Shiny toys!

It is May again, so time for a trip down to Ludlow Food & Drink festival for judging beer of Wales & West.



 Liam Morrow has a new laser toy and is engraving stainless things with it.  Here we have a stainless growler, ready for auctioning at the 25th Langdale Mountain Rescue Folk Festival.

 One of the winners was a fantastic Chocolate and Vanilla Stout called Snowball by Waen Brewery.  Only the second beer I have ever given full marks to, but at 7.0% it is a bit of a beast!


Back up to Langdale and the folk festival is in full swing, and the weather is great.

Amazing who you meet here (again).

Sunday morning brought low cloud, that didn't seem to be moving. 

Think Posative!  I started off up Mill Ghyll, and got soaked.  After about 100 feet of ascent, I could see nothing.
I was resigned to being wet now, so I decided to head off down the valley and see what the weather was doing there.

 Rain

 Typical summer, go for a walk and stop in the pub to warm by the fire woth hot soup!

 

Tomato and fennel soup in Wainrights.  A superb spicy soup for these long summer days.

 I headed across towards Loughrigg Tarn, and thought I might at least climb loughrigg.  I met some people coming down who said it was zero visibility (and wet).

 I then continued into Ambleside, a terrible pint in the Queens, then decided to head back to Langdale.

 Having now walked 13.2 miles through rain, drizzle, rain, and drizzle, as I walked into the campsite, the sun came out!

 A warm shower meant that I was still wet, but warm and wet.  I returned to the Old and had a few pints of Yates, then the Game casserole finished me off, and it was an early night!

Going upstream

I had a quick night up at the Old, delivering beer again.  Lovely clear skies on the way up...

  ..lovely clear pint in the evening...

 ..but not so clear in the morning.

I didn't have time to go walking, as Yorkshire Rob had a Ribble link crossing booked and asked if I wanted to go with him.

I think he just wanted to borrow my anchor.










We set off from Tarelton lock, with Rob doing his Captain Ahab impression













The first stretch down the river Douglas was straightforward, except for the engine cutting out twice

Then we were out into the Ribble

  Other boats were passing us...

This was because, after the engine cutting out earlier,  we weren't running flat out.

We just started our turn into Savick Brook, when the lights turned red, and the gates were shut!

Following a call to CRT, we were told to continue on to Preston Marina, where someone would be waiting for us.

Twenty minutes later, we arrived at Preston dock to find the gates shut, and everybody had gone home!  Having loosened the floating moorings, we tied the Blue Moon up, and Elsie next to it.  With a 9m tide, this was going to be an interesting night!

As a display of faith, I left Rob to it, and caught the bus back over to Luke's' for a fantastic meal.  Sunday Dinner !!! Excellent!