VERY late trip report!!!
Posted: Fri 3rd Sep 2010 01:33 am
Hi to one and all!
It's been a long time since my last trip report even though I've been three times in the period! (as a reformed catholic that sounded like I was saying “It's been a long time since my last confession!” Oooh, is that Freudian?! Who cares!) javascript:emoticon(':lol:')
This is more of a 'dedication to the cause' report than it is a smoking report so I hope you will indulge me and maybe even enjoy the story, too! javascript:emoticon(':?:')
The trip I'm gonna tell you about was around the third week of december last year – I had booked a day trip on the ferry just a few days before the heavy snows hit the south of England and forced the channel tunnel to close for 2 or 3 days. The (admittedly crazy) intention was to get a super early ferry (around 1.30am) and drive to the damage, have about 6 hours for 'shopping' and toking and then get back to calais for the late crossing home. Now obviously this trip was gonna be heavy enough as it was without the crazy weather...
The trip had been planned as a mini one-day adventure at the low cost of £40 each to cover fuel and crossing between myself and two friends: the gorgeous and sexy 'T' (no, I never got it together with her and now she's returned to AussieLand – oh well!) and a buddy, 'N'.
So, with the tunnel closed due to the sudden freeze it was looking touch and go for the trip but the ferries seemed to be ok so we decide to go thru with it. (easy for T and N to agree as it was my car and neither of them had a driving licence so, for them it was simply a question of “Do I want to be driven to Amst for £40 for the day? Duh-uh – OF COURSE I DO!”). javascript:emoticon(':lol:')
We set off for Dover from a certain coastal town, allowing an hour more than necessary to get to the ferry on time, having scored some very nice weed locally for the trip (thank FUCK we had that!...). Reports of significant congestion on all main routes into the port meant I had to trust the old sat nav to take us via the back roads – which it did BRILLIANTLY: we popped out of a tiny little road about 1km from the port entrance, pushing our way into a traffic queue that stretched back down the main road as far as the eye could see! What a result! …
Once on the ferry I went to the information desk to ask about the road conditions on the other side and was told with what sounded like complete authority that the roads immediately around the port at Calais were snow-covered but that a few miles out all was clear...
At this point I should mention that I am a very passionate driver of a car with four wheel drive and so was a little disappointed to hear that there was no snow en route. Oh well, I thought, at least we'll get there quickly!...
Disembarcation at calais was slow and we crept along the snowy french roads in heavy, slow-moving traffic for some time with T building the essential spliffs (dontcha just love stoner chicks!!) until it suddenly dawned on me that we'd covered about ten miles and, far from clearing, the snow was getting thicker on the ground and was falling very heavily too! At this point I was half excited about the driving conditions and half concerned at how long it would take us to get to the damage! (in normal conditions it's about 3 and a half hours-ish including a 20 min stop). Bearing in mind the plan was to get back to calais later that evening, we calculated that even if the journey took us an extra 2 hours we'd still have time to do the necessary and chill out for a bit in 'dam – so we decided to carry on...
However, instead of 3.5hrs it took 8.5hrs!! javascript:emoticon(':shock:') The entire route was covered in hard-packed icy snow which had frozen solid due to the nighttime temperatures although the still-falling heavy snow helped provide some traction at least! There was a lot of slow moving traffic for about the first hundred miles but then it seems good sense prevailed and the roads were almost completely clear by about 6am. I had pre-warned my passengers that they would need to stay awake to ensure I stayed awake, especially given the severe conditions. So, what did they do? They snored their fucking heads off the entire journey! I tried waking them with shouts and insults to no avail! The fuckers just ignored me and slept blissfully while I grew more and more wired from both tiredness and the strain of concentration!
When the road was clear-ish of traffic the old 4WD allowed us to get up to about 70mph and feel pretty secure (if I'd had to brake suddenly it would've bin curtains tho, regardless of 4WD, especially as I had decided not to bother swapping the regular tyres for the snow tyre set!). It was minus 9 deg C outside at about 5am and the windscreen was getting hard to keep clean as the washer jets had frozen up even though the reservoir was almost pure winter screenwash. I guess the wind chill factor took it down to about -60 on the windscreen itself! At one point I noticed that my headlights looked pretty dim so stopped for a spliff break at next service station and found a rock-hard ice-slush-snow cap over the headlights so I chipped this off carefully using a flat-tip screwdriver.
We eventually pulled into my preferred parking location at about 11am. The two herberts woke up with a yawn, and a stretch, saying how refreshed they felt!! I was trembling all over from the strain of the drive and felt like I used to feel back in the days when I'd go clubbing for 2 days and nights straight whilst consuming multiple class A substances: In other words...FUCKED UP! javascript:emoticon(':lol:')
I wanted to crash there and then in the car for a few hours and let them go into town on their own but they persuaded me to join them and half an hour later we arrived in centraal station. Bee-line to Barney's cos I HAD to have Acapulco Gold to refresh me! It almost worked but I was SO zonked from the drive that a revised return trip plan had to be hatched! We wandered as far as HGF and the instant I entered the shop, the porcine bud tender (PBT) fixed me in an evil glare! WTF?! When I tried to point to some fruit drink or other in the fridge that T had said she wanted, PBT became irate and snapped “Just choose one from the menu!”, pointing at the price board on the wall. I started trying to explain what my friend wanted and PBT started huffing loudly and said angrily “You CANT come behind the counter!”, to which I replied “Did I say I wanted to come behind the counter?!”. PBT replied by putting right hand on hip, cocking her head to one side and saying the most sarcastic and aggressive 'Sorry!” I think I've ever heard! She should tread the boards with that kind of acting ability! I returned to the price list and ordered three of something which she got from the fridge and literally slammed down on the counter in front of me. I smiled broadly, keeping totally cool, and said “Thank you very much.” in the least sarcastic way possible under the circumstances. Within 10 seconds of sitting down and whilst my friends were stifling their laughs and congratulating me for keeping my cool, PBT changes the music from chilled out to some hip-hoppy thrash metal track with an immortal chorus that included the words “Fuck You!” very frequently! I actually really liked the track, whatever it was!! javascript:emoticon(':lol:')
I was starting to get a 2nd wind by now and was able to be assertive enough to insist that I had to sleep before the return journey! We decided to stick it out til about 9pm then grab a few hours sleep in the car before heading back early the following morning. The plan was that we'd tell the ferry company that we'd got stranded in the ice and snow hence missing our day trip return leg (and hope they didnt see the car we were in as it's a vehicle often used by mountain rescue!).
Once we'd agreed the revised plan and I knew I was gonna get some sleep I perked right up and we set about 'puttin a hurtin' on some weed'! (love that phrase – thanks to whichever ACD member invented it!). A visit to Burger Bar and a wagyu burger + fries later and we were in Cafe 420 for the super silver haze – love the smell, appearance, taste and effect, always!. Next was Hunters Bar (of course!) for the NYCD...which they were out of but the VCBT (very cool bud tender) suggested the Buddha's Sister which was absolutely dripping in crystals and did the job beautifully! From there we hit up Grey Area where I'm delighted to say they had some chocolope in stock: somehow that was BY FAR the highest high I experienced from any weed that trip and I always love the VCBTs in that shop. I've often been lucky enough to get a table in there, too, which is great cos ya feel like a special member of the cognoscenti sitting there twattted off yer nut, 'blazin trees o weed' whilst the 15-person long queue looks on in envy!
Dampkring always gets a visit for the Rifman hashes and the Dutch VCBT, upon hearing of the drive I had done, proceeded to make me feel like royalty by giving me a tour of almost every tub he had on the shelf! I bought 4g of the aziza, which I actually prefer to the ultra-sticky one (cant remember its name) and a g of the 40e isolator.
As we are talking about a trip about 9 months ago I cant remember much more about which shops we visited, I'm afraid.
Around 9ish we returned to the car and set the sat nav for a direction in which I knew there would be a discrete motorway service station with a great car park for a sleepover. The snow was a good 30cm deep in our chosen stopping area and I couldnt resist a bit of a fun 4wd slideabout in the deep stuff before we used the facilities, skinned up and crashed out for the night. Luckily for T and N I had a good sleeping bag and a thick fluffy blanket in the car, along with some cushions.
Around 3am I awoke, freezing my tits off (T and N were snoring blissfully under blanket and in sleeping bag!) to the sound of a knock on the window! All I could see through the frosty glass was what looked like two guys wearing heavy black bomber jackets. I thought the worst: they must be cops and they wanted to know what the hell we're doing (or something equally paranoid and un-thought-through). The car was full of 'supplies' and stank of them! So, I got out of the car to face the music. What greeted my blurry eyes was a group of 5 Indian lads who, upon seeing me emerge from the car said only... “Jek?!” - Let me translate this: they were asking me if I had a jack so that they could change a wheel on their car! No other words were said by them and whilst they chatted in Hindi (I speak it a bit) I made an unsuccessful attempt to open the boot and get the jack for them. With the boot frozen solid and me now utterly frozen I suddenly got pissed off that they'd bloody woken me up in the middle of the freezing night to ask me for something they bloody well should've had themselves so I just said 'I'm sorry I dont have a jack! "JEK NAHI HE!" ' and got back in the car and started the engine to warm up enough to get back to sleep! - I know this was a little uncharitable but, hey, they werent there in the morning so I guess they got sorted eventually.
En route back to calais (still snowy and icy but quite a bit easier to drive on as the sun had melted a fair bit of it) we decided to go via a hypermarket so that when we turned up in blighty we'd have 'the reason for our day trip' available for an eventual inspection. Unbeknownst to me, however, my two 'friends' had chosen to stash their 'special shopping' inside the packaging of items they had bought in the hypermarket instead of implementing 'the method' javascript:emoticon(':roll:') we had agreed upon! The fuckers! We were waved straight through in uk and I stopped at first petrol station to 'retrieve' what I needed to build my 'home free at last spliff'. On my return to the car I opened the boot for some reason or other and saw the two large boxes of goodies...and then almost leapt into the air when the SWEET REEKING STENCH hit me in the face like a bat! Had I been required to open said boot ('trunk' for benefit of yankee brothers and sisters), well...that would've turned an adventure into a friggin disaster! I was NOT happy, I will admit, and they just laughed and took the piss! Still, all's well that ends well, eh?! I wont be taking N in the car again that's for sure!
There's a trip coming up soon for me and a different bud-buddy and this time I'll take my digicam and include the piccies and bud descriptions we all love so much.
Peace and Love and all that good stuff!
It's been a long time since my last trip report even though I've been three times in the period! (as a reformed catholic that sounded like I was saying “It's been a long time since my last confession!” Oooh, is that Freudian?! Who cares!) javascript:emoticon(':lol:')
This is more of a 'dedication to the cause' report than it is a smoking report so I hope you will indulge me and maybe even enjoy the story, too! javascript:emoticon(':?:')
The trip I'm gonna tell you about was around the third week of december last year – I had booked a day trip on the ferry just a few days before the heavy snows hit the south of England and forced the channel tunnel to close for 2 or 3 days. The (admittedly crazy) intention was to get a super early ferry (around 1.30am) and drive to the damage, have about 6 hours for 'shopping' and toking and then get back to calais for the late crossing home. Now obviously this trip was gonna be heavy enough as it was without the crazy weather...
The trip had been planned as a mini one-day adventure at the low cost of £40 each to cover fuel and crossing between myself and two friends: the gorgeous and sexy 'T' (no, I never got it together with her and now she's returned to AussieLand – oh well!) and a buddy, 'N'.
So, with the tunnel closed due to the sudden freeze it was looking touch and go for the trip but the ferries seemed to be ok so we decide to go thru with it. (easy for T and N to agree as it was my car and neither of them had a driving licence so, for them it was simply a question of “Do I want to be driven to Amst for £40 for the day? Duh-uh – OF COURSE I DO!”). javascript:emoticon(':lol:')
We set off for Dover from a certain coastal town, allowing an hour more than necessary to get to the ferry on time, having scored some very nice weed locally for the trip (thank FUCK we had that!...). Reports of significant congestion on all main routes into the port meant I had to trust the old sat nav to take us via the back roads – which it did BRILLIANTLY: we popped out of a tiny little road about 1km from the port entrance, pushing our way into a traffic queue that stretched back down the main road as far as the eye could see! What a result! …
Once on the ferry I went to the information desk to ask about the road conditions on the other side and was told with what sounded like complete authority that the roads immediately around the port at Calais were snow-covered but that a few miles out all was clear...
At this point I should mention that I am a very passionate driver of a car with four wheel drive and so was a little disappointed to hear that there was no snow en route. Oh well, I thought, at least we'll get there quickly!...
Disembarcation at calais was slow and we crept along the snowy french roads in heavy, slow-moving traffic for some time with T building the essential spliffs (dontcha just love stoner chicks!!) until it suddenly dawned on me that we'd covered about ten miles and, far from clearing, the snow was getting thicker on the ground and was falling very heavily too! At this point I was half excited about the driving conditions and half concerned at how long it would take us to get to the damage! (in normal conditions it's about 3 and a half hours-ish including a 20 min stop). Bearing in mind the plan was to get back to calais later that evening, we calculated that even if the journey took us an extra 2 hours we'd still have time to do the necessary and chill out for a bit in 'dam – so we decided to carry on...
However, instead of 3.5hrs it took 8.5hrs!! javascript:emoticon(':shock:') The entire route was covered in hard-packed icy snow which had frozen solid due to the nighttime temperatures although the still-falling heavy snow helped provide some traction at least! There was a lot of slow moving traffic for about the first hundred miles but then it seems good sense prevailed and the roads were almost completely clear by about 6am. I had pre-warned my passengers that they would need to stay awake to ensure I stayed awake, especially given the severe conditions. So, what did they do? They snored their fucking heads off the entire journey! I tried waking them with shouts and insults to no avail! The fuckers just ignored me and slept blissfully while I grew more and more wired from both tiredness and the strain of concentration!
When the road was clear-ish of traffic the old 4WD allowed us to get up to about 70mph and feel pretty secure (if I'd had to brake suddenly it would've bin curtains tho, regardless of 4WD, especially as I had decided not to bother swapping the regular tyres for the snow tyre set!). It was minus 9 deg C outside at about 5am and the windscreen was getting hard to keep clean as the washer jets had frozen up even though the reservoir was almost pure winter screenwash. I guess the wind chill factor took it down to about -60 on the windscreen itself! At one point I noticed that my headlights looked pretty dim so stopped for a spliff break at next service station and found a rock-hard ice-slush-snow cap over the headlights so I chipped this off carefully using a flat-tip screwdriver.
We eventually pulled into my preferred parking location at about 11am. The two herberts woke up with a yawn, and a stretch, saying how refreshed they felt!! I was trembling all over from the strain of the drive and felt like I used to feel back in the days when I'd go clubbing for 2 days and nights straight whilst consuming multiple class A substances: In other words...FUCKED UP! javascript:emoticon(':lol:')
I wanted to crash there and then in the car for a few hours and let them go into town on their own but they persuaded me to join them and half an hour later we arrived in centraal station. Bee-line to Barney's cos I HAD to have Acapulco Gold to refresh me! It almost worked but I was SO zonked from the drive that a revised return trip plan had to be hatched! We wandered as far as HGF and the instant I entered the shop, the porcine bud tender (PBT) fixed me in an evil glare! WTF?! When I tried to point to some fruit drink or other in the fridge that T had said she wanted, PBT became irate and snapped “Just choose one from the menu!”, pointing at the price board on the wall. I started trying to explain what my friend wanted and PBT started huffing loudly and said angrily “You CANT come behind the counter!”, to which I replied “Did I say I wanted to come behind the counter?!”. PBT replied by putting right hand on hip, cocking her head to one side and saying the most sarcastic and aggressive 'Sorry!” I think I've ever heard! She should tread the boards with that kind of acting ability! I returned to the price list and ordered three of something which she got from the fridge and literally slammed down on the counter in front of me. I smiled broadly, keeping totally cool, and said “Thank you very much.” in the least sarcastic way possible under the circumstances. Within 10 seconds of sitting down and whilst my friends were stifling their laughs and congratulating me for keeping my cool, PBT changes the music from chilled out to some hip-hoppy thrash metal track with an immortal chorus that included the words “Fuck You!” very frequently! I actually really liked the track, whatever it was!! javascript:emoticon(':lol:')
I was starting to get a 2nd wind by now and was able to be assertive enough to insist that I had to sleep before the return journey! We decided to stick it out til about 9pm then grab a few hours sleep in the car before heading back early the following morning. The plan was that we'd tell the ferry company that we'd got stranded in the ice and snow hence missing our day trip return leg (and hope they didnt see the car we were in as it's a vehicle often used by mountain rescue!).
Once we'd agreed the revised plan and I knew I was gonna get some sleep I perked right up and we set about 'puttin a hurtin' on some weed'! (love that phrase – thanks to whichever ACD member invented it!). A visit to Burger Bar and a wagyu burger + fries later and we were in Cafe 420 for the super silver haze – love the smell, appearance, taste and effect, always!. Next was Hunters Bar (of course!) for the NYCD...which they were out of but the VCBT (very cool bud tender) suggested the Buddha's Sister which was absolutely dripping in crystals and did the job beautifully! From there we hit up Grey Area where I'm delighted to say they had some chocolope in stock: somehow that was BY FAR the highest high I experienced from any weed that trip and I always love the VCBTs in that shop. I've often been lucky enough to get a table in there, too, which is great cos ya feel like a special member of the cognoscenti sitting there twattted off yer nut, 'blazin trees o weed' whilst the 15-person long queue looks on in envy!
Dampkring always gets a visit for the Rifman hashes and the Dutch VCBT, upon hearing of the drive I had done, proceeded to make me feel like royalty by giving me a tour of almost every tub he had on the shelf! I bought 4g of the aziza, which I actually prefer to the ultra-sticky one (cant remember its name) and a g of the 40e isolator.
As we are talking about a trip about 9 months ago I cant remember much more about which shops we visited, I'm afraid.
Around 9ish we returned to the car and set the sat nav for a direction in which I knew there would be a discrete motorway service station with a great car park for a sleepover. The snow was a good 30cm deep in our chosen stopping area and I couldnt resist a bit of a fun 4wd slideabout in the deep stuff before we used the facilities, skinned up and crashed out for the night. Luckily for T and N I had a good sleeping bag and a thick fluffy blanket in the car, along with some cushions.
Around 3am I awoke, freezing my tits off (T and N were snoring blissfully under blanket and in sleeping bag!) to the sound of a knock on the window! All I could see through the frosty glass was what looked like two guys wearing heavy black bomber jackets. I thought the worst: they must be cops and they wanted to know what the hell we're doing (or something equally paranoid and un-thought-through). The car was full of 'supplies' and stank of them! So, I got out of the car to face the music. What greeted my blurry eyes was a group of 5 Indian lads who, upon seeing me emerge from the car said only... “Jek?!” - Let me translate this: they were asking me if I had a jack so that they could change a wheel on their car! No other words were said by them and whilst they chatted in Hindi (I speak it a bit) I made an unsuccessful attempt to open the boot and get the jack for them. With the boot frozen solid and me now utterly frozen I suddenly got pissed off that they'd bloody woken me up in the middle of the freezing night to ask me for something they bloody well should've had themselves so I just said 'I'm sorry I dont have a jack! "JEK NAHI HE!" ' and got back in the car and started the engine to warm up enough to get back to sleep! - I know this was a little uncharitable but, hey, they werent there in the morning so I guess they got sorted eventually.
En route back to calais (still snowy and icy but quite a bit easier to drive on as the sun had melted a fair bit of it) we decided to go via a hypermarket so that when we turned up in blighty we'd have 'the reason for our day trip' available for an eventual inspection. Unbeknownst to me, however, my two 'friends' had chosen to stash their 'special shopping' inside the packaging of items they had bought in the hypermarket instead of implementing 'the method' javascript:emoticon(':roll:') we had agreed upon! The fuckers! We were waved straight through in uk and I stopped at first petrol station to 'retrieve' what I needed to build my 'home free at last spliff'. On my return to the car I opened the boot for some reason or other and saw the two large boxes of goodies...and then almost leapt into the air when the SWEET REEKING STENCH hit me in the face like a bat! Had I been required to open said boot ('trunk' for benefit of yankee brothers and sisters), well...that would've turned an adventure into a friggin disaster! I was NOT happy, I will admit, and they just laughed and took the piss! Still, all's well that ends well, eh?! I wont be taking N in the car again that's for sure!
There's a trip coming up soon for me and a different bud-buddy and this time I'll take my digicam and include the piccies and bud descriptions we all love so much.
Peace and Love and all that good stuff!
