Paul and I had arrived in the middle of the gathering. We stood out in OUR 21st century casual, contrasting with their alternative dimensional style. Airship crew in frock coats and goggles, British army red coats with steam powered guns. New Victorian adventurers inspired by Jules Verne and H G Wells. Welcome to Steam Punk on a hot September afternoon in historic Lincoln. The women particularly were stunning in their costumes. I didn't stop smiling until the hangover the next day!
Airship exploration of North America?
Queen of the gathering: Absolutely stunning and quite surreal.
Lincoln before the invasion
There are steam punks across the world and I only found out about them by bumping into hundreds of them today. Across North America their style is 19th century wild west meets Jules Verne. Europe has its societies and gatherings, as do the Antipodes.
Late afternoon saw Paul and I heading up town for a second time. Both over weight we were agreed on doing the cafe culture rather than the traditional pubs. A crisp, cold white wine sitting on a hotel lawn, watching the steam punks promenading through medieval Lincoln. Smiles and chuckles of delight. By the end of the bottle both of us very much wanted to join their ranks, observing that steam punks came in all ages and sizes. Still, it was time to move on. Paul had spied out a tapas bar that did a virtual bottle of wine. Choose any six glasses to go with your small plates of Spanish snacks, and pay for a bottle. It was positively cave like and empty. We walked in and walked out. Off we went looking for that perfect venue for what we were about. We thought we were about convivial company, two friends catching up, celebrating pastures new, wining and dining in a civilised manor, rather than two sometimes mature guys out on a summer binge.
The cloud bar was that stunning venue, perched on the roof tops with the ancient cathedral as it's back drop. As the sun went down keeping pace with our second crisp, cold, sophisticated bottle of white, it turned the cathedral towers salmon pink. At this point if I was writing a story I'd substitute my mate Paul for a gorgeous leggy young woman. Hang on, yep, she was there as well, just not with me.
They forgot our salad. With virtually nothing left in our wine bottle we enquired what happened to our dinner. They hustled and rapidly produced two exquisite salami and palma ham salads to sit along our ice bucket with the empty wine bottle upended in it, dead as a door nail. There was an inevitability about the third bottle of wine if we are honest, and once we acquiesced and it had arrived, we remembered the tapas that we didn't have. They did tapas so we started again with calamari (squid rings in batter). YUM! Finally we were done. A little tipsy but hey, balmy summer evening, steam punks, talk of houses in Sweden, and importantly we had stuck to our diets and not drank beer. Job done. Except...........
........"isn't that the pub where we finished on Irish coffees on our winter night out months ago?"
"OH YEH!That was neat."
"Wanna do it again?"
"Why not". Two Irish coffees on order and we were peckish no surprise.
"Do you suppose potato crisps go with Irish coffee?
"Dunno, less find out". It took two Irish coffees and two boxes of crisps to work out they didn't go, and actually we had been very naughty and should definitely go home NOW.
Sitting in the warm night air on the balcony of Paul's 21st century pad on its clifftop looking out over the city's night scape below. WOW. We were now talking complete bollocks as we sipped apricot liquor he had found at the back of a cupboard. Rather nice. A lot nicer than the sherry that followed. WTF!!! At some point I climbed into the futon next to the dogs bowls containing water in one and very dry biscuits in the other. So dry that after eating them my tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth.
We ate our bacon baguettes in silence at around 11 in the morning which was surprising considering our delicate conditions. Actually the bacon tasted very good indeed. It revived us somewhat, but not enough to move us from the couches and the television. Very naughty indeed, and worrying. What had we been up to? Any clues laying around? I think we got away with it. Nope. The teenagers saw it all and considered dads night out on the tiles with his insane, ageing biker buddy an absolute hoot.
Before I left we made a pact never to do that again. Next time, no apricot liquor!
