Up the Pyg, down the Miners. Pt1 - the accessory

For those of you who are completely puzzled as to what I'm talking about, these are tracks on Mt Snowdon in Wales. We walked up Snowdon as part of a stag weekend. Apparently we had two choices:

We could either go to Newcastle and spend our nights clubbing, drinking, having a good time and suspending Andy naked from the Tyne bridge, or we could climb Snowdon.

We of course chose the latter.

Now there's some method in our madness. It can be summed up in one word - Age - or as Dave put it - "when I go clubbing I'm old enough to be their father". (Or in my case, their grandfather).

So we spent the weekend in Wales instead. Andy is a member of a mountain club, so we rented out their cottage in a nice Welsh village. We bought the necessary supplies - food, plenty of beer and cider, cards, blow up doll from the sex shop.

At this point I can see you rereading the last sentence. Now I must admit, sex dolls are not on your average list of things to take when walking the mountains. However, it was a stag weekend and we thought it would be funny (we are men) if Andy trailed a sex doll up Snowdon. Given that Rugby seems to be a bit short on sex shops I volunteered to do the duty in Birmingham.

So there I am, blithely walking into this shop as if it's my local grocers. Now, I do realise that I'd got it all wrong. I was inappropriately dressed (just came from work and I don't own a greasy macintosh anyway) and I should have walked up and down the road a bit before sidling into the shop. So I walked in, cheerfully nodded at the other people in the shop (who desperately tried to avoid eye contact) and searched the shelves for sex dolls.

It turned out there were a whole two rows of shelves with the things. They ranged from £25 to £135 and apparently I could have also bought an Antonio as well (See, the Sex Equality Act has reached the sex industry as well). I have to say that the pictures on the front were quite stunning; the products looked very real and the more expensive ones were ranged in quite provocative poses.

At this point the Sales assistant sidled up to me and asked if I wanted any help. "Oh no", I said loudly, (realising immediately that speaking in anything above a whisper is this sort of shop is Not The Done Thing) - "all I want is a doll to take up Snowdon". You could tell that I had the attention of everyone in the shop; you could almost see them thinking "What's this? - A new and exciting fetish to waken up a jaded (or perhaps lonely) sex life?'. I went on to explain about the stag weekend and the sales assistant deflated a bit. You could tell that he was all prepared to talk about realism, strength, durability and whatever other qualities differentiate the 25 quid model from the 135 quid one (I never did find out). He didn't even ask if I wanted an Antonio. No, all I wanted a sex doll to trail up Snowdon and the cheaper the better.

So the deal was done.

Back to the Sales counter where I asked if they took plastic (credit cards for the foreigners reading this). "Er, I think so", said the shop assistant, frantically hunting for the machine. Again, I assume that this is not a usual thing, although I would have thought that at 135 quid you'd need to pay by plastic for the top of the range model. The deal was done. "I'll tell you what", said the shop assistant. "I'll throw in a pack of cards for free". You could tell he was completely flustered as the cards cost 5 quid and you would not get these ones down at your local branch of Toys R Us. "I'll wrap it up well" he said and tripled bagged the thing in the sort of bag that looks so anonymous that it yells "This bloke's just been to a sex shop!".

The purchase went down well with the lads. "Have you road tested it yet?", they asked. "Nope , she's still in her plastic bag - I was leaving it to when we were in a group", I replied.

So she went into a drawer to await the big weekend.

To be continued...