Wendyhouse June 2008

The phone rings. It’s Mark. I wasn’t expecting to hear from him till next week.

“Hi, Maz, yeah… any chance you want to earn a little cash on Sunday?”

“Uh… what’s the gig?” knowing that if it’s Mark then it must be a gig.

“I’ve got a three-/four-piece jazz band that needs taking from [deepest darkest Yorkshire] to Leeds, then to Chester… oh, shit, but you said you’re going to The Wendyhouse tonight… no, shit, that doesn’t work. Sorry mate…”

“Hang on… what time do things need to kick off?”

“Well, we’d need to leave [somewhere near Scarborough] around 10 in the morning…”

“Ok, Google Maps says I’d need to leave at eight. Five hours’ sleep post-Wendyhouse I’ll be fine… or, how about I book a hotel in Leeds?”

“Uh… let me see whether you can stay at the same hotel as us?”

“Sure… I can leave Leeds and drive up there.”

I have no dry, clean clothes. I’d put the laundry on as soon as I woke up, and I now need *two* changes of clothes. Everything is sopping wet on the drying rack.  I take a mostly-dry t-shirt and pack it.

I leave to the data-centre and do a couple of hours work restructuring Faelix’s AS41495 core network. I’ve hung my mostly-dry t-shirt on the rack where hot air blowing from the servers gradually dries it. I call Mark as I leave Manchester. If I leave The Wendyhouse around half one in the morning, I’ll get to Kirby Moorland around three, and if I call him, he’ll sneak me into the hotel.

I flyer the Wendyhouse like a crazy man, then get down and boogie for the next four hours. I paused five times for drinks and to stand under the air-con. Again there was much checking-out and being-checked-out on the dancefloor, but it’s the Wendyhouse… I’ve got ear-plugs in because it’s so damned loud. Forget conversation. I leave. I drive.

Somewhere along the route is a really, really steep hill. 25% gradient, signposted with “stay in low gear” and the number of HGVs that have blocked the road because they didn’t stay in crawler gear. The fog descends. There are hairpin bends. Fuck, it’s scary.

Arrive in a sleepy town in deepest darkest Yorkshire. Find the hotel (which is a glorified pub). Call Mark. He meets me, we tiptoe into a dark room, he points to a corner, and I go to sleep on the bed there.