Wetting the Baby’s Head – Part 1 – The woman who wee-ed and the toilet monster.

I’m tired.. I should go to bed, but I feel compelled to write about the night I had yesterday, it was the day I’d been waiting for for MONTHS – ‘Wetting the Baby’s Head’

Loz and James left first thing Saturday morning leaving me at a slightly loose end for several hours. I don’t often get much time on my own with only me to look after, so it’s quite a strange feeling. After getting fed, showered and dressed I went round and tidied up the house, and then settled down to several hours of xBox. Lunchtime soon arrived and I quickly nipped to Dads to drop his Fathers Day cards off.

My new ‘Out Out’ Shirts

Not long after I met Abul at Chelmsford Train Station, I knew John wouldn’t be too far behind him on the trains so we slinked off to Baroosh for a cheeky pint and a catch up. As expected John arrived and we met him at the Train Station, he’d purchased some ‘Spanish Lager’ from M+S and a little Hip Flask sized bottle of Whiskey from M+S. Nice! We got home and cracked open the generic ‘Spanish Lager’ and all seemed pleasantly surprised it was actually nice, and not like the ‘French Beer’ piss that you get from Tesco. Before we knew it we needed to be leaving into town, so I donned my new ‘Going-Out-Out’ shirts and we set off into the blustery evening.

The walk into town went quite quickly, with the conversation ranging from drug dealers in East London to the incorrect spelling of ‘Grammer School’ on the electricity sub-station next to the ‘Grammar School’. Before we knew it we were in town and with Danny in ‘The Ivory Peg’, introductions were made, pints procured and we sat down ready to start the shenanigans. As expected the tone of the conversation dropped through the floor almost immediately, setting  the precedent for the evening. Even with very little beer consumed there were lots of hearty laughs and some quality banter, tonight was going to be good!

This is a Mexican Burger

We all seemed to be getting hungry so we scanned through the Food Menu – it’s as I remembered Wetherspoons, lots of choice and cheap as chips. I opted for the ‘Mexican Burger’ a steal for £6.95 including another pint of Carlsberg. The food arrived very quickly and I couldn’t believe the size of my portion, Abul’s burger was almost the size of him and he immediately declared he’d never eat it all (He did!).

The food seemed to slip down nicely and everyone agreed it was pretty good considering the price. Not long after Chris and Colin arrived and joined the celebrations. It was nice to have one of the original ‘Head Wetters’ on board (Uncle Paul was sadly missed!). Not long after they’d sat down, our attention was drawn to a very strange lady at the table infront.

She was probably around 60, and had a ‘mad cat lady’ look to her, she seemed to be organising the table. She straightened the menus, and then pulled out each chair (there were six of them) and proceeded to blow on them. We tried to carry on the banter but my attention was with this rather strange lady and her odd routine. She then moved to the table behind us and did the same thing, eventually though she sat down. Colin was looking fairly uncomfortable and Chris was pulling a very pained expression, they were mouthing something to each other, I had no idea what it was. Then it hit me.

Dear lord, did it hit me..

There was a horrendous stench of piss in the air, really pungent and intense, it was akin to the smell of a hamsters cage left unclean for weeks. My wretch mechanism kicked in, I’ve not smelt anything quite like that before, just typing about it makes me feel sick. It was vile. I’m not sure if she’d just sat there and pissed herself or had been doing it repeatedly all day, she’d certainly not had an ‘Oops’ moment I think she’d had several hundred ‘Oh fuck!’ moments.

We really couldn’t sit there any more – there was nothing else for it, we all picked up our pints and shuffled to the bar. It was nice to be near the door blowing fresh air in, my nostrils were now at peace. There did seem to be a ‘perimeter’ around the lady now, no one else was sitting nearby. We finished our pints and wandered off to destination no. 2. The Hot House.

The Hot House is a great little bar in the old Police Cells, it’s quirky and fun, it’s got a nice little atmosphere and hasn’t really changed at all since I’ve been going there. It was very quiet in there, perhaps 5 other customers and us, we all bundled into one of the back rooms to grab a table. I had a pint of Fruli , the strawberry beer, it is fucking lush although I could never drink too many now. The first and last time I did that I awoke at 5am creating red vomit that smelt nice, although it also came gushing out of my nose with some violence. Never again!

The drinks were slipping down nicely but I wasn’t happy.. despite the bar being dead the volume of the music seemed to be creeping up and up. It was starting to irk me, I wanted to talk to my mates but it was just too loud. Yes, I’m aware I’m sounding old! I did debate disconnecting the speaker, but instead I rounded up the troops and we headed off to ‘Judge Tindals Tavern’. I’d not been there for over 12 years, from what I remembered it was a fairly quiet ‘old man’ pub.

As we approached Chris asked where we were headed, I told him and he was convinced it was closed and had been gutted on the inside. Danny on the other hand was convinced it was still there and would be open. As we got nearer it did look pretty closed, and closer still, it was definitely shut. Still not quite believing Chris was correct Danny peered in the window, it was indeed gutted. I do hope it re-opens soon, but I’ve a funny feeling it may be gone forever now.

This left us with no place to go.. we wandered down to Ancient Lights. I’d been here once before about 4 years ago, my memory was sketchy but I remembered the toilets were diabolical and the music was awesome 90’s Alternative. When we got in there the place stank of paint and the 90’s Alternative was now 2010’s Dance, there were a few signs up saying they were refurbishing. The bar area was very quiet again, perhaps 7 other punters in there, we ordered our drinks and the chaps decided to go upstairs to find a seat. I really needed the loo so went downstairs to find them.

How not to ‘do’ electrics

I was a depressing scene, the metal urinal was rusty as fuck and the electrics for the hand dryer were TAPED onto the wall with Insulation Tape. I couldn’t believe my eyes at this enormous HSE breach so I had to take a picture. I wandered up to the bar to find the boys still there. The upstairs area was closed for the refurb. John noticed a bit of a commotion outside and down the road..

From what we could see a young girl off her tits (this was just after 9pm) had fallen face first into the ground and two guys were arguing with two bouncers. The bouncer at Ancient Lights spotted it and went over to help his colleagues deal with the trio of drunks. The situation wasn’t really calming down, the girl looked to be okay, moments later a Police car flew to the scene. John said it was an Armed Response Vehicle, then soon after a Dog Unit arrived, and then several ‘Panda Cars’. It must have been a quiet night for Essex Police, even so, the response time was impressive! As quickly as they all arrived they all seemed to go away again, the trio of drunks obviously carted off for a night in the cells!

We didn’t really seem to be ‘feeling’ Ancient Lights, so we drank up and wandered to The Golden Fleece. I always find ‘The Fleece’ a bit of a hit or miss – It’s looking a bit run down and sad, it’s probably suitable to the ‘rocky’ clientèle, but personally it’s less ‘rocky’ more ‘shit-hole’. Funny I should say shit-hole.. As I was getting my first round in a lot of the chaps went to the toilet, they came back in fits of giggles and Chris thrust his phone into my face.

It was a picture of a shit.. it was a shit that could only have been left by Donkey Kong. John had gone into a cubical and witnessed it in front of his eyes and summoned the other chaps in to witness it, and Chris, being Chris had taken photo evidence. John had even tried to flush it away but as he said

“it didn’t budge.. it just flopped a bit”

I’ve never known a shit to stir this much discussion but everyone was laughing and joking. Part of me did want to witness such a thing with my own eyes, but time was marching on and we wanted to be at The Cave before 10pm. We had 5 minutes, our drinks were downed and we wandered down the road to the flashing lights of The Cave..

Part 2 is here