I usually like to take my time in the morning to get ready for the day, but it seems to be more so now than ever. This week I got up every day about 3 hours before I had to be anywhere-- not to run, or do any other sort of productive morning activity, but just to poke about, munch slowly on some breakfast, drink some tea, read my book. If I can mess with my hair a little bit, try on a couple different outfits, and check my e-mail before I go out, I'm pretty relaxed the rest of the day.
Yesterday I woke up at the dark hour of 6AM. My first thought was I don't have a Victorian coat, and my second thought was Oh, but I'd rather be a sheep today. Let me backtrack...
While walking home from university on Friday, I stopped by a hospice shop on Queens Road to see if they had any materials for a Halloween (or as they write it here, Hallowe'en) costume. I figured, since I didn't have time to make a wand and buy a whole school-girl outfit like Jana did to be a Harry Potter character, I'd either go as Carmen Sandiego or a Victorian lady, depending on the hat I could find. Jana has this awesome red trenchcoat that could go either way, and I had the rest of the materials, myself. I ended up finding this great old-fashioned hat with a big purple bow and a fishnet veil that draped over my face nicely, so I ended up going Victorian lady.
On the way home from my purchase, I ran into Annie, one of the officers of the Hiking Club.
"Hi Reshanne," she said to me, "Dressing up tomorrow for the hike?"
Here I produced the purple hat for her to see. "I'm going as a Victorian lady," said I.
"Great, so I'm not going to be the only one in fancy dress," she replied (Hallowe'en costumes are all called fancy dress, by the way, not just Victorian lady costumes). "I'm going as Poison Ivy," she added.
"Poison Ivy!"
"Yeah," she said, "I have some ivy in my garden, so that's half the costume right there."
We parted ways, and I was considerably more excited to see how this would turn out, and amused at the prospect of a group of us hikers all dressed ridiculously and tromping through the rolling hills of the English countryside.
Unfortunately, Jana could not deliver her coat to me that night, so I quickly accounted for the pieces of my wardrobe that could form some kind of plan B as far as costumes go. Well, I had Jana's obnoxious, fleecy white hoodie... a pair of equally obnoxious, fleecy white slippers... and the idea struck. I would go as the infinitely more practical sheep for the next day's hike. What was I thinking, even considering going in a dress, when I could go in a very warm getup and still look crazy?
The next morning, (here we are again at 6AM) I pieced together my costume-- two pairs of black leggings (to battle the elements, if any should come to fight), a black turtleneck t-shirt, Jana's hoodie, my fuzzy socks, and a pair of bargain hiking shoes (10 pounds!). I gathered my equipment in a backpack (a fleece thermal, a waterproof jacket, a packed lunch and some money for the post-hike pub) and ate a carb-loaded breakfast (not in preparation for the hike, but because I'm addicted to carbs). I made a quick run to the co-op to see if they had any animal costumes-- I considered making myself a Wolf in Sheep's Clothing if I could find a tail or a rubber snout or something, but all they had were witch hats and fangs. I hastily added a pink bow around my neck (made from a clean shoelace) and went to the university to meet up with the others.
I was the first person there, aside from a girl I hadn't seen on the last hike. Her name is Rudo and she's from Zimbabwe, in the same way I'm from Seattle-- as in, she's lived in England for the last six years, but she considers Zimbabwe to be her home. She told me all about country life on a farm in Africa-- how it is warm every day, how her family grew all their own crops and raised their own chickens for fresh eggs and meat. She said Zimbabwe is a peaceful country that used to be troubled by economic and agricultural imbalance (one year, people would have money but no luck with crops, and the next they'd have crops but suddenly the dollar-- they use US currency-- would go down and they'd have no money), but recently it has steadied out. She told me her dad stayed behind in Zimbabwe to tend to the farm while she, her mother, and her sister moved to England. She wants to go back some day, but right now she is focused on getting her undergraduate degree so she can go on to medical school and become a traveling doctor-- to achieve the double-bonus of helping humanity and seeing the world. This girl is so cool!
The rest of the hikers had rambled in by this time: there was a familiar crowd, which included the Chinese students, the quiet guy who is into Firefly, the girl from Brunei (I think I called her 'the girl from the tropics who has monkeys living in her backyard', last time), and the club officers. Annie's Poison Ivy outfit was great-- she wore a bright red wig and was draped in real ivy. Someone dressed up in a cloak (which ended up tracking loads of mud on our journey, but looked like something straight out of Lord of the Ring when the wind caused it to billow out behind him atop a grassy hill), and someone else painted themselves with army camouflage. Oh yeah, and Clint Eastwood was there. He quoted some lines from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly and twirled his plastic guns occassionally.
The hike was amazing. The scenery was breathtaking. We tromped for 8 miles in just the way I'd hoped we would; up and down craggy hills and dangerous rocky paths, over brooks, through marshes-- we followed a footpath for a while before veering off into the expansive wilderness, feeling like real outdoorsmen (at least I did). We got to the point where the spongey hills with their long grasses encased us on all sides, completely cut off from civilization. This, my friends, is Axe Edge-- from the highest point in the area, you can look out over small towns and sweet, jagged hills, that looks something like this (not my picture). Note the sweet jagged hill in the background.
About halfway through, I had to pee, and there wasn't a toilet for another 5 miles, so I asked the group to turn their backs while I bounded down a hill and out of sight to do my business. It was amazing, as I squatted there with my brother sheep, and I thanked god I brought a papertowel with me. Racing back up, I shouted something like, "God that was liberating," while someone else shouted back, "Did you wash your hands?"
The rest of the hike was so zen and wonderful, with the wind whipping over the grassland, chatting casually with my fellow free spirits. The pub was also very nice, and I had a pint of chips, which was a beer mug full of crisp, hot potato wedges mmm mm. Then we all shared some Hallowe'en cupcakes, scrumptiously baked by Annie, and we made it home by 8PM.
The only thing not-so-great about the experience was the transportation, considerably worse on the trip back. On the way there, I rode in the minibus, which was fine until we all steamed up the windows, which were sealed shut, and the air became stale and putrid for the last half hour (it took about an hour and a half to get there). I was feeling slightly nauseous in the back of the bus as we weaved over hills and bounced over bridges in that closed space, and I figured I would just ride with one of the volunteer drivers on the way home. Um-- big mistake.
The volunteer driver I found myself with was one Assan from London-- not a very pleasant person in the first place, and if I had to guess I'd say his accent was as close to ghetto as you can get in this country (I couldn't really understand him). He drove about 90MPH most of the time, but got up to 130MPH-- yes, you read correctly-- not 130 kilometers, but miles per hour. I didn't get the feeling I was going to die that day, but I did my fair share of bullying and shouting and threatening to try to make the kid slow down. (I found out later that he's a freshman, which explains his complete idiocy and delusions that he is safe to drive at that speed because he "has never been in a car accident". Considering you can't get your license here until you're 18, I guessed he had been driving for little over a year, anyway, and to put it lightly, I felt he was a complete waste of a brain, if he even had one. When Assan stopped to get gas, Amish, who accompanied me on this wild ride, apologized profusely and vowed never to let this maniac drive for a hiking expedition again... which didn't comfort me much until we were back at the university and safely out of the steel trap.
Okay, but aside from that, I had an amazing time.
Stay tuned for part two of my Saturday: the Hallowe'en Party.
Ta!
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