Monday 22nd September And Ecchi Is Back - So everyone Should Rejoice!

ecchi · 2014-09-22, 05:33 AM

I'm back from my holidays, did you miss me?
(I'm making a note of the names of everyone who said "no".)

I joke a lot about Wales, but have not been there since I was a young man, so I assume my jokes are just sightly racist humour. However now I've been there again I realise how true they are.

Wales is a land of small villages, hills, mountains, and forest. (At least North Wales. The south, I believe, is more developed.) If it were a location in an American movie it would be for a film full of banjo players strumming the tune "duelling banjos" and inbred nutters in pig masks with chainsaws. In reality, it ain't much different from that image.

First three days eating in the local pub (bar). The atmosphere was weird. There was an episode of "Torchwood" where they team were investigating an isolated village in Wales and the locals turned out to be cannibals. This pub had a similar feel.

We then changed to eating in a bar in a hotel. The hotel was a big old building on the side of a hill, very "Gothic Horror" in appearance. but inside...

Well, we should probably have been warned by the fact that chickens were running loose in the car park, and the fact that there was a guy hanging round who looked like the village psychopath. Inside there were no customers, the landlord greeted us like long lost friends. They only had larger on the pumps, and when we asked if they had any bitter he replied "Yes, but only if you know how to connect up the barrels!" It turned out that, although he owned the place he had no idea how to make the beer come out of the barrels! There were a couple of other people in the building, not bar customers, not staff, also obviously not guests, and also not his family. No idea who they were, they just seemed to be people who hung about there. He asked them if they knew, none of them did. In the end he and I went into the hotel's cellar and fiddled about with the equipment until we managed to get bitter flowing up the pipes to the bar!

Then we got to ordering food. He had no menus, he simply asked "What would you like?" Eventually we decided on steaks, and when he served them he sat down at our table (uninvited) and chatted as though we were old friends.

The atmosphere was weird, the decor was a bit odd, and it was not until the following day when I realised what it reminded me of. Ever read "The Fall Of The House Of Usher"? Well it was a bit like the first few days in the castle in that book. Or - A European horror movie I saw once, where a doctor arrives to work at a mental asylum where (unknown to him) the lunatics have murdered the staff and taken their place.

Weird and disturbing.

However the most embarrassing part of the holiday is that we spent most of the week walking in the hills (Wales is mostly hills, and those bits that are not hills are mountains). Because my kidneys are fucked, they fill my lungs with fluid and I have to take pills to drain out enough fluid to allow me to breathe. I was walking with my father, who lives on a hillside, and is used to walking up hills, so he was moving rather fast. I had to increase my dosage so that I got enough oxygen to keep up with him. In other words I was taking pills to keep up with my father, and he is in his 80s !!!

Still, back home in England now. Flat lands and civilisation at last!

2014-09-22, 05:33 AM	#1
ecchi Banned Join Date: Oct 2003 Location: About to be evicted!!!! Posts: 4,082	Monday 22nd September And Ecchi Is Back - So everyone Should Rejoice! I'm back from my holidays, did you miss me? (I'm making a note of the names of everyone who said "no".) I joke a lot about Wales, but have not been there since I was a young man, so I assume my jokes are just sightly racist humour. However now I've been there again I realise how true they are. Wales is a land of small villages, hills, mountains, and forest. (At least North Wales. The south, I believe, is more developed.) If it were a location in an American movie it would be for a film full of banjo players strumming the tune "duelling banjos" and inbred nutters in pig masks with chainsaws. In reality, it ain't much different from that image. First three days eating in the local pub (bar). The atmosphere was weird. There was an episode of "Torchwood" where they team were investigating an isolated village in Wales and the locals turned out to be cannibals. This pub had a similar feel. We then changed to eating in a bar in a hotel. The hotel was a big old building on the side of a hill, very "Gothic Horror" in appearance. but inside... Well, we should probably have been warned by the fact that chickens were running loose in the car park, and the fact that there was a guy hanging round who looked like the village psychopath. Inside there were no customers, the landlord greeted us like long lost friends. They only had larger on the pumps, and when we asked if they had any bitter he replied "Yes, but only if you know how to connect up the barrels!" It turned out that, although he owned the place he had no idea how to make the beer come out of the barrels! There were a couple of other people in the building, not bar customers, not staff, also obviously not guests, and also not his family. No idea who they were, they just seemed to be people who hung about there. He asked them if they knew, none of them did. In the end he and I went into the hotel's cellar and fiddled about with the equipment until we managed to get bitter flowing up the pipes to the bar! Then we got to ordering food. He had no menus, he simply asked "What would you like?" Eventually we decided on steaks, and when he served them he sat down at our table (uninvited) and chatted as though we were old friends. The atmosphere was weird, the decor was a bit odd, and it was not until the following day when I realised what it reminded me of. Ever read "The Fall Of The House Of Usher"? Well it was a bit like the first few days in the castle in that book. Or - A European horror movie I saw once, where a doctor arrives to work at a mental asylum where (unknown to him) the lunatics have murdered the staff and taken their place. Weird and disturbing. However the most embarrassing part of the holiday is that we spent most of the week walking in the hills (Wales is mostly hills, and those bits that are not hills are mountains). Because my kidneys are fucked, they fill my lungs with fluid and I have to take pills to drain out enough fluid to allow me to breathe. I was walking with my father, who lives on a hillside, and is used to walking up hills, so he was moving rather fast. I had to increase my dosage so that I got enough oxygen to keep up with him. In other words I was taking pills to keep up with my father, and he is in his 80s !!! Still, back home in England now. Flat lands and civilisation at last!