Winchester III: darrell’s revenge
LUKE: I’ve already written two posts about Winchester. How can I possibly come up with another title?
TILLY: What were the other ones?
LUKE: ‘A vindication of the rights of sloth’ and ‘Winchester II: return to gilly’s’.
TILLY: How about … ‘Winchester 3: darrell’s revenge’?
*LAUGHTER*
LUKE: I’m so calling it that!
And there ends the significance of the title of this post. In no way did my friend Gilly’s husband Darrell exact any revenge during our stay in with them in Winchester … that I’m aware of …
Anyway, the reason for this, my third return to Winchester and the abode of the Grundys, was for Gilly Grundy’s G-Themed Fortieth Birthday Costume Party!
This party was during the first weekend after classes finished at uni, so we didn’t have very long to put together G-themed costumes. We were brainstorming and I said we could go as Graham Gooch, which made Tilly think of going as goon! This would be significant because, while she was a foreign student at UOW, we younguns introduced Gilly to all sorts of awful cheap goon drinks by which she was continually disgusted.
Apparently only one cognitive leap away.
(pictures from <http://www.madaboutsports.com.au> and <http://www.t3.gstatic.com>)
It was then simply a matter of deciding which form of goon would be best: Fruity Lexia or Berri Estates box? Goon Sunrise? Should we attempt to drink a goonsack every night until the party and wear a suit made of blown-up goonsacks? Goon Commandos with goon box helmets? We decided going as giant goon sacks would have the maximum effect for the minimum effort and price. We went around Norwich searching for electrical tape, thermal shock blankets and something suitable for nozzles, and were serenaded on our way by two buskers, one of whom was naked to the underwear, who sang something about us looking like lumberjacks as we passed because we were both wearing flannos. This is why I love this city.
Typically, we were still finishing our costumes thirty minutes before the party, on the train and in Winchester train station, where we attracted all sorts of looks and questions.
Plastic wine tumbler/goon nozzle stickers on her eyes.
Hasty assembly.But the final result was worth it:
Goon sack costumes.
The party was awesome. Our costumes were a conversation starter, since the English don’t use the word ‘goon’ and therefore our costumes’ ‘G’ connection (sounds rude?) had to be repeatedly explained. People kept telling us they could hear us coming, ’cause the thermal blankets rustled so much – we also had to spend most of the night outside to prevent overheating; those things retain ninety per cent body heat!
There were some really terrific costumes, among the best of which were Gilly’s parents’, Galadriel and Gandalf, and Gilly and Darrell themselves, Lady Godiva and the Grinch.
They made the costumes themselves if you can believe it.
Nipple repairs.
‘Goons. Hired goons.’
‘Hired goons?’After the party we stayed a couple of days. Sunday was a beauty, and we went for a walk to G&D’s allotment, and then to the Black Boy for some drinks.
Til being cooperative.
Like something out of an Angus & Julia Stone film clip.
A bumble bee on a wet-the-bed before the massacre, which left flower blood on our hands for days (had to pull them all out by hand). Out, damned spot!
BAMF.
While we were sitting outside at The Black Boy, two people started looking up at the sky. Til worked out that it was just a parachuter, but a couple more people started looking so I started taking photos and pointing and saying, ‘I’ve never seen anything like it!’ until there was a line of six or seven people all trying to see what it was.
The Black Boy was the really cool English pub I said I should’ve taken photos of in ‘Winchester II: return to gilly’s’. So have some now as a redress:
There was a game where you had to swing a ring on a chain onto a hook. I was too impatient for it, but Til got it.
Hours of fun.
‘I’m really into this cup and ball now.’Once again we balanced out our lazy, movie-watching days with day trips to Oxford and around Wiltshire. We made a special stop to see the shark house on the way into Oxford, which was everything I always dreamed and MORE!
The house across the road is called ‘Sharkview’.
We had lunch in the White Horse again, and oh my God the food. I’m instituting a rule from now on that if something on a menu says ‘Chicken, mushroom and white wine sauce’ I MUST eat it. Also the cheesecake was the best I’ve ever had. I have this theory that the measure of a dairy product is how much it can be compared with another kind of dairy product. ‘This milk is so good it’s like cream!’ ‘This butter is so good it’s like cheese!’ ‘This cream is so good it’s like yoghurt!’ and so on. This cheesecake was so good it was like icecream.
My favourite place of the day was the shop that Elisa and Gilly found when they visited previously. It was like heaven. What is it about that certain kind of product, that stationeryish, leather-bound, handmade, old-timey kind of crap that appeals so much to us writers!? I never wanted to leave!
Our other daytrip, through Wiltshire, organised by amazing trip planner Gilly, took us to Stonehenge, Lacock, Salisbury and the New Forest. Stonehenge was Stonehenge. Pretty damn cool for a bunch of rocks in a field.
‘Oh, we can’t touch it, dad! It’s behind a velvet rope!’
‘The veeelvet roooope.’
Lacock is an entire village owned by the National Trust which hasn’t had any new buildings in two hundred years, so it’s constantly being used for TV shows and movies – it was Meryton in the BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, and the abbey was used for parts of Hogwarts.
Gilly reenacts Lydia’s admiration of a fabric in P&P.
The whole town was obsessed with the word ‘quintessential’. Every book I picked up in the giftshop used it – ‘Jane Austen, the quintessential English writer’, ‘Tea, the quintessential English tradition’ – and there was even a shop in an old house called ‘Quintessentially’:
Looking through Quintessentially’s secondhand book collection was pretty amusing – it featured Anne, The Princess Royal – A Princess for Our Times (1973), and Our Princesses and their Dogs (1937).
(Image from <http://www.baumanrarebooks.com>)
In the abbey.
After Lacock the camera ran out of batteries and we sang our way in the car from Alanis Morissette to The Eagles in Gilly’s iPod until we got to Salisbury, only to find that the award-winning fish ’n chip shop we’d come for had closed down. But we found another, and also FINALLY some nice crusty fresh bread, of which I bought two loaves.
From Salisbury it was Enya to Howie Day and we were in the New Forest, so called because William the Conqueror declared it his new hunting ground in 1079, where horses, ponies, cows, pigs and donkeys roam free. We drove around and went to a pub before heading back, by which time we’d come back to Miss Morissette, presumably much to Tilly’s dismay.
The next morning we were off, after probably my favourite Winchester visit yet! Fear, all you travellers, the wrathful, grinchy revenge of Darrell!
Cheers,
Luke
Oz Students Abroad 
Goon bags as costumes – what a hoot. The perfect answer to a “G” themed party. I like your initiative. Although the Graham Gooch look would have attracted a few good laughs as well.
And to think goon bags have thermal qualities is even more amazing. Maybe we should be recycling these and donating to the Salvos (or similar?).
Your photos of the English countryside — and the Angus and Julia Stone film clip look-alike was precious!!!
Somehow I don’t think you and Tilly will be wanting to come home. It seems like the creative writers paradise.
When does Uni finish? I guess it must be soon???
Warm regards
Tonia
May 17, 2011 at 9:42 am
Haha well it wasn’t so much that goonbags have thermal qualities as that they were made of thermal blankets!
Yeah I’d quite happily stay over here forever haha. Dreading the thought of Wollongong at the moment.
Classes finished a while ago, and I had my only this week, so I’m free. We’re hanging around campus this week, then heading off travelling next week. Caint wait!
May 22, 2011 at 12:08 pm