Alex had got her kiddie head on. She was coming down to mine for the weekend of the Notts Munch a couple of days early, and we ARE going to Alton Towers. Looks like WE had decided to have another day out/mini holiday together. The memories of the last one came flooding back………..and panic set in. Surely this one can’t go wrong.
Alex set off from work at about 6ish from Middlesboro. She has been driving to Nottingham for a year with no problem at all. However, a couple of weeks ago she asked what route I take. So I told her, Notts M1, M18, A1, A1M, A19 and arrive at yours. All she has to do is follow the route in reverse. Alex sets off on the A19, then gets on the A1M, joins the M1 all the way past Sheffield and joins the M18 (at this point, anybody that lives in that area will be thinking “Why is she heading back north?â€), gets off at the A1 and follows the signs south. I get a phone call:
A-F “Where the feck am I?â€
D-N “I have no idea, I am not with you†(this was a bad move)
A-F “I have followed your directions and I am LOSTâ€
D-N “Which route did you take?â€
A-F explained the route above
D-N “You have gone down the wrong roadâ€
A-F “I followed your directionsâ€
D-N “No you didn’t, I didn’t say go back up the M18†(second mistake, knew I should have just said yes dear)
Phone went dead. Sure I heard in the background the words “fecking wanker†before the phone went off.
I called back.
D-N “Are there any signs around you?â€
A-F “YESâ€
D-N “Can you tell me what they say?â€
A-F “Lincoln……20 milesâ€
D-N “Follow them south and get on the A52 to Nottinghamâ€
A-F “Your fecking directions are crapâ€
I just knew I would get the blame
After 5 phone calls she made it to Nottingham and onto the ring road………..she knew her way from there. Her last words were:
A-F “Get a fag going, a cup of tea and do not talk to me when I get inâ€
So she arrived, bounding for through the door, took the fag off me and dived into the toilet. She had only been driving 4 ½ hours and had not managed to find a loo……I thought those WC signs were a give away!
True to her words……we sat on the looking at her, she glaring at me and not a word was said for half an hour. Then she said, it was your fault. Looks like I take the blame again.
At 6 am Alex woke with the joys of spring. She was bounding up and down on the bed shouting “Its not raining, we are going to Alton Towersâ€. Absolutely knackered, we set off at 7am to Alton Towers from Nottingham. We arrive there in plenty of time………enough spare time because we have beaten most of the employees in to work. We park up in a massive car park……with just us in it. We then go make a queue at one of the kiosks. Wait an hour and gain entry in. At last.
We head off to the Oblivion. We are at the front of the queue. The ride opens and it’s the first of the day. Alex didn’t want to carry she handed her water bottle, paper and other assorted bits and bobs for me to put in my jacket. Everything fitted in and I put the two bottles and paper in my inside pockets, one bottle on the left and one on the right, with the paper in my right one as well. This seemed a good idea until we got on the ride. I sat down and grabbed the harness over my head. Clicked it into place, and thought at this point there is a bit of a gap here. The harness wasn’t touching me as the bottles and paper were in the way. Some young fellah saw my predicament and must have seen it a number of times before. He came up and I thought he was going to release the harness so I could get the bottles out. Not this fecking twat. He pushed with all his might and closed down the harness. This had the effect of pushing the bottles right into my chest and making it rather difficult to breath. If only I could have got out of that chair I would have shoved the bottles up his ass. The ride set off and we headed up. Up it went and then turned around a corner. It reached the end and………..then fecking hung in mid air, with me looking down a bleeding hole and the harness pushing the bottles through my chest. My breath had gone…………then the thing dropped. “Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh ya fuckerrrrrrrrrr†was the only thing I could say. This was repeated on a number of occasions throughout the day.
Because the day was the one after the storms, there weren’t many people in the park. So we managed to get front row seats on all the big rides. I tell you one on these rides and you wouldn’t have to buy laxatives, I can tell you. We went on Rita (Nought to yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa fuckerrrrrrrrrrrrrrr in under 2.5 secs), that was a good ride. We also went on the corkscrew, Air and Nemesis. All were very exciting. Air was one of those where you sat in the seat and the harness came over your shoulders and a leg brace held your legs still. This reminded me of some medieval torture machine………..the ride was worse than any torture though. It set off at a high rate of knots and then flipped you on to your back……(I bet most of you have experienced this) then went through a series of twists and turns that left your stomach following a second behind the rest of you. How I kept my food down I will never know.
The afternoon arrived and we wanted something more serene than what we had experienced in the morning. We headed for the log flume. We queued up and got on. I thought it would be romantic if we shared the same seat, so I jumped behind Alex (this was also a mistake). We shared the ride with a couple of kids who must have weighed not more than 8 stone between them. Well that equates to half of as you can see…..there was a weight distribution issue here. The log (or bath as it is now) floated along with the back end protruding from the water. We went down the first slide and the bow wave splashed a little. By a little…..I mean it went over our heads and filled the boat behind us. We were drenched from head to toe. We were even wet down to the underwear. The ride went down two more slides with the same consequences. When we finished, even the staff were staring at us. We were absolutely drenched. That finished the day for us and we headed for a brew, and then home to prepare for the Notts munch.
Dave_Notts