Lesbian Sandals, Scary Toilets and The Blair Witch Project

If I want to go out for a walk (which I often do), it’s easy; lob on the trainers or lesbian sandals (weather determined), shovel a bit of cash into a pocket, along with my pratfone, grab a bottle of water and fuck off out of it. And that’s what I did yesterday, I boldly walked to the coast, 3 miles or so, in the blazing heat (yet still managing to look like one of those sauce buckets from the Harmony Hairspray ads), no dramas, no nuffin – just me going for a walk.

 This is an untruth. This is not my sandal. My sandal is infinitely more lezza than this.

My sandal involves velcro. It does not, however, involve a moose hair sock.

And when I got to said coast, I had a littly sit down and watched the world go by. Not five minutes passed before I was given a harsh reminder of one of my all time pet hates – and one so severe, it’s right up there with the dreaded caravan (if you’ve not read my ‘Road Rage, Scrotes and Rich Tea Biscuits’ blog, March 2011, I urge you to limp over for a nosey…).

            So my other pet hate (that ranks so highly) are those dreary old fuckers that refuse to go for the briefest of walks without carrying a backpack the size of Scotland (or some crude form of suitcase strapped to them), wearing the ‘Look everybody! I’m going for a walk!” clumpy (and even more butch) bootee things, and sporting the world’s thickest socks. The worse offenders even carry some sort of stick thing to labour the ‘I’m walking’ point. And if the casual observer is still left in any doubt as to what’s unfolding before them, some of these twats have baseball caps (or if they’re closing to snuffing it, one of those floppy efforts) with their Rambling Posse/Crew/Association emblazoned upon it. Or worse yet, some jocular tag line like, “Ramblers Do It For Hours”. (God give me strength).

            But that's the issue I have; when they don’t do it for hours. And they’re just having a stroll along Seaton seafront. And they still have all the kit and caboodle on. Including the heavy boots and the industrial socks. And they look so fucking smug about it all. I mean, come on, exactly how many eventualities do you need to cover to warrant lugging a jumbo backpack around in the heat? Surely, you can only get through so many Trebor Mints in one piffy stroll along Seaton seafront. It’s less than a mile long. And flat. And it’s got loos and kiosks. And a couple of fairly undesirable pubs. And a High Street, but minutes away…so WHAT’S IN THE FUCKING BAGS!!!

 Feast your eyes on this volatile terrain. You'd be a fool to attempt a brisk

walk along here without your full quota of Trebor mints stashed in your backpack.

I mean, really? Look at this bunch of herberts. They're only popping out for 

10 minutes to secure some Jacobs Cream Crackers from the convenience store.  

....and check out the prick sticks....dear, oh dear...

            Now, I do concede, that when embarking upon a ten mile hoof or so, around the moors or similar, you may need to shove a few more things in a bag. More Trebor Mints, more water, a sausage roll, and the caravaners favourite, the dreaded tea flask. So, I’m guessing these pricks are just stuffing these bags with all sorts, willy nilly and terrified of missing out that one item that could ‘save the day’ (back-up undercrackers, every form of Pac-A-Mac in existence, a couple of hefty flares, a selection of old back copies of the Radio Times and a trusty whistle).  But the rest of the time? Ooh, I could chin the lot of them....

Not looking so smug now...this lot have forgotten why they set off...

To add to my woes, I’ve begun to get scared of public toilets. It all began in Newton Abbot a couple of weeks, when I got caught short. We asked a fairly unreliable-looking traffic warden for directions to the nearest lav and he, in turn, steered us towards some crumbling, graffiti covered wreck that looked like it was on day release from the hardest area in the Bronx. Being a grounded person, I immediately feared that a whole Bourneville Selection of muggers, murderers and rapists were lurking behind the peeling entrance door, just waiting for me to rock up for a piss (and not even armed with my ‘I’m going for a walk!’ stick…).

            I took the only course of action I could. I sent the old man in for a reccy.

That's right, love. You check it out.

 I'll wait here.

I don’t have a picture to show of these toilets. And I ain’t going back for one neither. I came out intact, but those lavvies had a heavy sense of foreboding which gave me the heebeejeebies long after I got my sorry arse out of there.

And since then, I've been a bit howsyerfather about public toilets. 

I went to Dartmouth to celebrate my birthday last weekend. They had public toilets.

  I rest my case.

This foul stench-filled shit house lives next to the castle.

Enter at your own perile - you have been warned.

And what about this? Based on this location, you'd think you're about to step down into

some sort of luxury crapper, complete with top of the range tampons, perfumes and

attendant (in attendance)

Nope. It's another festering hell hole.

But it does have a nice view (once you escape).

To get over my toilet trauma, I was forced to go out on the lash. Not because it was my birthday. But because it would take away my 'toilet fear'. So I drank lots of vodka. And I drank lots of vodka in lots of pubs. Very nice. And after a while, it got to being a bit of a blur. But I do remember this chap.

Let me introduce Ollie (not to be confused with Wally Dog).

He must have a similar distrust of public toilets to me,

as here he is, pissing where he stands. Note his guilty expression.

In his defence, I did see him neck some cider earlier from that (now) crushed plastic cup....

And then I drank some more. So I took some pictures of this.

Aah.

Then I drank some more and took these. And by now I was feeling a bit queer.

If memory serves, I may have been pointing out to the old man that

he was my bestest friend in the whole wide world, at this stage...

And here I am, steadying myself to give a rousing rendition

of 'Pearl's A Singer'

So after all that excitement, it was time for peepy bo-bos. The next day, I felt fluffy and fragile and couldn't do anything to make myself feel better. But the old man came up with a cunning plan. He drove me all the way to Kingsbridge and showed me these.

They were so lovely and clean, that I wanted to move in straight away. But the old man

said I couldn't. We had to go home. Oh dear, I sighed. But never mind, I said to him, atleast I am no longer scared

of public toilets. Hurrah!

So off we went. Back to these parrrts. I was feeling so much happier now all that scary toilet business was behind me. But when we got home we found this in the downstairs loo.

We have booked the priest for next Tuesday.

Please pray for us.

Until then, I'm buggering off for a lengthy walk.....