The Week To End All Weeks

Many a time, I have started posts in this blog with, "Well, I don't know where to begin". This is usually in reference to manic weekends, and although the weekend just gone was a part of this eccentric week, the rest of it has been as equally mad. Bizarre. Ridiculous. Kooky...

I did write a blog in the week about what happened at the start, but I deleted it because I got asked a lot of questions. Frankly, I should have seen them coming, but I'll leave that part of the week to the inner most sanctum of my own brain. Some things just don't need to be documented, although I have learnt a lot of lessons from that brief period of time that my emotional head went into overdrive. One thing I will say though, is, despite the craziness of my week at work, my job is low down on the list of my ventures at the moment. My job is a side project of my social life, almost as if its a necessary sacrifice to fund what is turning into one of those summers that will stay long in the memory. This is wrong. It should really be the other way round, but I am certain that is the way I want it to be. You are only young once, and I will not have the opportunity to do this again. Some, maybe most, would call my behaviour at the moment, "Childish". Maybe not childish. More... petulant? I don't know... I can almost tell in the body language of certain people that they do not approve of my ventures to drink the world's supply of Jack Daniels, but at the moment, I could not care less. This is me. This is my life.

In all honesty, a lot of the weirdness of this week belongs with the forbidden story, so it's going to be quite difficult to explain the nuances of my week without delving into that particular pond. Of course, I was out on both Friday and Saturday night, as if it needed saying, but, on Saturday night especially, I was trapped between worlds. We were out for Master Kettle's 22nd birthday, always a really fun occasion, and I had been looking forward to it all week. After getting home from the most outrageous day of cricket I have ever been involved in, (all will be explained), I got to Kettle's and immediately got the JD going. By the time we got into a taxi, I was pleasantly drunk and really enjoying the night. All of my friends were in one place and we were all going to go to town and carry on. I was determined to not be involved in any drama, or make any stories. I have enough of them to write a novel. I was also determined to avoid The Barley Mow, for that very reason. The most dramatic of places at the best of times, The Barley Mow is not the place to go if you want a quiet night. After a few more drinks in Rose and Chameleon however, I must have zoned out for a while, because when I finally realised where I was, I was finding myself being dragged (not literally) through the oak doors of the one place I just didn't want to go. Why couldn't we just ... Not go to a club?

Anyway. I was here, so I might aswell stay, and I presumed that there was only a few of the remaining crowd here with us. They must have gone somewhere else, citing the reason that The Barley Mow really isn't for them.

But 15 minutes later, I walked round the corner on my way to the bar and found the WHOLE of the original group, half of whom were looking extremely nervous, standing in the middle of the dancefloor. It was my "gay world" and my "normal world" colliding. And it got to me. There was potential drama left, right and centre, and I didn't want all my friends seeing me involved in any of it. It was ... nonsense. I'm not ashamed of who I am or where I was, but there are certain friends of mine who say stupid things when they're drunk, and I was a bit scared of what they might do in an environment where I am now considered a "regular". Luckily, I got away with it. I think.

That makes no sense does it... I'm going to give up explaining what that felt like and move backwards and to Saturday afternoon.

Cricket. It's a gentlemen's game, played in usually good manners and high spirits, but on Saturday, our game was a hecatomb of anarchy. We were playing Houghton Chargers, a team who we'd beaten by a solitary wicket a few weeks ago, amid ugly scenes of cheating from them. We were expecting more of the same this time around, except their cheating ended up being low down on the agenda of disappointments when we realised where we were playing. Houghton Regis isn't exactly the nicest of places. In the heartland of Luton, which is practically EDL territory, the whole game was a joke. Kids on bikes and mopeds, cigarettes in hand despite looking no older than 13 rode across the pitch. Prostitutes walking round the boundary edge looking for their latest fare, and fights going on in the park opposite, it was just one of those days where you wanted to go home. They racked up 263 whilst batting, which hardly mattered, because halfway through our innings, the yobs who had threatened to take control throughout the whole afternoon came over. Despite this being the ninth or tenth time that someone (or "something" in some cases ... I don't class some of these parasites as humans), had refused to leave the pitch, one of the Houghton players decided to take law into his own hands and kick one of the aggressive teenagers off their bikes. From then on, the monster was let out of its cage and it was complete carnage. The pitch was ruined, the yobs picked up stumps and bats and threatened to kill anyone wearing white that got in their way and as I moved as quickly as possible back to the changing rooms, I decided very quickly that enough was enough. I love cricket, but its not worth risking being killed by an out of control community to complete a match.

Despite the Houghton captain's reassurances it wouldn't happen again, (of which there was absolutely no way he could guarantee), I told him to get a grip and that we were going home. And I will not be returning to play cricket there ever again.

I honestly don't know what else to write. I began writing this on Sunday evening, after a relatively comfortable win at Kempston Hammers, although there was more drama when one of our players, accidentally throwing hard into the keeper, waywardly missed and hit the batsman square in the jaw. It caused him to lie on the ground motionless for some time before jumping up and threatening to beat him up. It was at this moment where I just wanted the week to end. It's been so up and down that I just crashed out at about midnight on Sunday evening and wished beyond anything that the coming week, (which began today with a thankfully uneventful day at work), was nothing like the one I have just experienced. It wasn't a bad week... Not really... It was just ...

I don't know.