Wednesday 24 September 2014

Scotland is still here then...

With such great weather in September, Ian is doing a great job painting the boat.  Now we have
four coats of primer, four coats of undercoat, and he is now starting on the top coats.




The boat should be quite a bit heavier with this thickness of paint on it :-)

I had a quick trip up to Edinburgh to collect some beer for the approaching beer festival.  The thing I love about driving in Scotland is, other than the fantastic views, the fact that there is no traffic.  Having spent 7 hours the previous week driving the 220 miles to the armpits of the UK, Stevenage, it is a real pleasure to drive along, at rush hour, without another car in sight, and spend little over three hours driving the 220 miles to Edinburgh.






It was time for Ramsbottom Mountain Rescue Beer Festival 2014. Because I had beers from Scotland, we decided to have a Scottish section of the bar, seperated from the English section by a wall.  The only images of a wall I got from t'internet were from Pink Floyd, but they served the purpose.  Scottish flags one side, English the other, but no passport control, yet.

The beer festival was quiet, I think because two other beer festivals locally had moved to the same weekend.  Just to rub it in, a couple of the mountain rescue volunteers behind the bar were called out on the saturday night to rescue two people who had got lost walking home from one of the other festivals!


Loch Ness Lightness won beer of the festival, and we raised £600 for mountain rescue.

Just to correct some of the idiots commenting during the festival, the breweries are paid for the beer, at the best discounted price I can get, we put on the festival for free, staff it with volunteers as much as possible, and pay for all the advertising and running around out of our own pockets.  All of the money taken, once the beer is paid for and the Civic hall is paid for, goes to the Mountain rescue. 
I am not, as several of the idiots commented, "raking it in". If it wasn't for what myself, Sara, Keith and Irwell put into this, the festival would never happen, and the charities would get nothing.  This festival has cost each of us personally several hundred pounds and I know that I have put in about 100 hours to organise this. Last year we raised £3400, which was great, this year not so good.
So, to all you tossers who want to come to a beer festival to moan about everthing and have a go at me for making a fortune, in future I will save myself the 100+ hours of hard graft and give the mountain rescue £600 of my own.  I will be better off, and you will have to find somewhere else to do your wingeing.

Thursday 18 September 2014

Is this the real life?

It was Langdale folk festival again, so after a record fast day brewing beer, we managed to get up to the campsite before dark.  I have finally got a new decent tent from Terra Nova and, although a little odd, it weighs nothing, and is easy and quick to put up.

A great night in the Old, with the Yates Bitter superb, and a couple of pints of Marshmallow Unicorn joining in.
Walking back to the campsite at around midnight, it is great to see the dark mountains looming over you, with the night sky strangely bright in the background. I have often tried, and failed, to capture this on a camera, but I tried again tonight, dodging out of the road as Jilly hurtled past me on a pushbike.

I know it doesn't capture what I could see, but use your imagination...

Sunday morning and it was dull, so we just had a quick wander up side pike before heading home




Tuesday night was a nice cool September evening, and I made my way down to the river at Putney.


 I was off to the Half Moon to see Hayseed Dixie.  Support was from Jenny wren and her borrowed wings, with a great selection of chill-out music.

Hayseed Dixie followed, a superb band, and if you haven't seen them you have missed some great music.  Their version of Bohemian Rhapsody is better than Queens!

Wednesday and I am off to York to judge beer in the North East.  I like York, but the beer at the festival, although better than last year, was mainly flat.



We had a couple of great pints in the town and rounded off the evening with a superb curry - Salmon tikka - unusual but superb.




Friday 12 September 2014

Shiny Oak!

There was an Eating at Lukes.  A couple of pints in the Brig, then it was Spanish food.  A superb Paella, spicy meatballs and a Bakewell tart covered in nuts!

Lukes tiny new cat was also in the eating mood.

Chippy Paul turned up to the boat with some shiny Oak worktops, which fitted perfectly.  Once the sink was re-connected, the gas connected, and the hob wired up, the kitchen was starting to look superb.

Back at the brewery, we had Rusty the cat helping us with deliveries

Ian has been cracking on while we are having such a superb September, and the boat is now green undercoat.




Monday 1 September 2014

Chameleon

Ian loves painting so much, he has volunteered to paint the boat properly.  The previous paint job was so thin much of it was wearing off.  Before I know it, he has flattened down the sides and the boat is looking far cleaner in several coats of primer.



While he is doing that, I managed to transform the kitchen from scruffy white primer to not too shabby wallpaper.  the kitchen is now ready for the worktops.

Having scoured the net for paint, I decided that the Craftmaster paint seemed to have the best reviews, so I popped in to kings lock chandlers and spent £400 on paint.  This may seem a lot, but I would rather have a good layer of undercoat and topcoat and not have to repaint it for years to come.

Chippy Paul turned up to make a template for the cratch and measure up for the worktops.