Sunny Saturday Tooleytale
Since it was such a lovely hot June summers day Graham, his fiancee Jo and I decided to
go down to Port Solent and waste away a few hours.
Did I say a few hours? We got there about 2.30 pm, consumed exactly 8
pints each (including Jo!!!) and had a slap up nosh in the middle of it at
Lloyds Bar.

At this point it becomes a:-
Ferryboat Tooleytale
Whilst walking to Port Solent from my Portchester hovel on Saturday
afternoon we worked up quite a sweat in the blazing afternoon sunshine.
Seeing the tide was in, we knew that trying to take the shortcut across
the lock gate was a bit risky since it is often open for free flow +/- 2
hours from high tide. Once you've commited yourself to walking down
there, you just accept you may have to walk all the way back again before
traipsing around the long and windy perimeter road.
Accepting the risk, we reached the lock gates only to see (to our
annoyance) that sure enough they were open for free flow. Damn it!!!
Just as we were turning around to walk back a guy calls out to us from the
lock control office. He said if we walked to the end and through the
large black gate we could catch the ferry they had laid on for tourists.
Brilliant!
So we toodled through the gate, and sure enough, there was a little ferry
boat awaiting there with half a dozen people on it. We just got to it as
he was undoing the rope to set off. Brill...made it. Thinking we were
going to arrive in style outside the Mermaid Pub, we made ourselves
comfortable, and promised the skipper of this little ferryboat a pint for
saving us a long sweaty walk. He looked at us a bit strange, and said
"Right, everyone off, we're here!"
We'd sailed exactly 7 metres. i.e. The width of the lock.
Graham was laughing his socks off cos he'd realised from the beginning
what was happening, but Jo and I had settled down for a nice cruise of the
marina. We very soon withdrew our pint offer, although it still saved us
a fair old walk around the outskirts of the marina.
Must be a world record...the shortest ferry ride on the planet

Back to the plot...
Around 9.45 (hic) I was convinced I'd drunk myself sober (hic...hic) and
decided that a nice Kebab would settle me down nicely for the night.
After shovelling what was left of Jo into the taxi, we left Port Solent
just after 10pm and I jumped out at Portchester. There is a new Kebab van
that has started up operations near Quick-Fit, and he does a mean chilli
sauce. Wobbling home cuddling my kebab (with 2 large spoonfuls of the aforesaid nitro-glycerine) I was
still convinced I was sober (hic,hic,hic) and as soon as I got in poured
myself a HUGE glass of red wine to swill down with my fiery supper. Only
a third into my kebab, sleep overtook me.
I woke up with a start feeling very tacky. Noticing most of my kebab
still on my plate I wrapped it up (anti Sammy-Cat precautions) and dragged
myself upstairs intending to crawl into bed. As I started to undress I
had one hell of a shock. I glanced down and thought I'd exploded...the
whole of my body was blood red from top to toe.
You've guessed it. A half pint of best burgundy had cascaded all over me
as I fell into my beer-induced coma, worse, I hadn't noticed!
I must have been lying there on the settee marinating in a red wine sauce
for over 2 hours. God knows what Andrea (my lodger) would have thought if she'd come
in and saw me like that. I blame the Kebab! Just a couple of bites and I
was gone to never never land.
What can I say?
Must have been something I ate...