Weekend for the Ages

July 10, 2007 by dunny.

Yup, that was our dear Disco Sophie you heard from last night. She’s got some distant cousin in Kazakhstan she keeps trying to fix me up with, and putting her pic in my blog is just the latest ploy. The Diamonds though, that was all us baby.

Lots to update on, so grab a seat. After we got to Steve’s place in Liphook his wife brought us a load of Fosters and we put a few back then went and ordered Chinese food. He ran us over to a little pub and destroyed us in pool while he told us that if he didn’t like us we would have been staying there in the upstairs room. By the way, everything in British pool is half the size of American pool…balls, pockets, table, sticks, how often me and Andy win, everything.

Right, back to the cottage and chow on Chinese food and Fosters and talk about the Rally…like we never left home. Especially when we went out to another local pub with Steve and Ben and met up with some of their buds, one of which was this real laid back cat named Allen. Now, the majority of the bars over here close at 11, but Allen didn’t get out until right at closing time, so he threw out the idea to drive back into Haslemere and catch one of the pubs that stayed open late.

Shoot it aint like we were going to say no, so we followed him and Steve off for a stroll and come to the most fantastic old VW hippie van I have ever seen…back seats torn out in favor of couches, fridge, fancy carpet, even a naked lady on the wall, the whole bit. Well we stood there screaming about how awesome it was and Allen just leaned back and said “Yeah, the van’s alright” with a little smirk, then climbed in and started blasting Red Hot Chili Peppers and we were off.

You know the rest. Boozing, being loud, a wasted Irish dude that wouldn’t leave us alone, holding conversation with an English couple while they were doing poppers, hedge-diving, back to the van (which ran out of gas right after dropping us off), finally the SkipDudes sharing a couch back in Liphook. Oh, and the fellas liked us so much they invited us to their annual guys-getaway trip to the beach in Devon next weekend. Like I said, it’s not like we’re going to say no.

We woke up the next morning, had some cereal, went back to the garage for some final touch-ups and Steve’s wife somehow getting the SJ registered without proof of insurance, and we were off. We drove her back to camp in Malmesbury so we could run off to Henley and see Stevie at the Regatta.

Here’s where we had a slip though. We caught the bus back to Swindon and had a real short trip to Reading to catch our connection. Well, in our everlasting wisdom, neither Andy or I could figure out how to open the train door. It’s not tough, you roll the window down and lean out and open it from the outside, but we wasted our minute-to-get-off just pushing on the inside and looking for secret buttons. By the time Andy figured it out, then train was moving and we were on the nonstop to London Paddington. Great. We jumped on the return train easily enough, but it was the local stop train and hit every damn town between London and Reading. Super. Then we caught the wrong connection and had to trackback again. Whatever. We finally made it to Henley as they were setting off the fireworks and the bars were making last calls. Not to worry though folks, you know we always make miracles happen.

We walked a mile to find Stevie in time for a beer. Then we walked a mile back to let the rest off in a cab and get out. Keep in mind that this Regatta deal is like Mardi Gras…everywhere around me are British people who’ve long since entered the spirit world. We ended up in a group of like 15 people at a fancy Asian restaurant with a waitress that was screaming at us to “Pay now or no more food and beer!” Andy wasn’t eating, so she kicked him out…so Stevie grabbed me and we bounced…old fashioned dine and dash. Long story short we managed to find a bar that was open until 3 and then convinced them to let us stay until 3:30 slamming Pimms and beer and having a dude marvel at Andy’s devil beard and ask us to send him themed pictures from every country so he could do us a website and we could make thousands. Whop.

We ended up in Cookham, had a 5am swim, and crashed. Woke up for bacon, some frisbee, and Stevie’s old cell phone that we’re using while we’re in the UK. If you want to call, the # is (country code 44) 07972 189901. We caught more trains, headed back to Malmesbury, and got cooked for again by Sophie’s parents…don’t worry Mom we’re getting fattened up something solid over here.

We’re in Southampton (Soton) now, though Malmesbury hasn’t quite had their fill of us yet (hint, hint). No doubt more adventures to come so stay posted…and as always here’s to being awesome.

Check out our drive here

Skip, out. (SkipLizard Homepage)

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