Miranda coped
fine with the plane ride back from South Africa, we were utterly
exhausted, Auntie Jo had looked after the house and it's furry
inhabitants with no problems, and we finally put Miri to sleep in her
own cot again, had a sauna and managed to get some sleep. The problem
was then, how on earth do we top these last two weeks? I am worried
that she will no longer be content with my normal routine as it pales
in comparison with globe trotting, and she'll get bored. I suffer the
same - every time I go away, it is harder and harder to come back. I
worry we have inadvertantly passed on itchy feet syndrome to our baby
daughter...
 |
| Jopo and Grarr |
This weekend
was not exactly "normal" however, as it was Whitby Goth
Weekend. We had our one night at home, and then drove straight to a
self-catering cottage my Mum had hired for the weekend at Runswick
Bay just outside Whitby. Booking anything actually inside Whitby is
impossible since everything has been booked up for months, but this
place slept my parents, us with Miri in a cot in our room, and Jo and
Graeme who came along too, following us on the bus. We got lost but
not majorly lost, but it turns out there is absolutely no phone
signal there, so when Jo and Graeme missed their connecting bus and
turned up an hour and a half after they said they would, they
couldn't phone us, and we had to scour the tiny village trying to
find a public payphone! Help! Wilderness!
I
love Whitby Goth Weekend. It is daft really, because we don't really
do much when we are there. There are bands on, a club night and
occassionally other evening events, but I have only ever bought
tickets for the evening events once and then decided it wasn't worth
it. During the day we dress up and pose and be silly, then go round
the stalls at the Bizarre Bazaar shopping for outfits for the next
Goth Weekend. Then we eat fish and chips and get nicely tipsy (or
worse) in our big gang of friends, which gets bigger every year. Carl
never used to dress
up at all, prefering to "be an individual" and look normal
amongst the sea of freaks. He is slowly getting to it though,
particularly steampunk styles!
Of course we
dressed Miranda up too. On the Friday she was our Devil Child with
red lined cape and a horned red hat. The next day she was all in
black and purple; her Granny has supassed herself knitting a little
Victorian dress, bloomers, cloak and lacey bonnet. She looked
amazingly cute and we got paparrazzi'd all day! There are always
hundreds of goth-spotting photographers there but despite our best
efforts with my indecently short dress, the multitude of corsets and
chris's spikey goggles, Miranda got more attention than the rest of
us combined.
Herein lies
the rub: should I really be inflicting my own dress sense on Miranda?
I am fairly certain she will be extremely embarrassed about these
pictures, and pretty much everything about her Sad Old Goth parents
when she's older. But really, what is the alternative? She may just
as easily grow up to hate pink or pastel colours and will still be
embarrassed by us even if we both dressed ourselves and her
"normally". I've already written about inflicting
femininity on her and I don't really see it as any different. When
she is older, she can choose for herself whether she wants to come to
Goth Weekend with us, but until then she can be Mummy's Little
Vampire, and be admired all over Whitby!
