Whitehaven Nights

We spent the morning cleaning the hostel and dreaming up a wild staff outing to 24 hour Tesco in Whitehaven. The plan was essentially this: do a bit of shopping, and sit out on the harbour wall drinking cough mixture straight from the bottle. Sadly we had to leave Fiona and Mick behind. Fiona was on the late shift, and Mick was suddenly very busy doing something else. So Julia, Rachel, and I jumped into my car and headed off for the coast. If we had planned for every eventuality we could have performed a sneaky drive by water pistol shooting of Tom-Tom as we passed the Woolpack. Instead I struggled to locate the horn, wind down the windows, and wave. The journey there was filled with stories of bearded men being stopped by the police for driving too close to Selafield, and the occasional interesting revelation from Rachel. "I think I might be Lance Armstrong. I'm taking drugs, and I don't have any testicles."*

When we arrived at Tesco, Rachel (playing mum) said we all had to go round together. That didn't last long though, as she went off to sniff all the different scents of shower gel. We all bumped into each other again at the chocolate isle, and then we went to select our choice of cough medicine. Rachel tried to get me in trouble by telling the shop assistant that I'd stuffed my rucksack full of 5 pence carrier bags at the self-service checkout without paying for them. It was all lies. 

We managed to make it out of the shop, and headed over to the harbour to watch the sunset. I was super keen to have a race to the end, but no one was really up for it until Julia mentioned speed walking. It is entirely possible that she is secretly the current Polish national champion at the event. Even Rachel, with legs as tall as a house (& a 7 time Tour de France winner), couldn't keep up with her. 

On the way back Dolly Parton somehow managed to make it onto the stereo. We asked Julia if she knew who it was, to which she replied...."is it that Chris de Burgh person you love?" We shared all the Dolly Parton facts we knew; about how American life vests in the 1970s were nicknamed 'Dolly Parton's', and that Dolly the sheep was thus named because she was cloned from breast tissue. After a few moments pause I said, "I think my boobs are bigger than Dolly's....look!" Rachel didn't seem either convinced or impressed...."I'M NOT LOOKING AT YOUR BOOBS, K!" 

It's possible that the journey home was twice as long as the journey there. Nothing to do with the traffic at all, but more because I had to stop so frequently from laughing (and consequently crying) too much. Rachel served as an excellent co-pilot, though - putting the hazard warnings lights on at all the appropriate moments. Quite amazingly, I think Julia actually managed to fall asleep for a bit in the back. 

*I don't think Lance Armstrong ever actually confessed to taking paracetamol