It has come again to that time of year when we have cause, generally through rose tinted glasses, to look back at the events of the previous year. However, as Rich pointed out recently, I am the only one who sports actual rose tinted glasses so I feel that I am in a prime position to write this review. I do have to say though, on the subject of the glasses, they do go some way to proving that old cliché, that appearance isn't everything. I can, in all honesty, say that a hangover is still a hangover whatever strange shade of pink or brown the sky may look!
I shan't take this review right back to the beginning of the year, partly because this whole thing hasn't really been going that long. But mainly because my alcohol soaked brain is not really capable of remembering that far back anymore. So to start, appropriately some might say, with the beginning.
The whole thing really started on a little jaunt over to Llangollen. There had been talk about doing something before. There had been some drunkenness, even notably in some cases. But mostly, there had been paddling. Which was wrong. Indeed as we travelled over far too early on Saturday morning we still had this idea of paddling. And we did. For a while. We even played with some inflatables (April being almost Summer). But after a while we got tired and maybe a little thirsty. So we retired to the admirable Green Man B&B. Where we decided to quench our thirst with some soft drinks, with pint chasers. Then we had some wine with dinner and moved to the Mill. Tom started on the Pendle Witches Brew. We got on to the flaming Drambuies. The rest, as they say, is now almost legend. There is no actual trip report, mostly because everyone was too lazy to write one. Tough there now really is no need, because if you don't know what happened then someone will be able to tell you. Suffice it to say we ended up at the Bridge End, I really don't remember swearing at the landlord when told us it was closing time and Tom somewhat disgraced himself in his own bed. I did make it onto the water on Sunday, in dark glasses, whilst it was hailing. I managed two flat spins in the bottom hole, then got off again.
So it was that CUCC2 was born. Not that there is, nor was there ever intended to be, any animosity to any other paddlers. It is more a subgroup embracing a certain philosophy, or outlook on life – preferably one involving double vision. Incidentally has anyone actually suffered double vision as a result of drinking because despite numerous attempts it has never happened to me? The thing wasn't born straight away. First there was some more drinking. Then, following exams I acquired some more free time. Some people who know me might say it would be hard to expand my free time further than it extends at any other time – but, much to my dismay, I just can't pass exams without doing any work at all, I just keep it to a minimum. Anyway, the fact of having no work to do, coupled with two weeks of alcohol fuelled, semi-conscious insomnia created the CUCC2 website mark 1. It had lots of animations of flat wheeling, and not a lot else. But it was a start.
I'm sure more things must have happened around then but I really can't remember too much. There was some paddling on the Cam, there was the Varsity freestyle, then there was a whole lot of drinking. I think that says enough.
Another institution was also created around this point. We discovered that there is this strange propensity of people to say 'yes' if you ask them to make you cake. Details of how this whole thing came about are already set down for posterity. However little did we realise that from these humble beginnings would arise a phenomenon so huge that our social diaries would hardly cope with the demand. That's not to suggest that they are generally empty, we have friends. I think. Well, someone carries me home when I'm incapable of walking anyway.
After that we went on holiday. For a month. Which was nice. Well some of us did, the rest took the lazy option and only managed less than two weeks. Some people aren't so good at holidays as others. My jotted notes for this just say:
| Alps – | Swimming | Lack of Drinking | Injuries | Smell |
Which I think sums it up fairly accurately. There were many note worthy events, but many are documented elsewhere and I shan't go into great details. Suffice it to say that it was, aside from a lack of takers for the 5 litre containers of wine, definitely a worthy trip, though I have to say (from a safe distance) that if you don't like driving over mountains then possibly the Alps is not the best place to take your car…
It may come as something of a surprise that I write any notes for any of my ramblings at all. But I have to say that you really can't comprehend the maelstrom of confused indecipherable statements that would arise if I just sat down in front of a blank page and started writing. Actually you probably can, since a brief comparison of the maelstrom of confused indecipherable statements that make up the finished piece to the notes I made tends to suggest an approach fairly similar to that you might expect from sitting down in front of a blank page and starting to write, though possibly in a more chronological order.
After returning from the Alps I spent several weeks identifying whose kit I had returned with and then washing it all, again and again. I think the smell has just about gone now though. I feel that I did quite well on the kit front though, being down about a hundred pounds worth but up something like 700-800. Unfortunately all I seem to have left is a tape of Queen's Greatest Hits with out even a case, and Conrad keeps demanding that back as well.
Once the smell of kit had been removed I could sit with out distraction to get on with the serious business of the summer, writing excessively long and often slightly pointless pieces of prose. It was some time around this point that I came across a little piece I had written about a man staring at a traffic light. It intrigued me somewhat so picked it up again, adding a few new ideas along the way.
However it wasn't long before there was cause for my attention to be diverted into another trip report. We had decided that the time was ripe to use paddling as an excuse for another paddling trip. The location was fixed as the Tryweryn. So it was that about 14 canoeists descended on my house on a Friday night in August to terrorise my little sister and fill the house on a semi-permanent basis with the smell of bacon. Following that we travelled across into the land of sheep, rivers and purportedly dragons. Some of this is covered in the slightly strange report from the time.
However this stops short of the all-important activity of the evening. The playing of drinking games; ending up with, as I remember, a very bizarre set of rules for 21. It was the middle name one that did it though. Rich, after slightly more vodka and guanabana juice than he is used to, just could not prevent him self dissolving into laughter every time Tamsin was mentioned. (It's Becky's middle name, for the curious). Just in case of confusion it was the vodka that did it. We all had more guanabana juice than we where used to, but then that is not entirely surprising. Then, after Rich, and Dan to some extent, had recovered from the hysterics we did a few rounds of tequila slammers from the bottle. We would have used cups, but we didn't have any, so we didn't. Suffice it to say that I had a little more than is entirely sociable in a tent, or indeed anywhere. But these things happen. Rich, Dan and I didn't paddle on Sunday, which was possibly as well but anyway is always the sensible option.
A few weeks after this we all set off again. Swapping this time the sheep and dragons for cream teas and some different sheep, we ended up at a campsite in Devon. Some might say that is was unfortunate that all those playing drinking games on the previous occasion arrived several hours before everyone else. I feel it was less unfortunate than fortuitous. Though quite why it is so hard to determine a cross-channel ferry in a game of 20 questions I don't know. Alcohol might have something to do with it. We then discovered that Becky is quite ticklish, producing some interesting photos. We did even do some surfing, just for novelty value.
It was really in the period after that when I no longer just had time on my hands, but I could reach through into a whole extra dimension and pull the stuff out. Not that I got bored, bordom is a factor of either a lack of imagination, or a prescriptive lack of freedom. I just went paddling during the day, then came back, poured a large whisky and started writing. Not a bad lifestyle really – if only I could work out how to make it profitable, I'd be laughing. It maybe slightly lacking in the social side, but then this is small town north Shropshire, anyone you might want to actual meet has probably already left. Anyway, I started to get the idea of how to blunt and finished (what is really only the first part of) the piece of prose now known as redgreen. Tom Evans even claimed a Pendle Witches Brew for reading it all on the morning I put it up, proving that I am not the only one with a little too much time on my hands. He even eventually got the pint, but more of that later!
But time flies when you are doing nothing, and soon it was time to return to the land of rulered horizons and too much sky. Or Cambridge, as normal people might put it, a place where the lack of decent water is matched in magnitude only by the lack of serious study. So we it was that we had to revert to the activity of choice. Drinking. The start of a new year also means new people to scare off or corrupt, depending on whether they meet Big Dave or Tom Day first. Actually Tom was notable by his absence at the beginning of term supposedly brought on by illness, and also a girlfriend we never seemed to get round to meeting, we thought at the time that she was ashamed to be seen with him…
The first attempt at scaring off freshers was the college bar crawl. We managed to scare off two freshers who where never seen again. However we failed to put off Paul the computer officer from Newnham, something that Joasia also tried later, though possibly also going about it in the wrong way - if you mean no, it's often a mistake to say yes, it can lead to a certain degree of confusion. The event was also not a great thing from the point of view of drinking, but I suppose it could be put down to warming up.
The next major social event was Tim and Kathy's house warming. I think I must have been ill at the time, as I wasn't drinking. Still, it was mostly a fairly sedate affair. I suppose it is a gentle slide; settle down, get job, get house, get carpet slippers, paddle boat which is far to big… Actually, looking at my notes for this occasion it says 'must mention Jon's new prowess'. So I have, and I think I won't say any more.
The next week saw what was supposed to be a reciprocal cake making, though it says a great deal for the belief in our newfound ability to make cake that only Becky actually turned up, and she didn't have much choice since it was in her house. Still, our attempts where sufficiently pitied by just about everyone that we managed to get more cakes out of it, which could be seen as a positive outcome. It also started a, admittedly fairly short-lived, fashion for a foam fight following the washing up. A trend which reached it's peak after the creation of Andy's chocolate bowl where foam escalated into buckets of dirty mop water forcing Tom and Rich to steal, on a semi-permanent basis, some (though by no means all) of Andy's comic T-shirt collection. It also has to be said that even after many attempts other people's cakes still seem to be better than ours. I think a time will come when we will just have to use a recipe, or at least learn one; and once we have, we then have to let Rich have absolutely no chance to alter it in any way.
The next weekend saw the aubergine pub-crawl. Inspired by the commodores challenge and comment by Rich that such an event was not possible I devised a pub crawl where the first letters of the pubs visited (loosely) spelled the word aubergine. Unfortunately this spread the pubs out quite a lot. There were also slightly insufficient pubs for the time allowed, meaning that having started at midday we had to have a break for a curry in the middle. Still, this did see Tom Day return from the land of the dead. A fact which is probably not entirely unconnected with the amount of Rugby tackling which went on, one result of which being that Joasia took, I think, an entire week of due to concussion. Tom Evan also brought his high quality digiatal camera along, providing many quality photos which I used to illstrate the report
It was about this time that Cambridge experienced a period of heavy rain. As paddlers we generally like rain, except when we are actually outside, when it should temporarily stop. For those who don't know the Cam usually resembles a boating lake with movement which is just about perceptible by meditatively staring at the same leaf for a period of about three days. (The unfortunate thing with this being that if it is windy you may have spent three days watching the leaf get blown up stream, and as such have achieved nothing. A fact which could cause even more sever depression than you where suffering from already. Well let's face it, only someone who is pretty depressed is going to stare at the same leaf for three days). Anyway, for the these few days the Cam became a raging torrent onto which it was far too dangerous to venture, even in a white-water racer. Actually it is dangerous to venture onto anything in one of those things, but the greneral principal still stands. Given that, any reports of people paddling round colleges, running the rollers or throwing ends in the weir must be completely false, though there was a 1* on Jesus green.
Now fully back in the swing of things, and with Tom seemingly recovered we where fully prepared for the next weeks freshers formal hall. A fact which, in retrospect, seemed to upset Conrad and Gina somewhat. Still, there's nothing wrong with a good bit of red wine on white shirts. There was some slightly unfortunate use of oranges, and there seemed to be a slight mix up over clothing, but hey – these things happen.
The next weekend I went with Rich to a beard growing convention for students at PYB. Which was nice. Interestingly it turns out that the club in generally harbours some bad practice. So now when anyone complains about bad behaviour, we know how to counter with comments about bad practice. Seems fair to me. Unfortunately we seem to have ended up with the job of putting it right, still better safe than sorry, or indeed better than both is to be drunk.
The next weekend the club organised a beginners trip, at which they taught some beginners about paddling. The weekend after that I organised a beginners trip at which we taught bad behaviour and initiated people into on of our pet pass times, trying to get thrown out of the Bridge End in Llangollen (something which we have, as yet, failed to achieve). Actually there was really no cause for teaching, I just drank a lot, acted as came naturally and things just happened around me. And indeed to me. We also discovered the truth of why we had not met Tom's girlfriend before, it wasn't that he was afraid to be seen with her, it was quite possibly the other way round. Which is impressive. There is not report for this trip as yet, (if you want a job doing… mutter, mutter… do I have to do everything my self… ?) but I have now put up the list of points developed to write a report from, which will be replaced by the report, if it ever materialises.
The next day saw the one star formal hall, which, though supposedly an event for those on 1* courses and teachers, somehow seemed to end up with a fairly familiar crowd on reaching the Fezz. Fortunately Rich Jarvis got so drunk that he was somewhat forcibly ejected with his camera so that there are no photos to illustrate the end of the evening. Interestingly, Rich came round the next afternoon, having been away from Friday and only having returned that morning. He made the comment at one point that he didn't think that there was going to be any material of interest for social sec's awards at the Christmas dinner. I somewhat put his mind to rest about this though, by outlining the events of the last three days.
Nothing really momentous happened in the next few weeks. In fact the Christmas dinner was really the next occasion of note. It seems so long ago now, and it's still not even Christmas, that's Cambridge. The bizarre thing about the Christmas dinner is that it was held exactly two weeks after the 1* formal hall and the gossip somehow managed to be amazingly similar. Rich Jarvis got incredibly drunk again and had to be taken home with his camera, and again some of us ended up at the. It has been suggested that there were some photos taken, but as yet I haven't seen anything of them.
I also lost some hair that evening, it was decided that money should be collected for children in need and as a consequence my hair needed removing. I didn't quite follow this logic. I also don't think that bar staff should just hand out scissors to drunken people from the behind the bar. Still they did, and I was somewhat drunk, so ended up with one of the most amazingly uneven haircuts you are ever likely to see. I did get it tidied up the next day, though it was more a case of how to hide the strange tufts than being able to get rid of them altogether.
The weekend after was the Tees trip. There was a slight shortage of water, but there was also a pub up the road, which had an amusing dog called Fergus and no real conception of licensing hours. It must have been getting on for one in the morning when Becky and I left on Saturday night. Not bad considering that we must have been there form about five or six in the evening. The paddling didn't really bring up anything of note, except possibly telling me that my freewheeling needs more work.
The next weekend was the Dee tour. Actually the two days before had been a five star course, but that doesn't really belong here (staying somewhere with a bar and having 3 pints in two nights, and that was more than anyone else!). Andy had a bad two days though, on the way up he lost the roof rack from his car (though only temporarily before it was discovered in the hard shoulder of the A14), and then on arrival had to share a double bed with Rich, who he actually forced to have his annual shower.
Anyway it ended up that Rich, Becky and I where the only ones at the Dee tour. Despite the late start and then walking round every B&B in town to find somewhere to say we did paddle the river a couple times, though it was dark and all the safety cover had gone home by the time we got round to running town falls for the second time. Then we went and paid an amazing amount of money for the paddling film festival before leaving again to go and eat. Though we did return and watch a few films (whilst drinking a few pints, well Rich didn't, but that's hardly surprising). We even made it to the Bridge End for last orders, though failed to make any real attempt to get thrown out. After which we wandered round Llangollen for a bit in the vain hope of finding somewhere still serving alcohol but failed to get let in anywhere. Possibly leading Becky round with two hats over her eyes didn't help our cause. We didn't paddle on Sunday, when kit is frozen inside the car the temptation to paddle really just isn't there. So we more went back to bed for a while, then we went back to mine and lit the fire and sat there instead.
Well, I think that is about enough for now. Actually if you read all of what I've written this year then a rough calculation suggests it's somewhat in excess of 30,000 words, which is half way to the minimum number of words in a novel. No doubt I've missed huge swathes of interesting points and got most of the rest of it wrong. Still, if I could remember it all clearly then I've probably been doing something wrong. If you feel there is a major omission or error then let me know. All that remains is to wish you all a plentiful supply of both wine and water in the New Year.
Stuart
Index