It was a bright, sunny, beautiful day. Bloody brilliant

"England! England! I'm so excited!"

England rolled his eyes. "Please calm down, Sealand. It's only an amusement park."

Not, he thought to himself, even his best one. Whatever the other countries said, England did have good amusement parks. Alton Towers, Thorpe Park, Chessington. Not to mention the Vauxhall Gardens and Crystal Palace, back in the day. As if he'd allow himself to be bested by any of his European neighbours. Denmark with his Legoland. France with his Disneyland. Anything they could do, he could definitely do better.

Just probably not here at Pleasure-bloody-wood Hills.

Still, Disneyland belonged to an American franchise, so that didn't really count, did it? The frog didn't have a leg to stand on. (England firmly pushed Park Astérix to the back of his mind.) At least Pleasurewood Hills was indisputably his. England allowed himself a little smirk.

And, being in East Anglia, it had at least saved him from an interminably long car trip to any of the other decent amusement parks further afield.

"But I've never been to an amusement park before! This will be a fantastic opportunity for market research before I open mine. I'll call it Sealand Land. Or maybe Sealand-a-topia… That doesn't sound quite right. Gosh, naming things is hard!"

England thought about making the obvious comment about uncreative names, then decided against it. He had been dragged here against his will, but it was still a little early to start raining on Sealand's parade.

Instead he said, as reasonably as he could, "Honestly, Sealand, I've no idea why you still think your little rig is capable of hosting a whole amusement park. Even if it could, no one would be willing to go boating out to the middle of the North Sea!"

Sealand just smiled tolerantly, as if long accustomed to such nay-saying. As well he might be, being an unacknowledged principality.

"I need to help boost my country's revenue, and tourism is a major industry! I could wear a uniform! And be the park's mascot! There's a mascot here, right? The guide says he's called Woody. I need to talk to him about all his special roles and things!"

England pinched the bridge of his nose.

"Sealand, that's just an actor in a costume. 'Woody' isn't a real person. It's not like he's a living embodiment of the park or anything. He won't be able to tell you anything useful. And besides, there's more to a park than its mascot. There's space, for one thing."

Sealand blithely ignored him.

"And then we'll invent a theme song for our park, and all my citizens will sing it for visitors. It will boost employment! When they're not manning the rides, of course. They will be busy holding the swinging lifeboats steady." He tapped his nose conspiratorially. "I'm doing a little corporate espionage, you see. Look, there's a swinging pirate ship here, so we'll have swinging lifeboats! And people can dangle from our crane like that bungee jumping ride. And they can ride the goat instead of tea cups! Ohhh, and maybe we can put in a slide, straight into the sea!" He beamed proudly. "And, of course, when it's really windy and stormy the whole platform sways a little bit, so it'll be that extra bit more exciting!"

England made a mental note to never ever visit his guest's home.

"England! England! Look, it's Woody!"

A brown bear wearing a sailor suit and red jacket familiar from all of the park's advertising was suddenly clearly visible through the crowd. He was waving exaggeratedly to a group of tourists.

"Yes, I see that, Sealand. No. No, you don't have to hug him!"

It was too late, however. Sealand had already attacked the large bear mascot in a ninja-style sneak attack surprise hug it clearly hadn't been expecting. To the performer's credit, it did pantomime a creditable display of delight – once it had finished reeling – returning the embrace and ruffling Sealand's hair. Though England noticed it did pat Sealand on the head a few times a little uncertainly, as if it (he?) were wondering why an apparent pre-teen was behaving like a three year old on sugar.

"That is so sweet," a woman standing nearby commented to her family. She caught England's eye as he desperately averted it. "Is that your son? I think it's so nice to see a child his age so in touch with his feelings. I wish mine were more like that!" She cuffed the back of her son's head to emphasise the point. England glanced at Sealand. He was currently holding Woody's hand in both of his and gushing some nonsense.

"Erm, yes. Well, good. Come on… Peter." He caught Sealand's wrist as he beat a hasty retreat, yanking him away from his apparently animated, one-sided conversation and didn't stop walking until an information booth hid them from view.

Sealand was, unsurprisingly, tearing up, but with practiced ease England pulled out the park's site map as a distraction and pointed to a random spot without looking.

"How about that, Sealand? Let's try that."

Sealand immediately quietened and England patted himself on the back. Diversion tactic successful, job well done.

"R-really?"

Something about his hopeful, slightly awed tone of voice set the first stirring of unease uncoiling in England's stomach. He glanced down at the map and nearly groaned out loud.

His finger had unerringly found the one and only rollercoaster in the whole park. England hated rollercoasters.

And Sealand was bound to be either one of those people who got ridiculously overexcited and insisted on riding them again and again; or who spend a good half an hour afterwards throwing up into bushes.

Bloody, bloody brilliant.

A/N: Pleasurewood Hills is a real place near Lowestoft in Suffolk (fairly close to Sealand). I loved it when I was a child, and would recommend it. Though its description in this fanfic is based on my childhood memories, so I'm sure it's updated a bit since then!