Whitby

The Whitby Goth Festival is a strange beast. Certain events happen one week, certain events happen the next, and unless you book a place to stay for a fortnight you are bound to miss something. We booked the week of Halloween as it coincided with a friend's 40th birthday. His wife found us a beautiful house called 'Poets View,' overlooking the sea. It had a little round turret room, it had four-poster beds - indeed, it had the largest and most comfortable bed I have ever slept in - and we were all very happy very quickly.

Whitby has its own enchantment. It is saved from the horror that most English sea-side towns became by resolutely staying a fishing village; lobster pots are still stacked on the quays, fishermen cast their lines from below the old lighthouse. The town has some arcades, but they don't detract from the beauty of the place and the ancient elegance of the abbey. Bram Stoker's dream of Whitby has commercialised it, but quite delicately; and the groups of people clad in Gothery/Victoriana/Steampunk roaming up and down the cobbled streets, bustling into Justin's Chocolate Shop or Marie Antoinette's or The Hatless Heron, add to the atmosphere.

In the house, an absinthe fountain was installed, and we enjoyed the whole ritual of sugar lumps and spoons and dripping water - admittedly while scoffing rose/violet/lime/orange creams and 'Captain Cook's Cannonballs' all the while. Some strange souls eschewed the absinthe for tequila. I spent a fair few bob on that stuff for the birthday boy. Trouble is, it doesn't matter how fine a quality tequila you buy, it's still tequila. Nasty. Me, I floated away that night with the green fairy...

So we walked the cliffs and the beach, and we swished our farthingales, and sometimes we just wrapped up warm and went star-gazing. The sea sounded, always so close. It is one of the best sounds in the world.

This has been a wonderful October.