East Kilbride late one night . light rain
A few roundabouts off the ring road we find our way to a street of post war housing, Not built with the expectation of car ownership proving as popular as it’s become , I know this as a certain fact, as I've inched a panel van down it. Despite WCC’s characterisation of the area lots of tradesmen seem to live there. Their bastard vans are double parked the length of the street.
We finally find somewhere to park and start ferrying the shooters to the flat.
TheViking rented the flat sight unseen over the internet, its ex public housing, somehow it never occurred to him to ask which floor it was on. Third floor. No lift.
I didn’t mention this before but its worth mentioning now. There was a club in central london, where one night a very famous ballet dancer, so famous that shes the only ballet dancer I could name, sat on his lap and played with his beard. He is both proud and nostalgic of this high water mark in the history of his adorableness, as he should be, shes as fit as a butcher’s dog The covid pandemic has done for the club, and they auctioned off loads of furniture Hes bought a bed, its massive. Possibly too massive to make it up the stairwell. There is another problem
Somehow when I’d left him and his pal packing the panel van it never occurred to me to enquire as to the order of disembarkation. Its certainly not a conversation they had in my absence. Theres now the content of a blacksmiths forge, a significant collection of swords, pikes, and a restorers library, between his bed, his household chattels, and the vans only door.
We let ourselves into the flat, its newly done up. By chumps. We put our rifles and the great menagerie of shotguns into the cupboards and head back to the van for our travel kit and sleeping bags.
On our return to the flat, what’d ya know the front door handle is so cheap that it gives up the ghost on second use. We’re locked out. It goes without saying that the letting agents have cashed the deposit are now out on the town spending it buying gin and tonics for inappropriate milfs. straight to voicemail
Back at the pannel van I’m pissing myself laughing as the poor Viking blunders about by the light of his phone looking for a tool chests he last saw 400 miles ago before the seismic collapse that’s taken place during our last near miss with a Karen in an Audi. Howls of rage and invocations of dark dark ancient gods punctuate the wait The rain has slowed to a drizzle
Suddenly he reappears, jaunty and seemingly unconcerned “lets get the door fixed shall we?”
Time an motion being what they are I’ve inflated my Thermorest while he was fighting the door, so once back inside its a very short trip to collapse . Its been a long day
The dawn comes, bringing with it a charming light drizzle which lends an air of bleak northern shite hole to the area you can see roundabouts from the window lots of them
A quick tour of the property reveals some spectacularly substandard renovations, piss-poor water pressure, inarticulate setting out of the tiling and its never occurred to the renovator that securing the floor boards usually takes place before carpeting the hall. Its warm, dry, and by london standards, massive
We find the van, despite what people say about East Kilbride, exactly where we left it. With all its wheels
After another breakfast of indigestible shite, under the Golden Arches, we’re off to meet The MAA.
Enter the dragon.
Every saga needs a dragon, sitting on his horde, in an impregnable fortress. the Master At Arms, the Viking’s friend and boss. A sniper rifle aficionado, and field artillery enthusiast
MAA has an industrial unit where he runs several businesses and fights against a tide of collections. he has the kind of floor space Londoners can only dream of.
We stand in the rain drink espresso while the Viking tries to re organise the van’s contence onto pallets to be forklifted to the far reaches of the warehouse . Part of deal seems to be ‘You store, I torment’
Having made my contribution, i stood in the drizzle drinking espresso, missing cigarettes and taking notes
MAA:
Did it not cross your mind that this wasn’t the ideal opportunity to get rid of loads of this shite?
Do you imagine you’ll ever read those books again?
I’m getting the district impression that there may have been some consideration given to the london end of the trip but feck all for what might happen at this end
Hold on, I recognise those [cast iron plates weighing about 40lbs a piece. Twelve of] they're yer girlfriends, did she not want them at her own hoose?
Once the goods, books, swords, a stuffed boar’s head and assorted chattels are off loaded we head out to a clay ground
Its a pleasant drive through the rolling hills where wind farms line every ridge sadly there were no picturesque highland cattle.
The clay ground is an everyman sort of affair, no walks through forrest glades but plenty of launchers so each stand has several lines of flight from doddle to fiendish the last stand is fantastic, two of you stand in the bay and the other has eight buttons to hammer at launching flurry after flurry
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