Right, here are roughly half of our pictures from the April 2000 Whitby.

I say half because the other half, ie the half that Tracey took, are on Tracey's page.

(like all the pictures of the bands, because I never take photos of bands)

I've used some of her pictures here, because hers are better than mine- she's got a much better camera and actually knows what to do with it, unlike me...

I actually managed to stay sober all Whitby, one of the reasons being that I'd actually be able to remember things, but it doesn't seem to have made much difference, it's all as hazy as if I'd been wandering around like a zombie without sleep. Odd, that.

Despite which, I think this was probably my best Whitby ever.

Lots of fun and no bad bits.

Anyway, you'll probably need something to read whilst all those thumbnails are loading- yes, there's hordes of them, sorry.

So here's my Whitby review:

Pikachu's Second Vacation: or Pete, Tracey and Pikachu At Whitby

Tuesday night, as a Whitby Warmup, we went to the Dungeon and watched Marc's Incredible Flopping Quiffstyle.

Then Wednesday we packed unfeasibly huge amounts of stuff into the Scathemobile and zipped off to Leicester, where we stayed over with Stella (thanks!) and consumed much Tapas.

That night the people downstairs decided to throw a party which involved putting the Stereophonics album on repeat, so I didn't get much sleep, a pattern which was to be repeated throughout the week...

Then off to York, a truly wonderful town.

I'd never been there before, and I was really taken with it- not only has it got loads of groovy Medieval remains, it's got a shop which sells Irish Cream flavoured coffee beans[1].

What more could you ask for?

After wandering round the town and castle for a couple of hours in total Tourist Mode, we zipped off to Whitby, where we were staying with Alexa and Grim.

Then off to the Buck Inn, where we met up with TPO, Justin from Passion Play and assorted other Unfeasibly Tall People.

After a while we wandered off to the Elsinore (it seemed that a lot of people were spending their time wandering between the two). Despite the huge crowd outside, it wasn't too bad inside, and lots of people got to play with the Pikachu.

Then back to the flat for an early night- though at 1am, just as we were thinking of turning out the lights, Alexa arrived from Edinburgh, having spent god knows how long without sleep sorting out various bits for Decrepit magazine.

Friday we were up insanely early for the Bizarre Bazaar.

As usual, I went in with the idea of spending loads on clothes and none on CDs and somehow it turned out the other way... though I did buy a new shirt and had one of those Whitby Moments when I went to try it on in the loos and was confronted with Asher trying on a pink PVC dress...

Friday night was the Spa, where some bands played. Apparently. The only one I can remember was Mesh, who were Jolly Good.

Coming back from the Spa, we were surprised to find Grim curled up outside the door to the flat- it turns out he'd been thrown out for being too drunk, which at Whitby is something of an achievement.

Friday night I actually managed to get some sleep, so I wasn't too bad for Saturday.

Saturday morning Tracey set off for the Bizarre Bazaar and was most distressed to find they didn't have any more boots.

Then we went up to the Abbey and took photos of us, the Pikachus and Jamie. And Dan.

On the way back, the Whitby sweet shops proved too much to resist and we just had to get some chocolate coconut ice, marzipan and ice cream...

Fortified with sweets and pizza, it was time to hit the Spa again, and this time I even managed to see some of the bands.

Putra-Chic were Generic Goth Electro and none too interesting, Sputnik were just as dull as they'd been at Electrofest and I didn't get to see much of VNV Nation owing to a huge mass of people bopping away to them.

They did at least shorten the bar and toilet queues, though.

Arriving back at the flat, we left the door unlocked in case Grim needed to get back in and didn't have a key.

Then, in an awesome display of being Completely Out Of It, Grim arrived back with a key, tried to unlock the unlocked door, locked it and then spent a good 12 minutes trying to unlock it again whilst falling over.

I suppose we should really have helped him, but we were too busy timing him to see how long he'd take to get it open on his own.

Sorry, Grim :)

We then grabbed a barrel of cookies and went up to the Abbey to feed the goths, eventually getting back about 5am.

Sunday we intended to get up at 12 to catch the Crazy Goff Golf at 1, the Cov Goth Meal at 2.30 and the Net goth meal at 4.

We woke up at 12, but owing to excessive canoodling didn't actually make it out of bed till 3, thus missing the Cov Goth meal and the Crazy Goff Golf. (waking up early and then completely failing to get out of bed was something of a pattern throughout the weekend...)

The Net Goth meal was fun, but owing to the unexpected influx of goths the meals took ages to arrive, and by the time they'd arrived and been consumed it was time to wait in the queue for Laughtons.

Which opened early (much to the surprise of the DJs), which meant we weren't queuing for long.

I thought the music at Laughtons this time was much better than last April- a well as the expected 80s cheese, a fair bit of 80s alternative stuff was played, at least enough to stop me moaning about the goth wars again.

I even danced to a few things!

And then to bed, as we had to be out the flat by 10am.

We'd set the alarm for 7.30 (knowing how bad we were at getting out of bed) and were thus awake at 7.45am when Grim banged on our door and started yelling that it was quarter to 8.

We didn't think much of this until we got up a bit later to find Grim going out the door in a frantic rush... only to return half an hour later saying that he was so out of it he'd thought it was 7.45 in the evening!

Anyway, we managed to leave in good time and stopped again at York on the way back, where we bumped into Scary Lady Sarah and friends and did the tourist thing again.

We're definitely going to have to take a holiday in York some time, it's lovely...

Anyway, thanks loads to Alexa for sorting out the flat and to Stella and Hatty for putting us up on the way there and back....

[1] Henceforth known as "Lager Beans" owing to the alleged aftertaste.