This past weekend was Tim’s stag weekend, (badly) organised by yours truly. I had decided that, as Tim is such a well-cultured bloke, the usual hookers & whisky-fest wouldn’t suit, so planned a weekend of culture, concerts and highbrow musings on the state of the nation.
Tim wanted hookers. C’est la vie!
As a compromise, we merry three trekked out to Dorset on Friday afternoon and, after rearranging our train seating a little, proceeded to talk crap and drink beer for most of the 2-hour journey. Arriving in Wareham, we rested at Monsoon (formerly the Railway Tavern), an Indian restaurant/pub just by the station before taxi-ing to our chosen guesthouse, the fabulously-named Frost-co-dur* in Harman’s Cross.
Next up was the finest train journey ever: a 15 minute journey in the “bar” carriage, with a bar, real tables & chairs and regulars who clearly spent their evening riding the line back and forth. No concessions were made by this line to speed – the train travelled at a pace such that you could stand without fear of spilling your drink. Now that’s what I call culture.
We spent Friday evening in Swanage – a pleasant seaside town – heroically resisting the urge to get completely tanked. We had an early start the following morning…
Next day we were up bright and breezy (well, we were up) at 8am, breakfasted and showered by 10 and ready and waiting at Zorb South by 10.30. More info on the zorbing (as well as pictures & video) to follow, but suffice to say if both cured hangovers and affixed semipermanent grins to our faces.
After lunch in Swanage and journey to Tooting to deposit bags, we spent Saturday evening in London. First stop was the Empire in Leicester Square, for comedy with Big Night Out, which was pretty good. Although, in all honesty, it would have been better if the idiot girl at the front (hello Squeaky from Basingstoke) could’ve kept her mouth shut for more than 5 seconds at a time. Still, a word from the compere (and her dad) seemed to do the trick after the second interval.
Finally (and after brief stops in the Mean Fiddler and another, terrible club which shall remain nameless) we wound up in Metro on Oxford street, for beers, spirits, sweating & dancing to suspicious funk, before taxiing back to Tooting and slumping in piles.
Explaination: Frost-co-dur comes from the previous owners (so we were told) – who were called Frost, and came from county Durham.
Deary me. Nevertheless, it was a fine place to stay, and Flick (our hostess) kindly gave us a lift to the Zorb site on Saturday morning. I can’t find a website for them, but I do have contact details, so mail me if you want them