For my best friend Abbie's twenty-first birthday, she decided she didn't want a party or a standard night out like I'm doing (we're saving to go to London next summer instead of on my birthday) and said from the start of planning that she wanted to hire out a manor house, or something like that, and have her closest friends go away with her for a weekend since her birthday was a Saturday.
Abbie's boyfriend did a lot of searching, alongside one of his friends, and they found a place that was only an hour away from where we live, so they rang up and got prices, and booked it. It cost us £97 for two nights and honestly, it was worth every single penny.
The place in question was called Shortflatt Tower. It's a thirteenth century tower (or fourteenth, I can't remember which), only 25 minutes away from Newcastle City Centre, and since we live in the city next to Newcastle, we were amazed none of us had heard of this place before. It boasts seven bedrooms, two dining rooms, two living rooms and some of the most amazing bathrooms I've ever been in (I'll stick some pictures in of those later on).
The breakdown of people going was so diverse. There was myself, Abbie, our friend Laura and her boyfriend, then Abbie's boyfriend and his friends, who are all twenty-seven to twenty-eight. We had students, pharmacists, a university lecturer, an eclectic mix to say the least! But we all went with one purpose; to celebrate Abbie's birthday and get very drunk.
Now. This is where I managed to confuse myself. I was driving up this path, and I had two choices. There was a massive house on my right, where I thought I saw one of James' friends going in, and I could go park in front of there. Or I could go and park behind a tree and wait to see if anyone came out that I recognised, as I was terrified I was in the wrong place. After messaging and asking who was there and not getting a reply, I just bit the bullet and drove to the house, where I decided I could wait in the car till someone came out that I recognised. Unfortunately for me, the housekeeper saw me pull up and stood and waited for me to get out the car so she could walk into the house with me. Awkward. The housekeeper was lovely though, she took me in and explained a bit about the house and the rules (no shoes upstairs and don't touch the air horns - for a group of drunken tits, we did very well not to break either of these rules!) When I got in the house she just ushered me up the stairs going "Everyone who's arrived so far is up here), shooing me in the direction of the people I'd never met before.
The people who had arrived (luckily I knew one), were Jamie, Alex, Jonny, Graeme, Jonesy and Ben. I knew Jonny pretty well from nights out with Abbie and James, but I'd never met the others. I felt like such a wally, but the housekeeper stayed with us while we all filled out forms to say who was in what room. I took off after Jonny once I'd signed in my lot (who were still in the traffic!) and made my way down to the car to unpack my boot and unpack my cases into my room. I was in a room just on the first floor, which had a stunning view of the gardens (more about those soon). I'd just like to say, Catherine 1-0 Anxiety, as I was panicking like hell about getting out the car and I just did it and I was fine.
By the time I'd unpacked, it was getting in dark and I went down into the main drawing room (posh) with those who'd arrived to sit by the fire and wait for everyone else (Jen, Chrissy, Matty, Alex, Abbie and James). Callum and Laura, two of my best friends, arrived so Jonesy took the three of us on a tour of the house, I hadn't done that when I arrived so I was literally in awe of everything! It had four stories. The ground floor had a huge drawing room with a log fire and access to outside, a dining room (that we didn't use, although it would've made a great beer pong table), and access (that we couldn't use) to the owner's quarters. The floor I was staying on with Jonny, Jen and Chrissy had two bathrooms, one next to Jen and Chrissy's room (at the time Jen was six/seven months pregnant so we thought that was fair) and there was a bathroom around the corner from my room. Along past the second bathroom was a small flight of stairs and then there was Callum and Laura's room, next to that the living room, dining room and kitchen, where we all started to congregate on the first night, and another flight of stairs! The next flight took you to Alex and Matty's room, the master bedroom, which we assigned to Abbie and James cos it was the biggest, and another huge bathroom. This bathroom was my favourite, it had a free standing bath, two recliners (we said this was in case you wanted people to watch you in the bath) and in the same room, through a door, was a toilet, shower, sink and another chair. I didn't notice this at first, but in between the master bedroom and the bathroom, there was ANOTHER flight of stairs, which took you to the top floor where Jamie and Jonesy, and Graeme and Ben were staying, and from Graeme and Ben's room, you could actually get out to the roof of the tower (we didn't do this because when we got there, it was peeing it down, and it was horrible and slippy).
This is our kitchen (on the second night), as you
can see, there is considerably less alcohol than
the night before.
This is the amazing free standing bath.
In case you can't tell, we'd already started drinking
at this point!
L-R Myself, Abbie, Laura.
I also got Callum with a similar jumping out. I climbed down the side of his and Laura's bed while he was unpacking his car, and when he came back in I waited a few minutes before jumping out. He didn't know what to do, he yelled, stamped his feet and almost fell over trying to run out the room! Wish I'd been filming it!
Our first night was all a blur to be honest. We started drinking straight away, and Graeme cooked us all Mexican lasagne! Instead of mince he used chicken and instead of pasta he used nachos, and it was amazing! Abbie, Laura and I went for a walk around the grounds and found a cat that followed us everywhere, which I named Gus and Jonesy later named 'Cat'. We all went down to the main drawing room after the match and sat playing drinking games. It sums up the night for me as by the time we'd played two drinking games, I'd drank my little bottle of vodka and a bottle of wine, and was sipping water and eating bread. We were playing Ring of Fire and whenever anyone had to add to the dirty pint, I was adding my water in. Mmmmm. I was hammered. I think we went to bed around three-ish, and I got in for a cuddle with my friend, and fell asleep and fell out the bed and he just let me sleep on the floor.
Day two was Abbie's birthday! We bought her a playsuit, a bag, and a Pandora ring as a joint present from Laura and I. I remember getting up that morning with an aching head and getting Laura and running into Abbie's room to jump on her and give her presents. We all sat in her bed for a while before going for breakfast, Graeme and Ben had been out and bought us all breakfast and when we got to the kitchen, Graeme was standing making our breakfast. I'd just like to take this opportunity to thank Graeme for being our personal chef for the weekend! I went for a shower to freshen myself up as I felt rank, and when I came out I found Abbie and James were going to her mam's for the morning to see her family, leaving the rest of us to our own devices. I'd just point out now, when Graeme was cooking our breakfast, I was lying on the sofa dying, and he was drinking whiskey, along with Matty and Jonny, who'd cracked open cans already, proclaiming "I can do this ALL DAY!". This fast became our saying for the weekend, thank you Schmidt!
I think I'd just finished drying my hair and getting ready when Jonesy came and got me from my room, telling me we were gonna play 'Crazy Crokes' and I needed a drink. So I got my Midori and lemonade and took myself off into the gardens, to find Jonesy had set up the croquet course and we were gonna play croquet. Something learned that morning; I'm rubbish at croquet. The start was promising. I teamed up with Graeme and on my first shot, I did really well! After that...well. I was undoing any work Graeme was doing cos I was so bad at it! We had such a good laugh though, and when we reached the end of the course, we decided to play up hill and go back the way we'd came. It was so funny! This time I was with the lovely Jonesy, who'd founded 'Crazy Crokes'. And I was more of a hindrance than a help, again. Poor Jonesy, he won the first game, then I made us lose. Again. By this point, Abbie and James had rejoined us and we played again, this time it was Matty who had to endure my awful croquet playing. We came last, as a forfeit we had to have a shot of tequila while they drew lots again. I was so busy gagging, I didn't notice they were picking numbers for teams again, and it was only when everyone was high-fiving their team mate that I turned around and went 'wait, who am I with?' Only to notice Matty pinching the bridge of his nose and taking deep breaths. Yep. He'd been paired with me again. After the shot of tequila I was no good. I couldn't even hit the ball and when everyone else was half way up the course, we were still trying to get through the first hoop, which led to me grabbing our ball and running up the grass and saying 'look, we caught up!'
James with his mallet.
Abbie and Jonesy playing croquet.
Not a clue where he got the hat from.
L-R Graeme, Callum, Jonesy, Chrissy.
This was just before the first game of croquet.
If anyone had been on the inside looking out
they would've thought, how respectable, playing
croquet on a lovely summer's day, however, if you
came outside you could hear the rock music
and cursing going on everytime someone missed
a shot!
Croquet mallets and the water feature.
Graeme pointed this out on the first night, saying
'I've just been looking at this water feature in the garden
and realised it's probably the only time I'll be sober enough
to appreciate it all weekend'.
It really creeped us out, but it didn't stop me
having a go on the swings!
After 'Crazy Crokes', we decided to have a BBQ. The owner of the tower came over with a BBQ for us and we all chipped in with the food we brought with us. I think we had enough burgers to sink the Titanic. While the men were cooking, Abbie and Laura and myself sat in the main living room waiting for our food, Jamie and Jen went to the spa, and the lads were all outside playing football and frisbee.
The birthday girl and Laura
Those red cups were the best ever! £2 from Asda!
Myself and the birthday girl
Excuse the fact I have no make up on.
After we'd had our BBQ, we had a long game of frisbee then a group went to use the hot tub over the road, and I went for a bath in the amazing bathroom. I had a lovely soak, then got out and started to get myself ready for the night since I was doing Abbie and Laura's hair and makeup too.
Here's a couple of shots from after I'd done their hair and makeup.
We all went for a similar style, all curled hair and eyeliner with red lips.This was taken before we started drinking again (and before I got my mitts on Alex to do his makeup once we were hammered). We sat, again, downstairs in the main drawing room, and just put music on and sang and danced till our hearts were content. Laura and I also snuck off and had a photoshoot in the window seats in my room and the one outside of my room.
We sat up til like two am, drinking and talking and having a bit craic on. I went to bed early, knowing I had to drive home the next morning and didn't fancy doing it with a hangover.
The last morning, we had to be out by 10.30am as they had someone coming to view the house. I got up at half seven and started to clear the main drawing room of bottles and cans and glasses that had been left there the night before. I remember clearing the living room next to Callum and Laura's bed and Graeme sneaking in to make a cuppa, and I almost died when I turned around to see him in the kitchen!
I went up to the massive bathroom to tidy round in there and when I came out, Abbie grabbed me and went 'come look at Alex!', who was in the room opposite the bathroom. Matty had shown her and Abbie was showing me; and I had my camera;
This is Alex, fast asleep, still fully clothed from the night before.
What I love most is he's got one sock half off.
Clearly getting fully undressed was too much!
When we were tidying up the garden, we found a dog! The owner's dog was just wandering round the garden and we found it and had a play with it, Matty named him Wilfie and we were all for taking him home with us.
There's the three of us having cuddles and giving Wilfie fusses. We had to shut him out while we finished cleaning and when we went round to our cars, he was there! It was almost as if he wanted to come back with us! The housekeeper came out to see if we'd had a great time and told us that Wilfie is actually called Mr Bean, and the cat we kept finding and following us was called Pusscat, so Jonesy's name wasn't far off!
Preparing to leave.
We had an absolutely amazing time at Shortflatt, and we've been planning to go back next year!
