A MINI ADVENTURE

Friday after work, I went to the pub with the boys. I planned a Sunday outing with Keith and Andrew. This week, Will, who you may recall told me last week that he loved me and it wasn't just the alcohol talking, told me that he wants to take me to dinner and get me drunk, which is, again, just the alcohol talking. He does not actually want to do these things, and if he ever recalls saying he did, he will give me a long apology. Again.

Saturday, I went to eight or nine goth and two fetish stores in search of hooded cloaks for ICS. I figured goth stores would be a good place to look for this sort of thing because, as it turns out, Cult Supply Stores are difficult to find. (I realised at some point how...something...it is that there are eight or nine goth stores in my neighborhood.) I couldn't find exactly what I was looking for, so will probably have to resort to something online. I mean, I have a cloak which does, in fact, have a hood, but it looks more like something one would wear on the moors than something one would wear to, say, a blood sacrifice. And it would be Right Out for Nicholas and Michael, being boys and all.

Sunday, I picked up Keith and Andrew and drove to Stonehenge. This was great fun! It was a Mini Adventure!

It turns out that you can no longer walk up to the stones and touch them and stuff. The history of this is really weird. Evidently, they used to have these little booths that sold tiny chisels and hammers, so that you could chip off a piece of the Henge and bring it home with you. (!) Eventually, some of the stones became unstable (no! really!) and so they stopped selling the little chisels, roped off the henge, and started charging admission. So, yes, you can now say that Stonehenge closes at 4 pm.

Stones.

Close.

At 4 pm.

So anyway, we arrived, and as we were paying admission, the woman who sold me the tickets said, "I like your coat. I hope you don't mind me saying this, but it makes you look very huggable." I thanked her. Two minutes later, Andrew turned to me and said, "We can't take you *anywhere* without lesbians hitting on you." This theme was repeated at least 15 times that afternoon.

After we'd had our fill of stones and sheep (Stonehenge is in the middle of some kind of sheep farm, so it is surrounded by fences to keep the sheep from walking over and frolicking about among the stones), we got back into the Mini and headed London-ward.

I should probably mention at this point just how comical it is to see three fully-grown humans, two of which are well over six feet tall, climbing into a toy car. This could only be funnier if one of us had been dressed as a clown. I have a photo of Keith and Andrew at the henge, and I might have to upload it so that you can appreciate the comical aspects.

At any rate, we climbed back into the car without too many people pointing and laughing, and we were on our way.

We decided to stop at Woodhenge on the way back. We tried to find Strawhenge as well, but apparently it was blown down by the Big Bad Druid Wolf. Woodhenge is this place that dates back to around the time of Stonehenge, and, if I recall correctly, may have been some kind of prototype. At any rate, it was made of wood, it was excavated, and then they put up little concrete posts to show where the various beams had been. It is, all in all, most unimpressive. But if you're doing a Henge Day, may as well run the full Henge Gamut.

So we stood around looking at posts, and then got back into the car to return home.

It was dreary and raining, and I had run out of windscreen washer fluid, so we stopped at a petrol station which looked empty. We weren't sure if it was open. So Andrew and I went inside while Keith, who had spent most of the drive in a pot-and-apple-turnover-fuelled haze (causing Andrew, hilariously, at one point, to turn around and ask Keith if he was trying to establish some kind of record for Most Drugs Smoked in the Back of a Mini) snoozed in the back seat.

When we got inside, it turned out that the store was inhabited by a tiny little old woman who barely reached the counter. I went and picked up windscreen fluid and oil, and brought them to the counter. The old woman said, "Can you get those all right?" to which I replied, "Oh, yes, I'm fine." She said, mysteriously, "Good. That's what arms are for."

(?)

We walked outside, and Andrew turned to me and said, "We can't take you anywhere without strange old women making cryptic comments to you."

Inexplicably, in the time it took us to purchase these supplies, the place went from completely empty to incredibly full. So we had a huge audience to watch us all climb back into the Mini and return to the road.

The boys egged me on, repeatedly, to pass cars like Porsches in my tiny little over-populated Mini. This gave us all great joy.

At any rate, we eventually returned to London, and eventually I spent the rest of the evening lazing around. Andrew has lent me DVDs of Bo Selecta and Gumball Rally 3000 to watch in my spare time. I will keep you updated.

The end.