. That’s when I got my ‘gobby’ head on and challenged the bouncer with ‘but how could you say that, you’re way older than us? All we want to do is have a dance to some decent indie music. Is that against the law if you’re over 25?’ In we went. For free.
It’s there that the little patches start appearing… I distinctly remember going to the bar and taking the mickey out of a young lad with Liam Gallagher-esque sideys, when an Arctic Monkey’s track came on and I ran back to the dancefloor to boogey away. Then I remember dancing to Jamie T and some weird 80’s music (weird for me, definitely) before sitting down on some chairs – and then standing up in the hotel. How I got from the club to the hotel is a complete mystery to me. Not got the foggiest. Anyway, the next thing I remember is a lot of beeping, some people shouting my name and clinging to a single duvet like it was my lifeline. It turns out someone had set the fire alarm off in the hotel at 3am and I had fallen asleep in the car park post evacuation with the duvet wrapped around me. As you do.
The next morning resulted in me finding a fairly big bruise in my armpit… You guessed it, from people trying to wake me up from the car park when the evacuation was over. And also in me being stupidly hung over. At one point in the morning, I fell back asleep clutching my friends bag and with the hotel key clamped between my teeth. I was a little bit zombie-fied as well as having a huge weight on my shoulders regarding the missing concert tickets. My other friend arrived at the hotel around mid-day and we embarked out into the city again – with me vowing not to have a single drop of alcohol. I swear I’d have been sick if I had. The knot in my stomach was getting tighter and tighter the nearer we got to meeting the couple with the missing tickets. What if it was a wind up? What if they decided they wanted to go to the concert instead? I couldn’t blame them if they did… Fortunately for us, they were as honest as the bright June sunshine and they came up with the two beautiful tickets. In return I bought them a couple of bottles of wine. The very least I could do after this couple had not only saved my life (the death threats from my friend were justified and very, very serious) but also restored my faith in humanity – 110%.
Feeling somewhat happier, although at this point my endo pain had decided to pop up and say hello – we set back for the hotel and to get ready into our Fancy Dress for the concert. Three glittery and angry teddy bears. Or that was the idea. Some people thought we were mice…
Diary Of A Faker 