On the Wirral

If you're looking for love

In a looking glass world,

It's pretty hard to find ..

This is my long overdue post about my (not-so, anymore) recent trip to the Wirral. For those of you who haven't withstood prolonged, subjective bombardment of various Wirral facts and figures as I have, I'll fill you in: The Wirral is a peninsula between Liverpool and Wales, with the river Dee on the Welsh side and the Mersey on the other. Population of about 312,000, accent generally scouse-ish.

Having teased Kellie for as long as we can remember about the Wirral, I had no idea what to expect. It had gotten to the point where all our piss-taking stories of radioactive zones, mammoth hunts and the entrance being through the back of a wardrobe had begun to take precedence over the truth.

Just for the record, it's a pretty sweet place with plenty of decent highlights. It beats Huddersfield into submission in any case. Here are a few pictures of things we got up to. 

The beach. Supposedly the tide comes in and covers this area, meaning you have to time your walks carefully, but if I was the tide, I'd have got pretty knackered trying to do that at least once a day. It was essentially more of a desert than a beach, but it was a good walk and we got some nice views from the three little islands that are dotted around.

The Maize Maze. Retrospect indicates that we were probably too old for this attraction. 

However, still clinging by our worn fingertips to the idea that we're still students and that stuff like this (along with afternoon naps and Disney films) is therefore still acceptable, we paid the entrance fee and went in. And it was awesome.

This is me looking appropriately excited before and during our hour or two in the maze. I think the second photo was shortly before everyone else lost interest and I went back and finished the puzzle book all by myself. Because I am a big boy now.

This is our group at Liverpool Lime Street (minus Directions Girl, who's taking the picture), dressed to kill as per Sophie's instructions. I sensed at the time that strolling through the crowds of Liverpudlians wearing skinny jeans and a peaked cap increased the chances of getting the crap beaten out of me tenfold, but it was such a happy moment that it didn't really phase me.

Other noteworthy things:

• A seagull shat on me while we were eating ice cream.
• I accidentally groped Kellie's dog (debatable) and made it wear a hat, but not at the same time. 

• A scouse wedding photoshoot. Both the photographer and whoever chose the location for the shoot have a table in hell with a 'reserved' sign on it. I've not given any wedding of mine a great deal of thought, but if it ever happens, I'm gonna strive for photos of me and my lady that don't have the Holiday Inn and an All-you-can-eat Chinese buffet in the background.

• Scouse Macbeth. In which the fictional universes of Shakespeare and Hitman coincide.

• And a couple of end-of-the-world repentance preachers. 

I'd choose pleasures over God any day.

The only other thing that really struck me was the people. This was more the case for Liverpool than on the Wirral, but the amount of midriff on display on 14/15 year old girls was just untrue. There were also far too many girls wearing leggings as a viable alternative to trousers, in and among throngs of slutty looking, aged hen parties, who took what should have been sexy and made it grotesque and frightening. And this was before they'd even opened their mouths.

If not for my lovely friends, I would not have seen any attractive people.