With Eli and I
Withnail and I and a trip to the countryside go together like young farmers and UKIP membership. Classic quotes from the film start to echo around my mind as soon as London passes into the rear view mirror and a ‘randy bull’ appears on the horizon. The first one to pass my lips is, ‘I’m making time’ as I gun the Punto up the motorway whilst Eli tells me to slow down.
The next compulsory quotes generally go in this order, ‘we’ve come on holiday by mistake’ when you arrive after dark in the piss-pouring-rain, followed by ‘I’m sitting down to enjoy my holiday’ as you do just that on a hard-backed chair in the kitchen with a glass of wine in your hand, knackered by what should have been a two and a half hour run from London but that’s not including roadworks and getting lost - because they haven’t replaced the road signs in Norfolk since they were removed to fox the Germans in WWII in case of invasion. Come on people, you’ve had 60 years to replace a few road signs!
It wasn’t long before the next quote sprang to mind. On our first Friday in South Norfolk we cycled to Reedham and hopped on the river ferry. (We’ve all read in the papers how a trip on the London Underground is the most expensive journey, per pound, per mile in the UK, I think I’ve found a more expensive one. As you can see from the pictures, 20 yards is £1 a person…)
Reedham itself is a nice enough spot, a couple of decent pubs on the river, but I’m always suspicious of anywhere with only one road in and one road out, not counting the ferry because it’s not, strictly speaking, a road. My suspicions were quickly realised as I cycled up a hill, overtaking a parked van, when all of a sudden I had a car right up my arse beeping. My London programming kicked in and I shot the car the blind-reverse-middle-finger which was greeted with shouting and abuse from the ‘girls’ in the car. It wasn’t long before we caught up with them since they’d parked up and the conversation went like this:
Me: What’s your problem?
Vicky Pollard: You’re meant to get out the road when a car’s comin!
Me: It’s a public highway.
VP: You were right in the middle of the road.
Me: I was overtaking a parked van.
VP: Yeah, but, what if I’d been speeding? I’d uv run you over… [She really said this.]
Me: What?
Eli: Don’t be so ridiculous
VP: If I’d been speeding I’d have run right into you.
Eli: You’re being ridiculous.
VP: I might catch you up and run you off the road.
Me: Oh go and shag your brother.
At which point I cycled off realising that you can’t reason with a cabbage whilst Eli told her to stop being ridiculous a few more times.
The Withnail quote that came out as we cycled off was ‘Not the attitude I’d come to expect from the H.E. Bates novel I read.’
She didn’t come after us, she didn’t run us off the road, although she no doubt hopped into the sack with at least one close relative that evening.
And finally, here's one you don't get to use very often - "A coward you are Withnail, an expert on bulls you are not." Just substitute 'bulls' for 'spiders' and 'Withnail' for 'Baylis'. Seriously though, would you tackle a beast like that armed only with a glass and a bit of cardboard. I think she was lucky not to lose an arm.
