A Famous Five Adventure in West Dean

A couple of weekends ago I went to visit my good friend Anne and her long suffering (only kidding) boyfriend Seth who have recently moved to a lovely cottage in West Dean. So Saturday morning I make my way there and arrive, very punctually, at 2pm at their new home - I was at the designated place at the designated time. About 5 minutes before as I was driving I had received a text. It turned out to be a text from Anne telling me that she was in Romsey; of course, I always plan to be out when I have visitors coming. I sat in the boot of my car buddha like and awaited their arrival. I wasn't waiting long and they soon rolled up with a double mattress folded up in the boot of the car, which was for me to sleep on so all was forgiven.

Their cottage is delightful and it sits on a farm at the top of a hill overlooking a country church and a sleepy little village. They don't have central heating but they do have a real fire and a Rayburn! So much more exciting and I recorded the first efforts of lighting it, which went surprisingly well.

Anne and I sat outside in the large garden drinking wine whilst Seth excitedly got out the lawnmower for the first time to cut the grass (it must be a man thing to get so excited about being able to cut the grass in a new home but I am sure it wont last). We laughed about how Laura who was making her way there by train would surely get lost and we would get a text from her saying she was at a train station in Scotland (or possibly even on a ferry on her way to France - "West Dean's in France right?"). However, we had clearly underestimated Laura because Anne suddenly realised that she had been sent a text message from Laura about 10 mintues ago saying she had arrived at West Dean station and was waiting for Anne to meet her as she had promised. Up we leapt, slightly tipsy and full of remorse at forgetting to be vigilant, and ran with all due haste down the hill to the sleepy village to rescue the damsel in distress. We found her calmly sitting on a bench near the station. We made our, much more sedately, way back up the hill.

The Great Rayburn Lighting Adventure
I had more of an overseer role and Laura kept a candlelit vigil, her hopes and prayers with the fire to keep it burning. Seth threw on twigs and Anne passed on advice given by her dad and Anne, Laura and I ran outside to see if we could see any smoke coming out of the chimney.

It was a good day with lots of wine and laughter, reminiscing and mocking old school acquaintances behind their backs. Laura couldn't seem to relax and was determined to be useful either by making a salad or by hanging curtains. She constantly asked to unpack things or would spot a job to be done "a cd rack! do you have cds? I could put them out!"..."this picture would look great on this wall, I could put it up for you!" Laura and I had very different expectations of the weekend - she thought she had been invited down to help unpack and arrange furniture, I thought I had been invited for a piss up. Thankfully I was right. Laura got her way with hanging curtains but it turned around a bit her on the ass. It turned out that a cat had slept on the curtains and Laura is allergic to...cats. By the time she left West Dean her nose and eyes were swollen and streaming and she was speaking like she had cotton wool stuffed up her nostrils. When she got home her husband must have wondered what we had been doing to her.

As Laura was not staying that night, we saw her down the hill to that sleepy village (with not a street light to be seen) and took her to the railway station (which being in the country was not much more than a shed with a platform). When we got there we discovered there were no lights on the platform. We tripped our way up and upon me exclaiming at the lack of lighting on that 'deserted' platform, a voice came out of the darkness announcing "lights bin owt a week" I then jumped round to face the shadows under the platform awning and shrieked "O my God there's someone there!" Calm and level headed at all times. Eventually the train creeped slowly (really really slowly) up to the platform and we saw Laura on to the train (following a 5 minute wait in which I had told the horror story of the girl who gets off on a darkened platform and the next day when her family try to find the girl, whose name is Laura, they don't think to look at the old abandoned train station where NO trains stop anymore and if they did all they would find, if they were looking closely enough, is a peeling poster advertising train trips to Brighton showing a picture of a blond haired girl standing on a train platform...). "bye, bye Laura, have a safe trip home."

At this point I was not ready to turn in so I suggested we find a local hostelry. Anne and Seth knew of one within walking distance, which they had never been to before (o why o why did we choose to go to that one). So armed with a torch, an anorak (rock and roll) and thoughts of the beverages ahead of us we traipsed down the dark country lane towards the pub. At this point I am starting to feel like I'm in a famous five story...The Famous Five (Brianne, Anne, Seth, Laura and Gerbil) and the Mystery of the Ghostly Railway Station. As we walked through the dark I saw one baleful red eye looking down on us from a tower off to the right (so maybe we are in Lord of the Rings now). I assume it was some sort of telecommuncations mast or some such thing.

We arrived at the pub and little did we know what we were stepping into (the mines of moria?). The walls were painted a dark red with dark red furnishings everywhere and a fire roared over to one side. This all gave a hellish cast to the evening as we sat fanning our glowing sweat drenched faces and drinking vinegary wine. Then we went to the toilets....well, what can I say to express my disbelief....In the ladies the walls were covered in a mixture of 1950's memorabilia and pictures of semi naked men and down near the sink was a golden statue of a man with a large penis. Apparently the gents had a similar decor with naked ladies and Marilyn Monroe. Soon afterwards we left the pub, which looked so cute and country on the outside but secretly harboured a group of satan-worshipping porno addicts (who also collect 1950's memorabilia).

So ended day 1. What could day 2 possibly bring...Tune in next time when the Famous Five become embroiled in the conspiracy of...The Devil's Piss Jam.

NB. 'Gerbil' (for those who didn't work it out) is Anne's pet gerbil who has a little problem with pus filled ears and inclinations for jumping from high places.