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IC : Weblogs : billybofh : "Holiday to Islay"
Holiday to Islay (4)
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Posted by billybofh on Mon 7 Aug 06, 1:35 PM
Went on a holiday to Islay with my geek friend 'CH'.
This is my story....
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08:00 - 4th August 2006
Waiting at the bus stop for CH. Rucksack feels a little heavy and the sleeping bag is a bit awkward to carry, but all seems well.
08:30 - 4th August 2006
CH arrives wearing a t-shirt and some thin/light shorts. I am worried that either I am going to be too warm, or CH is going to freeze. I buy some crap coffee and we sit on a bench till the bus comes.
08:50 - 4th August 2006
Bus arrives and we get on. CH is alarmed by the number of old people. Still, we are on our way and going on holiday!
10:00 - 4th August 2006
We are heading through the hills round Loch Lomond. It is looking a bit wet, grey, drizzly and dreich. But never mind, it will be nicer on the islands!
We amuse ourselves by staring at the blinking LED clock on the bus which is constantly flashing the wrong time. I think computer withdrawal symptoms are setting in.
11:00 - 4th August 2006
At Inverary. It is cold and grey. Buy 4 litle rolls with cheese and a little polystyrene cup of lentil soup. For 6 pounds. Feel faint. Take some photo's of the grey.
11:30 - 4th August 2006
Getting close to the ferry port. So grey and wet you can hardly see anything out of the bus window. Hmmmmm.
12:30 - 4th August 2006
At the ferry terminal. Slow steady thick sticky drizzle all around. Hard to tell the difference between the land, the sea and the sky. Wind is picking up.
13:30 - 4th August 2006
Heading out to sea on the ferry. Had to sit at the back due to the strong winds at the front and CH's ph34r of old people preventing us sitting inside. Rain is quite steady, as is the wind. The seats are designed to catch water and channel it into your camping gear. My tent & sleeping bag are looking quite damp.
14:30 - 4th August 2006
Very wet and cold. The view from the boat is just a wall of grey. Impossible to tell the sea from the land from the sky. Tent & sleeping bag are soggy. Now having to wear a waterproof jacket while sitting next to CH while we both mutter 'this is looking a bit shit'.
15:15 - 4th August 2006
Sitting in the pub at Port Askaig. I am having a nice whisky and CH is having a nice whisky which contains very suspicious white stringy bits that look like man-milk. He drinks it none-the-less. There is a very loud annoying family in the pub who seem to have taken their children on holiday with the express purpose of letting other people experience how loud and annoying they all are.
We look at the map and decide the best short route for our walk to a likely camping spot which takes us via two distillaries where we will buy whisky.
15:30 - 4th August 2006
Walking along a road in the rain. Beginning to realise what a dreadful, dreadful mistake we have made. A car stops and people offer to give us a lift. I politely decline thinking "it's not too far to walk to the distillary". We carry on trudging through the rain. My rucksack is beginning to tear through the skin on my shoulders and dig into my kidneys.
16:00 - 4th August 2006
Still walking through the grey. Stop to take some photo's of some very wet cows. Not far to the distillery now.
16:30 - 4th August 2006
Having walked up a very, very steep hill we can now fully appreciate the stunning views of the grey. We stop for some water and one of our stupidly expensive cheese rolls. We consult the map and realise that we missed the little path to the distillery. I begin to get a deep sense of dread and panic that we will have to sustain ourselves on expensive cheese rolls, crap chocolate and the emergency bottle of cheap gin I packed. We set off into the grey again.
16:38 - 4th August 2006
A kindly old man stops his car and offers us a lift. Again, I decline as the next distillery isn't too far away. The old man says "Well, I guess you're good and wet already anyway" and drives off. We see two garden "gnomes" who have fixed mocking grins on their faces. They clearly know what is happening to us.
16:45 - 4th August 2006
We are now very, very wet and fed up. Our conversation consists of saying "This really sucks", "This really, really sucks" over and over. We get to a fork in our path and have to decide whether to walk towards the forest we intend to camp in, or walk up and round a very steep hill to get to the distillery (which may be closed when we get there). We decide to head for the forest & camp.
16:50 - 4th August 2006
We pass a car which has been dumped. Some torn clothes lie around it. I suspect someone has been murdered by the locals.
We are passing a Loch and the midges decide to attack en-masse. I am now really not very happy at all.
17:00 - 4th August 2006
The path to the forest is apparently now just a muddy bog. There is a field beside us and we stand there for a bit looking at the grey and being rained on. CH volunteers to walk down the boggy mud-path for a little way to see if it is traversable.
17:01 - 4th August 2006
Apparently the path is not really traversable. We decide to camp in the field.
17:30 - 4th August 2006
Our tents are up. CH is sitting in his tent looking unhappy, muttering 'this sucks, this sucks'. I am standing looking at the grey shouting at the grey above "Damn you! This is the worst experience of my life!". The rain gets a little worse.
18:00 - 4th August 2006
We decide to walk across the field to walk up the hills a little.
18:01 - 4th August 2006
We get to the edge of the field and discover that we are surrounded by a wide mud-filled swampy ditch. Midges and flies attack us while we contemplate the awfullness.
We walk back to our tents to see if the grey looks different from there.
18:05 - 4th August 2006
We walk down to the bottom of the field to look at a stick. We stand for a while letting the midges and flies gather around us while we admire the stick. It is a good stick. Very stuck in the ground and stick-like.
I begin to fear that we are going to go mad if we don't escape.
18:20 - 4th August 2006
Having exhausted the fun of looking at the stick, we return to the tents. The grey is looking especially dismal. I eat a 'Double Decker' bar and feel slightly nausious. CH stands around saying 'this sucks'. I concur.
We contemplate that we could just pack up and walk back to the bar & hotel.
18:30 - 4th August 2006
Nothing happening at all.
18:40 - 4th August 2006
We walk up to another bit of the field and look at the grey from there. Much the same. We realise that CH's tent is very obvious and orange, so if the farmer see's us he will probably shoot at it.
It would be a quick end to the holiday at least.
We walk back to the tents feeling slightly more cheerful.
19:00 - 4th August 2006
We walk up the path we came, hoping that we can get over the ditch and walk up the hills. At the back of my mind is the thought that we could just leave the tents and keep walking till we reached a pub.
We get past the ditch and realise that the walk to the hills is basically a swampy mush of long wet grass. We decide against it.
We contemplate walking to the pub, but then realise that both of us have left our money in the tents so have to go back anyway.
19:30 - 4th August 2006
We are both sitting in CH's tent. I am downing gin to try and black out. CH is gorging on chocolate and lemon curd sandwiches to try and make himself sick.
20:00 - 4th August 2006
We are both sitting in CH's tent. I am downing gin to try and black out. CH is gorging on chocolate and lemon curd sandwiches to try and make himself sick.
I am feeling very sore due to the tinyness and angle of the tent.
20:15 - 4th August 2006
I am now in my own tent, drinking gin to try and black out. I have eaten a "snickers" bar and am feeling nausious. I have given CH a Sharp Zaurus PDA to play with and do m4d h4x0ring on. He cannot figure out how to quite the game he has run.
20:20 - 4th August 2006
CH figures out how to quite the game. I have still not managed to black out.
20:30 - 4th August 2006
CH tries to write a fork bomb for bash on the Zaurus. He does not succeed. I am just staring blearily into the grey and wishing I could black out at will.
20:45 - 4th August 2006
CH realises that his tent is getting very wet where I lent against the side. This cheers me up slightly. He can't decide whether to get out of his tent to fix it.
20:50 - 4th August 2006
CH has donned some plastic bags and is standing out in the grey trying to fix his tent. We are both saying "this sucks so badly" in a near continuous loop. CH poses for pictures in his plastic bags. I ph34r being stuck in the grey with him.
21:00 - 4th August 2006
I have drunk enough gin to feel slightly ill, but not enough to black out. I struggle on.
CH is trying to set fire to his damp tissues.
21:10 - 4th August 2006
The grey is beginning to get a little darker. I am unsure if it is the beginning of welcome oblivion, or nightfall. CH is taking photographs of me drinking gin. I offer a toast to the grey.
21:15 - 4th August 2006
CH is trying to set fire to his jelly. He then tries to melt it onto some tissues to use it as a wick.
Apparently it would work very well if the tissues were not wet.
I drink more gin.
21:30 - 4th August 2006
We decide it is dark enough to try and get to sleep. I struggle round in my sleeping bag and realise that due to its design I cannot actually ever possibly be comfortable without completely undoing it, getting out of the tent and clambering back in again.
Darktime - 4th August 2006
I wake up and realise : * This sucks
* I am very, very uncomfortable
* I'm feeling damp
* It's cold
* I can hear CH rolling about and snoring in his tent
* The little goblin/gnome statues are still mocking us from their home in the grey.
Darktime - 5th August 2006
Things are still awful. Just an update.
Darktime - 5th August 2006
Whenever I turn around to try and escape the damp patch that's seeping under my sleeping bag through the groundsheet, my sleeping bag gets ever more twisted around my arms and legs. I can feel my hair is still wet and damp and I'm breathing in cold damp air.
I contemplate getting up and just standing in the grey weeping, but am unable to untangle myself from the sleeping bag.
Greytime - 5th August 2006
It is morning. The grey is still here. Oh, unbounded joy.
~06:00 - 5th August 2006
It is light enough to let me see how to untangle myself from the sleeping bag. I get up, struggle into my boots, find the roll of now-damp toilet tissue from my bag and go to have a poo and pee in the sludgy insect-infested long grass.
It was the highlight of the trip so far.
06:30 - 5th August 2006
CH is awake and we are packing up in order to go home. The grey has lifted slightly and we can see that we had a nice view. In theory.
07:30 - 5th August 2006
We are walking towards the ferry, back along the road we walked the night before.
It is strangely now full of dead, crushed frogs.
07:45 - 5th august 2006
A car passes us and doesn't stop to offer a lift. They wave happily at us as they pass.
They are clearly friends of the mocking gnomes.
More crushed frogs.
08:00 - 5th August 2006
We have walked to the top of a hill and are very, very sore, tired and pissed off. We stop for some water and food. No-one else passes to offer a lift.
Crushed frogs are slightly lighter on the ground here.
08:15 - 5th August 2006
We can see the distillery that we failed to find the evening before. Clearly the grey is lifting slightly in order to compound our misery.
08:30 - 5th August 2006
The rain has returned. Frogs are beginning to look more mushy as the rain seeps through their innards. Beginning to think that I might be in a slightly negative frame of mind.
08:45 - 5th August 2006
We walk past an entire village that we hadn't seen the evening before due to the grey. It is probably full of cheap B&B's and nice pubs.
I begin to hallucinate of huge beds with crisp white newly-starched sheets and fluffy pillows. CH is constantly talking about Ellen. Apparently she will be waiting for him when he gets home, dressed as a schoolgirl. I wonder if it is a sign of old age that the idea of a big bed with fluffy pillows is more appealling.
Or perhaps it is a metaphor.
08:55 - 5th August 2006
We are nearly at the Port again. I have gained a huge squishy blister on my left foot. CH expressed a strong disinterest in the details. I regail him with updates anyway.
09:10 - 5th August 2006
We get to the ferry terminal and discover that there isn't another ferry for six hours.
09:15 - 5th August 2006
We sit in "The Snug Bar" of the hotel and try and get some coffee.
09:40 - 5th August 2006
We finally get some coffee. The snug bar seems to be ironically named in honour of the continual cold draught from the hall outside.
Oh, how we laugh.
10:00 - 5th August 2006
We begin to realise just how long six hours is.
10:15 - 5th August 2006
Some loud Irish men come into "the snug bar" and have some coffee while taking about "returning to the scene of the crime". I count the seconds until the leave.
10:20 - 5th August 2006
Still counting.
10:30 - 5th August 2006
The Irish men leave, but are replaced by an oddly tanned german. He has some coffee and leaves quicky.
I envy him.
10:40 - 5th August 2006
We have some more coffee and hot chocolate. Only 1hr 20m till we can order some food.
11:20 - 5th August 2006
I have a cheese roll to stave off fainting. Immediately feel very ill and have to drink lots of water to prevent vomiting.
Between gulps I can hear the mocking laughter of the gnomes.
11:55 - 5th August 2006
We stand near the menu and bar-hatch in the hope of ordering early. We succeed! I order macaroni & cheese & chips, CH orders scampi and chips.
12:10 - 5th August 2006
Food arrives. It doesn't taste very good, but it is warm.
13:00 - 5th August 2006
Many other people turn up and seem, madly, to expect to be served within a mere 30 minutes of arriving. The fools. CH and I sit in the corner, smirking, knowing that they will have to wait many hours for the wrong dish to be served or simply have some random other foodstuff substituted for what they ordered.
13:30 - 5th August 2006
The other people are now eating some things that they did not order, while grumbing quietly to each other. CH and I decide it is time to leave as some particularly ugly people have arrived and their children are making screetching noises.
13:35 - 5th August 2006
We sit on the wall next to the dock. CH says he see's some dolphins. I try not to discourage him in case his now schizophrenic mind shatters completely.
13:40 - 5th August 2006
I try and find out if I can book bus tickets from the ferry office so that we are sure of seats on "the other side". The office door is open, but you are then presented with a second door with an A4 sheet saying "Office closed". I suspect the gnomes are inside, laughing.
13:41 - 5th August 2006
I use the call-box to phone the bus company. The BT payphone swallows the 50 pence piece I was using and cuts me off.
13:42 - 5th August 2006
I find a payphone in the hotel which seems to cost roughly 1 pence per second. R0x0r. The bus company can only email or SMS me the ticket reference (for each single ticket costing almost as much as the return had to start with). I explain that I can't really get email or SMS. They are not sympathetic. I hang up.
13:44 - 5th August 2006
After some discussion with CH and a bit of wafting of mobile phones, I decide that I will be able to get an SMS so will book the tickets anyway.
13:46 - 5th August 2006
I book the tickets and give my credit-card details. The person at the call-centre's computer crashes and they are unable to give me the reference number however. They are also unable to tell me if my accound has been debited or if I have even booked the tickets. So there may be two free seats on the bus which we are not allowed to occupy because they are "booked" and will thus be stranded at the ferry terminal. 23 pounds poorer.
Apparently if I recieve a text message/SMS containing the booking reference then it has gone through. Otherwise it probably hasn't.
13:50 - 5th August 2006
I am walking around the ferry terminal trying to get a mobile phone signal to see if the text message has been sent. I am occasionally able to get a signal, but cannot tell if the message has not come or if the ticket hasn't booked, or if the signal just didn't last long enough to recieve.
I begin to weep.
14:00 - 5th August 2006
Still no SMS. CH is wittering about Ellen and taking photo's of : * pirates (aka old men)
* chicks (aka girls <= 15yrs old)
I feel a little part of myself die, inside.
14:30 - 5th August 2006
The ferry to freedom arrives. We stand near the enterance awaiting.
14:35 - 5th August 2006
We board the ferry, dumping our bags on the handy bag-dumping area.
14:35:01 - 5th August 2006
We find the bar.
14:36 - 5th August 2006
CH thinks that his beer tastes rubbish. I have a gin & tonic and am thus happy. We discuss the LCD display in the bar and wonder if it is real-time updating our position or just pretending too.
14:40 - 5th August 2006
I go to the toilet for insect-free droppings.
14:45 - 5th August 2006
I return to the bar to discover that a weirdo has tried to pick CH up. Despite (or perhaps because) of his lycra leggings and pale shorts.
14:50 - 5th August 2006
We stalk the potential paedo and CH takes his picture. Apparently he looks like his old chemistry teacher who was also a paedo. I worry about CH.
15:00 - 5th August 2006
We sit at the front of the ferry and watch the grey until we near port.
17:30 - 5th August 2006
We cunningly get our bags and wait next to the doorway that was used to let us onto the ferry so that we are first off and can get to the bus.
17:35 - 5th August 2006
The ferry man uses a different door this time. We are last off the ferry. Sux0r.
17:40 - 5th August 2006
We wait for the bus. Apparently it doesn't arrive for another 20 minutes. CH takes photo's of some cars and trucks. He seems very excited. I am having an almost religious experience thinking about going home and not being in hell any more.
17:50 - 5th August 2006
The bus arrives early. We get on and pay our astonishingly high fares. We sit on the bus and giggle. We are going home! R0x0r!
18:30 - 5th August 2006
Some old people have got on the bus and sat in front of us, replacing the 15-year-old who was keeping CH alive. CH now has teh ph34r.
19:00 - 5th August 2006
CH is now asleep. He is falling from side to side and snoring/snorting. He also (thankfully) misses some 15-year-olds getting on the bus.
19:30 - 5th August 2006
CH finally almost falls out of his chair and wakes up. He says he is a bit tired. I concur and remark about young people needing their naps. CH notices the old people again and gets the ph34r.
20:00 - 5th August 2006
I take some photo's of the grey in this area, lest we begin to believe it is a localised phenomenon.
21:00 - 5th August 2006
Back in Glasgow! Car fumes! Neds! Drunks! Horrah!
21:10 - 5th August 2006
CH and I part company as I finally manage to get a taxi before we are both beaten up due to CH's lycra-wear and shorts.
21:20 - 5th August 2006
Home! Edited Mon 7 Aug 06, 1:36 PM by billybofh
Replies
7 Aug 06, 2:31 PM
RosieLady
UK(AB), 2 yrs
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Been there, done that. You made me laugh till I cried. As they said in Little Britain..Going on holiday? If the Arctic Circle is fully booked, why not try Scotland?
welcome home |
7 Aug 06, 2:58 PM
Korriagan
UK, 3 yrs |
Howling with sadistic mirth... suggests you come to Orkney, [the grey here is much nicer] and offers field for camping ajacent to hotwater loo and shower..[musttrytostopsniggerin'] If you want to dance with the Devil, better make sure you know the steps...
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7 Aug 06, 7:07 PM
billybofh
UK, 7 yrs
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Thank you both  Writing it all down made me laugh a lot more than actually being there at the time... 
One day I'll look back and find some bit of goodness from the trip.... probably...
Korriagan: I was/am supposed to be up at the north coast this weekend, so you never know - I might get the ferry over |
7 Aug 06, 8:06 PM
Korriagan
UK, 3 yrs |
You is so very welcome sweety, just let me know if you have need of a field rofl..Its the Main Island show on Saturday so well worth the visit..
If you want to dance with the Devil, better make sure you know the steps...
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