Good lord, have I been quiet.
Very, very, busy.Thats why. Was away the weekend. the weather was...fabulous. More fabulous than Elton john, jean paul Gaultier, and ian mcKellan combined. utterly fabulous. But very, very busy.
Friday was work. Like normal, stuff happened. Go home. Pack. Look at the map, plan the route. Why? We're going away. Away.Away on holiday. Away on Holiday. A couple of days. (try singing that to a tune, it rhymes and everything). Down to the south, where mark and ellen stay. (Along with xander, Maeve and Elvis too, but that ruins the meter of the singy songy part of that sentence.)
Managing to avoid motorways wherever possible (taking the A14 and then the M11) and taking a slightly more circuitous route than normal, it took us four hours to get to see him.This was, in part due to the fact that some turnings are so horrendously signposted we overshot considerably and then had to doubleback on ourselves - incredibly annoying.
Saturday though, that was much better. However, I was woken up by a small, blonde, bouncy boy called Xander who walked into the room and was incredibly pleased to see me.
"Dada!" he shouted.
"Dada!" he bellowed again at me. Even with all that face fuzz, I still can't fool him. He walked, he talked, he played, and insisted on being read "
I love you, Stinkyface". Followed by "
Ship!". i couldn't see a ship up there - but i did find Sheep. I pull out the book about Sheep and he goes "
ShiP! Ship!".And he plays, and runs around...
Its the weekend, so its a time for a day out. get in the car and go to Deal.(Mark suggests this as he loves piers). However, the main reason for going to visit the Pier is a bit underwhelming, because Deal has the most rubbish Pier in the entire world. Honestly. Now, most piers are fairly...historical - all steel and wooden planking, old school victorian style.
However, Deal Pier was demolished in 1940, in order to stop the Germans invading, and so was rebuilt in 1957.in Concrete. Brutalist, harsh, characterless concrete. So much for the wooden planks and steel railings of yore, for Deal Pier is not unlike an extremely narrow and particularly useless carpark extending a kilometre into the sea. About the most interesting, and best part of the pier, was the lowered fishing decks with the wooden planking and steel grates, which had much more character than the transplanted At the end is a cafe, where the drinks are cheaper than the seafront, and there we ate. A Mile out to sea, surrounded by ocean, is a strange and unusual place to be eating a Burger. But in a nice way.(To imagine how
far out it stretches, look
here ). However, if you want to see just how brutalist it really is, look at
image here on Wikipedia .
Deal, was a bit crap, actually. Not much to do, except find all the charity shops are shut, and a huge old style sweet shop. I still didn't want sweets. We walked back to the cars, and had a bit of a play around on the beach as Ellen put Xander's baby seat into the girl's car.threw stones into the sea. Walked on planking. Got told off by Xander, who has developed a new habit of telling off Daddy when daddy goes too far. Must be seperation Anxiety. Whenever he walks off, Xander shouts. And does he shout.
"MARK!" he says. "
mark!" he says. There I was, doing the lotus karate kid style, and Xander is shouting at me, telling me off because I have run away. Then mark appears behind him, and he smiles, knowing that daddy hasn't left him, but was just hiding all along.
It must be wierd, because whenever i am there, I am Daddy. And so is Daddy. thats twins for you. So its a case of Xanders two Daddies. Which is sooo wierd, because its like
Heather's Two Mommies . Ok, its not quite up there with
,but it really is a case of Xander's two Daddies. Because whenever Xander loses Daddy, he's got double the chance of finding him again! Albeit, a bearded, evil, mirror image version of Daddy. Not unlike
Spock , Mirror universe style.
Mirror, Mirror.... Now just imagine what wouldhappen if it was a mirror Bush,
eh? After that, Ellen went off to a previous arrangement, and me, Girl, Mark and Xander went to Samphire Hoe. (look here
for pictures ).
Sampfire Hoe is a strange place - all reclaimed, built land, a hillside desolate with the white chalk cliffs looming over large and ominous. All the dirt from the Channel tunnel, here it is, dumped into the sea and held back by metal and non-pourous concrete. Its a wierd, strange, unnatural place - yet green, and vibrant with life. So fascinating, in fact, me and girl went back the next day to walk around it properly, as the sun gently set and the
coastal defences still wait for an invading army that will never come, long defeated. (there's lots of pictures
here , by the way).
back home to the House of maeve and Elvis, some food and a watching of Ghost World later, and then its Sunday.
Sunday involves getting up early. Xander bashes the door awake for a play at ten past eight. So I stay awake, looking after him, and watchign 'Cars'. For the Umpteenth time. "McQuee!" shouts Xander, before playing with a spindle of a CDs. And then, we are supposed to be heading out, but me and Girl end up going to the mall. yes! the Mall. There's a large, tented, mall outside from where mark lives. And we've never been. So we go. As malls go, the mall is very...expensive. And it looks it. A big oval shape with car parks in the middle - on google maps, it looks like the sucker of a tapeworm, bizarrely enough.
Mark rings us and tells that Xander is tired and gone to sleep. So me And Girl decided ot head off, so we go to Dover, which we had driven through the day before. Both me and the Girl are big geeks for ships, machinery and that sort of thing, so walking around Dover was fascinating, looking at ferries and shipping machinery and eating ice creams and burgers by the sea, looking through at the port through the telescopes which have had the 20ps jammed in them so you never have to pay to look anymore.
Then We walk along Dover Pier, the big long pier, halfway out to sea. Past the concrete and pebbledashed shelters with speed limits, past the empty bottles of Chekovs Vodka and emptied tins of tennants lager, past the cafe at the end of the pier to look out at the big traffic lights to control the ferry traffic. Beyond there, far in the distance, pale and faded, is France. So close, yet so far away. Back along the pier, towards town, past the speed ferries depot where there stands a sole hovercraft propellor, isolated, up in sky, a monumnet to an age of air cushioned transport. In all honesty, it made me suddenly nostalgic for the days when you could travel by hovercraft, and not even gold plated ones at that. (I was mildy tempted with the idea of hoverfest, at the
Hovercraft Museum .
Its fascinating, almost as fasicnating as Tank Museum and Monkey World (Which is one of my favourite ever road signs). Bizarrely, just after talkign about it, two minutes later on the Tv was a report on the tank Museum. Spooky.But no, hoverfest seems fascinatring, or maybe even travelling to scotland should they reintroduce a service across the forth. In dover though,
the last hovercraft travelled commerically on oct 2000....dammit . However, if you want some nicer pictures, try the german translation of the wikipedia page, the ratehr smutty sound
Luftkissenfahrzeug. Arf!
And then back to the car.We went to Sampfire hoe again, and walked for miles, across the grass which man had reclaimed from nature. We went lastly, to Folkestone. it might be the wolverhampton of kent, as mark describes it, but I had never been before.
We followed the signs to the amusement park, just to discover knocked down concrete and nothing left. this time in five years, it'll be luxury flats. it's fascinating, to see the urban dereliction of what had been. particualrly fascinating was the visit to Folkestone harbor Railway Station, a station whcih is still in use, albeit for about two trains a year (mainly the Orient express). the Station, whilst in disrepair and hardly ever maintained, is still open for business and not officially closed, which makes it a fascinating place to visit.Whilst closed to regular traffic, there are no plans to officially close it yet - but if you ever look att he local planning documents from the council, they intend to remove the railway viaduct and then redevlop, which m,eans it will soon disappear into nothingness.
The Wikipedia link is very interesting , and i really can't recomend this link
enough as, too I must also reccommend another link that the mighty Urban 75 has, whcih is located at the following
location .
After that home, more of which another day. Monday, left and went back to brum, via Duxford air museum, and seeing Giles. giles house, and the pub followed by a walk across the field. got home late. listened to Kiss. That sort of thing. Relaxed, a lot.
Tuesday, work. Went to the movies with the lesser spotted pynchon, to see the Wicker Man. A fascinating, brilliant, moving and incredible film, it really should be seen on the big screen if you get the chance. interestingly enough, it was the readily available, but lesser seen ordinary theatrical version (rather than the longer directors cut ). Some of the scenes though, has noticeably lower picture quality, and there was the scene in the library that was presented in full which only occurs in the directors cut. So I suspect what we saw last night was a rather strange hybrid version, the likes of which is rarely ever seen. But the film is undeniably a masterpiece, that is without doubt or question.
Afterwards, me and the Pynch went to the pub. Both of us were hungry, so there were a couple of pints and a usual overpriced, undernourishing gastropub meal. And then off to bed. And sleep, perchance to dream.....
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