Abandon Ship

With the journey to Leeds it seems as though I have been on the boat for ages.  Now it was time to abandon the boat at Leeds for a few days.

Time for the annual trip down to the Hop farms.  The hop harvest this year is much better, the hop cones are full sized and the harvest is good.

More pictures of hops





 and no hops

From Worcester, it was straight back to the brewery to brew Green Manalishi, always a bit experimental Green hopped beer.


With the beer brewed, I then set off to Langdale for the Charity Folk Festival.  I had "persuaded" Chippy Paul to make something for the raffle and he made a carved wooden whisky flask, which was raffled off.

There was a great atmosphere outside as an impromptu Folk session developed

and the music continued inside later.

On the Sunday, the weather was superb, so I had a little wander up Stickle Tarn, Jakes Rake and Harrison Stickle.

 Again I found that I was fine uphill, but the downhill was painful.

After Langdale I was back to the boat briefly, then on the train to York to judge the beer of the North East.   The beers were a great improvement on the previous year, when everything was too cold.
After the competition we had a wander around some of the back streets south of the city and found some great unspoilt pubs, The Swan, The Old Ebor, The Golden Ball, and finally the Ackhorne.

No expensive hotels this year, just a 15 minute train back to Leeds.  I had had enough of the pale, hoppy beers and had something like Bank Top Dark mild on my mind, when I called into the Hop for a last pint.
  The Hop quote "At the heart of The Hop is Real Ale, a unique, traditional product and Britain's National Drink"
  "Can you recommend a dark beer?" I asked. "Guinness" came the reply from the idiotic barman!

Another trip to the Doctors, and the tear in my adducti-something-or-other isn't healing by itself, which is why I can't walk downhill.  So I am on the waiting list (having had this injury for over a year now!) for a "simple" operation to sort it out.  In the meantime no more climbing :-(