I'm in my fourth week of leaving my job - wanted to get out before I had to say I'd worked there for an entire decade.
Nine years and eleven months sounds so much better.
So far the count of desperate emails pleading for me to return at a gratuitously high daily rate stands at zero.
My departure did have one side effect I never counted on though - the cleaners have been missing me.
They first thought I was on holiday. Then they thought I'd just been keeping my desk really tidy.
It was then that my friend Phil, fearful of causing hysteria which might lead to a massive coronary and no one to clean the mess, broke the news to them gently.
Never has so much wailing and gnashing of teeth been concentrated into two tiny letters.
"Oh," the cleaner said.
And then she added, "I'll take away his bin then."
Friday 27 November 2009
Wednesday 25 November 2009
Short fiction - Nightwalker
I once knew this fella, regular as clockwork once a week he'd go round to his grandparents for tea. He would buy some cream cakes on his way there, a packet of four. After they'd eaten they'd argue over whose turn it was for the spare and always they ended up splitting it three ways no matter that the knives were all blunt, and no matter that meant destruction, sad little curls of cream lining the plate.
After the washing up they would sit around in front of the television, or perhaps with a board game or two, though that was rare with the rise of energy saving lightbulbs that produced a light too weak for older eyes.
Always at nine the guy would walk home. His grandmother telling him to catch the bus or better yet, why not a taxi? Who has money for taxis? he'd say, and the grandfather would nod and take his wife by the arm and tell her it was only a half hour walk. The guy would close the gate and wave, and always the two old folk would wait till he was out of sight, no matter the cold.
They would go inside and she'd talk over the journey; the dark streets out of their estate, the bridge over the river, that big junction where the boy was killed and don't you try and tell me being plugged into his music player had nothing to do with it. The old man never saying what he'd heard later, how the boy had been on the pavement waiting for the green man. How they still hadn't replaced the safety barriers.
It was a half hour of worry each week, ended only by the call that said he was home safe.
Then one week, the call never came.
He'd just stopped to look at the high tide, see the lights of the city mirrored in the water. Or stopped for a pint of milk.
But by ten, still no call, so with shaking hands she dialled his number and waited ten rings, and then fifteen, giving up on twenty.
So now what? What could they do? Ring someone up and be called worrying old fools?
Then the relief as the phone starts to ring, and it's him, the joy tempered only by a gentle scolding - you know how I worry. You should take care, there's crazy people come out at night.
And the guy, stood in his bath room, with his hand on the mirror looking at the blood that's splashed up on his face tells her not to worry, he's not scared of the crazies of the night. When he hangs up and says goodnight he's wondering - should he really have slung the fencepost, or perhaps instead brought it home and burnt it on the fire.
After the washing up they would sit around in front of the television, or perhaps with a board game or two, though that was rare with the rise of energy saving lightbulbs that produced a light too weak for older eyes.
Always at nine the guy would walk home. His grandmother telling him to catch the bus or better yet, why not a taxi? Who has money for taxis? he'd say, and the grandfather would nod and take his wife by the arm and tell her it was only a half hour walk. The guy would close the gate and wave, and always the two old folk would wait till he was out of sight, no matter the cold.
They would go inside and she'd talk over the journey; the dark streets out of their estate, the bridge over the river, that big junction where the boy was killed and don't you try and tell me being plugged into his music player had nothing to do with it. The old man never saying what he'd heard later, how the boy had been on the pavement waiting for the green man. How they still hadn't replaced the safety barriers.
It was a half hour of worry each week, ended only by the call that said he was home safe.
Then one week, the call never came.
He'd just stopped to look at the high tide, see the lights of the city mirrored in the water. Or stopped for a pint of milk.
But by ten, still no call, so with shaking hands she dialled his number and waited ten rings, and then fifteen, giving up on twenty.
So now what? What could they do? Ring someone up and be called worrying old fools?
Then the relief as the phone starts to ring, and it's him, the joy tempered only by a gentle scolding - you know how I worry. You should take care, there's crazy people come out at night.
And the guy, stood in his bath room, with his hand on the mirror looking at the blood that's splashed up on his face tells her not to worry, he's not scared of the crazies of the night. When he hangs up and says goodnight he's wondering - should he really have slung the fencepost, or perhaps instead brought it home and burnt it on the fire.
Sleepless nights walking on the wild side
My house consists of three storeys on the side of a steep hill. Taking the road as ground level this puts my kitchen diner at the level of a cellar, and to use an old estate agents trick, it's deliciously moist. Which in turn of course means that the slugs bloody love it.
By day, all is calm. By evening, all is calm. But at night, late at night, that's when the action starts to happen. Now imagine that you can't sleep. It's two in the morning and you're tossing away, so you get up and go down the two flights of stairs to the kitchen and walk across the cold tiles in your bare feet. Imagine too the feel of that seaweed, the kind with fronds and big bubbles of air to make it float, popping beneath your feet.
Got that? Good. Because that's what a slug feels like when you step on it. Only instead of a pleasant dive into a rock pool you're left with a nasty yellow splodge all over the tiles and caking the underside of your foot, little slug carcass writhing in it's death throes.
I started to think they had some kind of plan - move in there slow and turf me out of my own house. Have to admit to not being overly worried - for a species whose only tactic was to move slowly and from time to insert themselves between a bare foot and the floor I don't rate their chances much. Unless that first wave was like those Zulu warriors launched against Rourke's Drift so the chieftains could count the guns...
And then they moved on to phase 2.
Psyhcological warfare.
Can you imagine the horror when an attractive female companion calls you into your newly sparkling downstairs bathroom to point out a slug skating on the toilet seat?
I could perhaps have survived that only it turns out she had a problem with callous cruelty to slugs. Though I don't see what her problem is - I cover myself with Radox Foaming Shower Wash every day of the week and it's never done me any harm
By day, all is calm. By evening, all is calm. But at night, late at night, that's when the action starts to happen. Now imagine that you can't sleep. It's two in the morning and you're tossing away, so you get up and go down the two flights of stairs to the kitchen and walk across the cold tiles in your bare feet. Imagine too the feel of that seaweed, the kind with fronds and big bubbles of air to make it float, popping beneath your feet.
Got that? Good. Because that's what a slug feels like when you step on it. Only instead of a pleasant dive into a rock pool you're left with a nasty yellow splodge all over the tiles and caking the underside of your foot, little slug carcass writhing in it's death throes.
I started to think they had some kind of plan - move in there slow and turf me out of my own house. Have to admit to not being overly worried - for a species whose only tactic was to move slowly and from time to insert themselves between a bare foot and the floor I don't rate their chances much. Unless that first wave was like those Zulu warriors launched against Rourke's Drift so the chieftains could count the guns...
And then they moved on to phase 2.
Psyhcological warfare.
Can you imagine the horror when an attractive female companion calls you into your newly sparkling downstairs bathroom to point out a slug skating on the toilet seat?
I could perhaps have survived that only it turns out she had a problem with callous cruelty to slugs. Though I don't see what her problem is - I cover myself with Radox Foaming Shower Wash every day of the week and it's never done me any harm
Thursday 19 November 2009
Greenfingered?
A few years ago I almost ended up buying this awesome cottage style terraced house. The front was white washed and the window sills and reveals were a lovely sky blue. Inside it was tasteful and modern, the attic turned into another bedroom, the edges lined with sunken electric tea lights. With the lights off it could have been a subterrean cave grotto.
That would have been my room.
The crowning glory of that house was the garden. Perhaps it was fifty feet long, all lawn, Rising steeply above the house, bordered on both sides by towering Leylandii that came almost right up to the walls. A totally private space with a flat area for a barbecue and a table.
It was gorgeous.
Then the survey came back. Problems with damp (it was), problems with the damp proof course (it didn't), problems with attic conversion (it sucked), problems with the kitchen extension (one good sneeze away from collapse).
So I pulled out. Eventually I bought my current house. It's got a tiny garden. Half of it is paved over. Half of the remaining half is a shed. There is grass, but a guy with no arms could stand in the middle and touch all the edges.
And right now it's a complete mess. This year, so far, I have gone out and done gardening a grand total of one time.
And by gardening I mean I've gone out with some secateurs and hacked back the hedges till they bloody well respected me. Spent at least an hour out there.
I've done some other things out there - though I don't think idly pulling up bindweed from the lawn while on the phone to your mate counts as gardening. It made the lawn look on brown as well.
It's a shame I didn't buy that quaint cottage style mid terrace after all. We might have discovered a lost Celtic tribe in there by now.
That would have been my room.
The crowning glory of that house was the garden. Perhaps it was fifty feet long, all lawn, Rising steeply above the house, bordered on both sides by towering Leylandii that came almost right up to the walls. A totally private space with a flat area for a barbecue and a table.
It was gorgeous.
Then the survey came back. Problems with damp (it was), problems with the damp proof course (it didn't), problems with attic conversion (it sucked), problems with the kitchen extension (one good sneeze away from collapse).
So I pulled out. Eventually I bought my current house. It's got a tiny garden. Half of it is paved over. Half of the remaining half is a shed. There is grass, but a guy with no arms could stand in the middle and touch all the edges.
And right now it's a complete mess. This year, so far, I have gone out and done gardening a grand total of one time.
And by gardening I mean I've gone out with some secateurs and hacked back the hedges till they bloody well respected me. Spent at least an hour out there.
I've done some other things out there - though I don't think idly pulling up bindweed from the lawn while on the phone to your mate counts as gardening. It made the lawn look on brown as well.
It's a shame I didn't buy that quaint cottage style mid terrace after all. We might have discovered a lost Celtic tribe in there by now.
Wednesday 18 November 2009
Oh god, Spotify!
First off - I do like Spotify. I use it all the time.
Despite the fact that it's ads drive me up the wall. Here's an ad for you. Heard it 3 times already today? Goodo. Here it is, another fifty seven times in a row...
It's like an annoying guy you meet at a party. He keeps coming up to switch you to his point of view...
[Here comes the bald, freaky looking guy in over tight shirt]
Have you heard the new Robbie Williams album?
Nope. (Drift away to the buffet)
[Here he comes again]
You really should try the new Robbie Williams album
No thanks (hey, is that girl looking at me?)
[Uh-oh, same annoying dude]
It's really good, I'll hum a line of it to you.
Really, no thank you (she is, she's looking over here, let's try smiling, that's a neat trick)
[Aaargh, sod off Robbie fan]
I'm humming a line of it right now, hmmmm, hmmmm, everyone wants to look good naked-
Go away (Right, stomach in, approach with your left side)
[Pitter patter of annoying feet]
Robbie was the best one out of Take Th-
(Smile at the girl. She's smiling back! Don't mess this up now.)
"Hi," she says. "I heard you humming back there. I love Robbie too!"
Three seconds later...the girl...on the floor.
I just don't know what made my right arm lash out like that
My favourite Spotify ad is the one where they describe the lengths they go to in order to target the right ads at the right people - so they don't bombard people with ads "not meant for them".
Then proceed to play me that same one six times in a row.
Or the one when the guy talks about the offline playlist feature. Now you can go to your summerhouse with Spotify!
Summerhouse?
I have a shed. It's full of spiders. With a bag of sand and some paving slabs to stop it blowing away in the wind. But I guess at least now I can go and squat in there listening to the hits of the Flying Pickets.
Now I could go and buy the premium version - no ads! But that would be a little too much like giving in. Of surrendering. Plus, I get off on the buzz of muting the sound system when the ads come on.
Despite the fact that it's ads drive me up the wall. Here's an ad for you. Heard it 3 times already today? Goodo. Here it is, another fifty seven times in a row...
It's like an annoying guy you meet at a party. He keeps coming up to switch you to his point of view...
[Here comes the bald, freaky looking guy in over tight shirt]
Have you heard the new Robbie Williams album?
Nope. (Drift away to the buffet)
[Here he comes again]
You really should try the new Robbie Williams album
No thanks (hey, is that girl looking at me?)
[Uh-oh, same annoying dude]
It's really good, I'll hum a line of it to you.
Really, no thank you (she is, she's looking over here, let's try smiling, that's a neat trick)
[Aaargh, sod off Robbie fan]
I'm humming a line of it right now, hmmmm, hmmmm, everyone wants to look good naked-
Go away (Right, stomach in, approach with your left side)
[Pitter patter of annoying feet]
Robbie was the best one out of Take Th-
(Smile at the girl. She's smiling back! Don't mess this up now.)
"Hi," she says. "I heard you humming back there. I love Robbie too!"
Three seconds later...the girl...on the floor.
I just don't know what made my right arm lash out like that
My favourite Spotify ad is the one where they describe the lengths they go to in order to target the right ads at the right people - so they don't bombard people with ads "not meant for them".
Then proceed to play me that same one six times in a row.
Or the one when the guy talks about the offline playlist feature. Now you can go to your summerhouse with Spotify!
Summerhouse?
I have a shed. It's full of spiders. With a bag of sand and some paving slabs to stop it blowing away in the wind. But I guess at least now I can go and squat in there listening to the hits of the Flying Pickets.
Now I could go and buy the premium version - no ads! But that would be a little too much like giving in. Of surrendering. Plus, I get off on the buzz of muting the sound system when the ads come on.
Sunday 15 November 2009
Names
I'm not very good with names. Remembering them, associating them with faces. Five seconds after hearing a name, it's gone. A trait I think share with lots of people.
There's Brazilian lady who lives in my street. I've walked into town with her a couple of times - we happened to be going the same way. We've chatted. I learned she wasn't Spanish. Or Portuguese.
I still don't know her name. Though she did tell me when we first met. But then, five seconds later, off it went.
The second time we met she did this thing - "It's James, isn't it?"
Cool and calm as you like. It was slick. For some reason I can't bring myself to do that. It doesn't help that I don't even have the vaguest of inklings of what her name is.
But I do know her kid's name - it's Ethan. I know this because every time I see the two of them together she mentions it - keep away from the kerb Ethan, don't run Ethan.
Ethan's no help. Just calls her Mummy.
So now when I see her I ask her how Ethan is. Just to prove that yes, I was listening the first time we met.
She's going to be really freaked out come Christmas card time
There's Brazilian lady who lives in my street. I've walked into town with her a couple of times - we happened to be going the same way. We've chatted. I learned she wasn't Spanish. Or Portuguese.
I still don't know her name. Though she did tell me when we first met. But then, five seconds later, off it went.
The second time we met she did this thing - "It's James, isn't it?"
Cool and calm as you like. It was slick. For some reason I can't bring myself to do that. It doesn't help that I don't even have the vaguest of inklings of what her name is.
But I do know her kid's name - it's Ethan. I know this because every time I see the two of them together she mentions it - keep away from the kerb Ethan, don't run Ethan.
Ethan's no help. Just calls her Mummy.
So now when I see her I ask her how Ethan is. Just to prove that yes, I was listening the first time we met.
She's going to be really freaked out come Christmas card time
Saturday 14 November 2009
The wind and the rain
I love the wind and the rain. When I pretend that I'd love to have a job out in the open instead of cooped up indoors all day it makes me bloody glad I don't.
Very harsh, driving rain though. A worry, for home owners such as myself. There's a minor hole in my roof that I still haven't got fixed, but from my vantage point down here in the kitchen it doesn't appear to be leaking. The scaffolding in the back garden is wobbling alarmingly, but I've shut the kitchen blind, so that's all right too.
But not everyone is tucked up in the dry today.
Across the road there lives this guy. He has a very attractive girl friend. I mean, really attractive. Smoking hot looking. She likes wearing slinky low cut numbers and totters about on high heels. Bet she has a good personality too.
Anyway, back to this chap. I hate him. Not sure why. One of those irrational things, like wanting to slap Jimmy Carr a bit even though he makes me laugh. Oh, and this guy has this little black and white cat. Spends most of it's life sitting on the doorstep waiting to be let in.
Well this poor thing spent all of last night's Noah's Flood Part Deux mioawing it's little heart out to be let in (which does explain why I spent a half hour feverishly checking every room for next door's cat being shut in again).
After spending the whole night in our warm beds a self righteous small crowd gathered around this poor scrap of life in the morning. The RSPCA were muttered in hushed tones, lots of banging on the front door, though the consensus, reached by the mail on the doormat, was that they were away for the weekend. After everyone sorted their excuses out - I've got a dog, I'm off out - one of the neighbours hit upon the perfect solution: makeshift shelter in the front yard! Cue lots of donations of any old crap people had lying around they couldn't be bothered taking to the tip and bingo! One perfectly viable, albeit slightly damp and breezy makeshift cat shelter. Bit like all the cars in the street, only less watertight...
Everyone felt good with the cat tucked up inside with some dog food (hoping for some serious cross species action next full moon with this) and then the cat resumed it's seat on the doorstep. Sod it appeared to be the general consensus and then everyone sodded off. I went back to my desk and watched the cat while I tried to think up a better excuse.
It can't have been more than thirty seconds after the crowd dispersed that the front door was opening and there was stoned guy! He must have been stoned, surely. Why else would someone so white and skinny open the front door dressed only in y-fronts? But at least the cat was saved! Dry and warm at last.
So I can stop thinking up reasons for not inviting the damp cat into my house, and I also get all the the pleasant afternoon entertainment of watching stoned guy open the front door to a succession of callers, each time getting more confused at finding someone has built a little house on his front door step.
Very harsh, driving rain though. A worry, for home owners such as myself. There's a minor hole in my roof that I still haven't got fixed, but from my vantage point down here in the kitchen it doesn't appear to be leaking. The scaffolding in the back garden is wobbling alarmingly, but I've shut the kitchen blind, so that's all right too.
But not everyone is tucked up in the dry today.
Across the road there lives this guy. He has a very attractive girl friend. I mean, really attractive. Smoking hot looking. She likes wearing slinky low cut numbers and totters about on high heels. Bet she has a good personality too.
Anyway, back to this chap. I hate him. Not sure why. One of those irrational things, like wanting to slap Jimmy Carr a bit even though he makes me laugh. Oh, and this guy has this little black and white cat. Spends most of it's life sitting on the doorstep waiting to be let in.
Well this poor thing spent all of last night's Noah's Flood Part Deux mioawing it's little heart out to be let in (which does explain why I spent a half hour feverishly checking every room for next door's cat being shut in again).
After spending the whole night in our warm beds a self righteous small crowd gathered around this poor scrap of life in the morning. The RSPCA were muttered in hushed tones, lots of banging on the front door, though the consensus, reached by the mail on the doormat, was that they were away for the weekend. After everyone sorted their excuses out - I've got a dog, I'm off out - one of the neighbours hit upon the perfect solution: makeshift shelter in the front yard! Cue lots of donations of any old crap people had lying around they couldn't be bothered taking to the tip and bingo! One perfectly viable, albeit slightly damp and breezy makeshift cat shelter. Bit like all the cars in the street, only less watertight...
Everyone felt good with the cat tucked up inside with some dog food (hoping for some serious cross species action next full moon with this) and then the cat resumed it's seat on the doorstep. Sod it appeared to be the general consensus and then everyone sodded off. I went back to my desk and watched the cat while I tried to think up a better excuse.
It can't have been more than thirty seconds after the crowd dispersed that the front door was opening and there was stoned guy! He must have been stoned, surely. Why else would someone so white and skinny open the front door dressed only in y-fronts? But at least the cat was saved! Dry and warm at last.
So I can stop thinking up reasons for not inviting the damp cat into my house, and I also get all the the pleasant afternoon entertainment of watching stoned guy open the front door to a succession of callers, each time getting more confused at finding someone has built a little house on his front door step.
Friday 13 November 2009
It still counts
It's the end of full time writer, week 2. Check the time - twenty five minutes past eight.
On a Friday night.
I've decided this is in no way sad or lonely. It's dedication. Plus, by researching* for the last half hour I'm up to an average of five hours per day for the past week!
That's worth celebrating. So I will.
Though I've got to have tea first. Then wash up. Need to clean the house too, friends visiting tomorrow. No clothes to wear that don't need ironing either.
Ah, the heady, bohemian life of the writer.
Hey, this blog post counts! So that's an average of 5.01 hours per day.
* Researching = surfing the interwebs for the last half hour till my average daily work time reached the magic five hour mark. Only a very small amount of facebook surfing was involved. It still counts though. So neh.
On a Friday night.
I've decided this is in no way sad or lonely. It's dedication. Plus, by researching* for the last half hour I'm up to an average of five hours per day for the past week!
That's worth celebrating. So I will.
Though I've got to have tea first. Then wash up. Need to clean the house too, friends visiting tomorrow. No clothes to wear that don't need ironing either.
Ah, the heady, bohemian life of the writer.
Hey, this blog post counts! So that's an average of 5.01 hours per day.
* Researching = surfing the interwebs for the last half hour till my average daily work time reached the magic five hour mark. Only a very small amount of facebook surfing was involved. It still counts though. So neh.
Wednesday 11 November 2009
Monday 9 November 2009
Full time writer, week 2
It's only the start of the week, but here are some stats for the week:
Days since left the house: 2
Words written *: 7
Pink Floyd songs listened to: 45
Hours spent on Wikipedia reading about Pink Floyd: 3
Cups of tea consumed: 5
Window frames painted: 1
Hours spent in the loft looking for Pink Floyd CD collection: 5
Hours spent staring at the manuscript, tension slowly building throughout my entire body as the crushing weight of the enormity of how much work left slowly dawns: 5.5
Still...already topped last week!
* Not including Twitter, this blog, letters to Santa
Thursday 5 November 2009
An evening of clairvoyance
Sadly my visit didn't coincide with the medium whose spirit guide was Marcus Aurelius (actual to God Jupiter Roman Emperor). It was a chap called Colin* instead. He didn't have a spirit guide. He was simply the conduit between this world and the next! Through him all the spiritual energy would flow...
There was no darkened room and sitting around in a circle with fingers touching. Just a little battered Spiritualist Church with water damaged ceiling tiles and old sweet tins to collect the entry fee. It was £1.50 and there were 20 of us, so no one was making much cash out of this. They put out seventy seats, but like Colin said, he couldn't see into the future.
My plan to shout "yes! He's my father" when Colin asked if anyone knew someone called Pamela never got off the ground - the spirits point out who they want to talk to. Sadly no one I knew had bothered to show.
I can't of course disclose the nature of any of the conversations between worshiper and spirit (via Colin) that I heard tonight - that would violate worshiper/cynic confidentiality.
But I can pass along a few observations that might stand you in good stead:
*: Not his real name
There was no darkened room and sitting around in a circle with fingers touching. Just a little battered Spiritualist Church with water damaged ceiling tiles and old sweet tins to collect the entry fee. It was £1.50 and there were 20 of us, so no one was making much cash out of this. They put out seventy seats, but like Colin said, he couldn't see into the future.
My plan to shout "yes! He's my father" when Colin asked if anyone knew someone called Pamela never got off the ground - the spirits point out who they want to talk to. Sadly no one I knew had bothered to show.
I can't of course disclose the nature of any of the conversations between worshiper and spirit (via Colin) that I heard tonight - that would violate worshiper/cynic confidentiality.
But I can pass along a few observations that might stand you in good stead:
- Don't give the raffle of many colours to a colour blind medium to draw. Much, much hilarity will ensue
- 75% of the attendees will be women
- People of the older generations have mothers and fathers who have passed on
- When people die, they don't die. They just hang around in your house. They like to knock on tables and move things. Presumably to try and scare the shit out of you for all those times you rolled your eyes at that story about the time they lost their slippers.
- Dogs pass into the spirit world. So do chickens. Oh, and cats.
- Older women who've gone through the menopause - those aren't hot flushes they're experiencing. It's the spirits!
- You have relatives all over the world
- One of them will be pregnant, either now, or in the future
- If you think about it long enough you'll remember someone called George. He wants to be remembered to you.
- Spirits are ALWAYS with you. So never take your pants off
*: Not his real name
Monday 2 November 2009
Joseph Cobb's Ghost Tour
On Halloween I braved the spirits that walk abroad that night by taking part in Joseph Cobb's Ghost Tour in Caldicot Castle. The strapline promised a "light hearted walking tour, taking in the ghosts, sightings and spiritual encounters with the unearthly inhabitants of this ancient site".
Translated this seems to mean paying £25 so the local am dram society can dress up as witches.
The tour
Joseph Cobb himself was pretty good. An old Victorian gent who specialised in manic laughter through his authentic, turn of the century Voiceblaster 2000 Megaphone (Rechargeable). He was our guide for the night, there to tell us stories about the ghostly goings on at the castle.
Like the evil monk who walked the top of the tall tower.
The cry went out from Joseph Cobb - "Dom Benedict, are you there?".
Cue spotlight trained on the top of the tall tower.
No monk.
Cobb called out again. "Dom Benedict - are you there?"
Still nothing...no, wait! In true evil monk style...there's an arm just reaching over the top of the parapet giving a cheery wave.
By all accounts a right evil one though - walling up a young virgin to leave her to starve to death. Go back four hundred years and every young virgin is pert, clad in a chiffonourous dress with limited access to brassieres. Things were looking up. I nearly tripped over the moat warning sign in my haste to run across and climb the tower and free the virgin.
Turns out the monk was really a bit of a softy. Sure he'd walled her up, but he'd left her a whole load of food so she didn't starve to death for maybe thirty, forty years. He was also a sensible chap - walling her in with an array of sensible dresses and plenty of substantial undergarments.
Aside from this pair the ghosts of the castle displayed a distinct lack of imagination, most of them choosing to come dressed as witches, hanging around trying to lure people to their doom in dark passageways, or flicking the lights off from time to time.
The only non-witches I found were a plague victim and his evil scientist master. They were guarding a dark and dingy passageway leading to who knew what terrors. With cries of "go back!" and "there's nothing to see here" they tried to keep us away. Emboldened by seven rooms of rather tame witches we herded the demons from the underside before us as we charged into the maw.
Only to find out that yep, there was nothing to see. Just a short passageway replete with locked doors and rather sheepish ghouls.
The highlight of the tour were beating my mate on a giant game of Connect 4, and finding the results of a game of pin the tail on the presumably rather proud, and from the looks of it, extremely frustrated donkey.
The two course meal
We feasted in the main hall - the most haunted room in the entire castle! Any lingering chance of a real ghost was roundly defeated when two of the witches broke into a rousing rendition of some opera for cats. Two middle aged women shouting "miaow" at each other is enough to make any ghost retire to their grave with a seriously haunted look about them.
Not that I'd have noticed had a dozen ghosts started wafting about above my head - I was too busy concentrating on the food. It was great - lovely chicken in a nice sauce with perfectly cooked greens. A delicious confection of chocolate brownie, chocolate fondant and mix of chocolate and raspberries for dessert. The lady next to me looking rather glum. An allergy to chocolate by all accounts. One of the side effects appeared to be the inability to pick up on broad hints about me needing chocolate to live.
The witches and ghouls were all from a local singing club, performing for the love of it, and a free drink. Their group motto is "It doesn't matter if you can't sing, come along anyway". Can't think what they meant by that.
The high point of the night was group singing of all your Victorian Favourites: Bohemian Rhapsody, theme to Dad's Army, West Side Story. Some of us joined in, especially those whose drink orders were accidentally doubled by the bar staff.
In the end it didn't matter that not everyone could sing, nor that I was scared more by the price of a glass of coke than the witches. It was the sheer enthusiasm on show was what made the evening so fun.
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