Great grandad was 'ere

Sunday night I stopped in the Sun at Hitchin, a great pub and hotel which has been there since the 1500's.  I was gobsmacked to read some idiotic review on trip advisor complaining, "the corridors are narrow, the floor isn't level, and there are wooden beams sticking out of the ceiling!".  This is exactly what makes the place so brilliant (other than the fact they serve best breakfast I have had in Hertfordshire)
Sadly I arrived too late to hear the live music, which is on every Sunday.

On Tuesday evening I got the train up to York, wandering around the south of the city wall to stop in the Waggon & Horses.

Of all the times that I have been to York, this is the first time I have seen the old keep.









There are some great old pubs in york...

..and the Waggon and Horses is one of them.  I know I am supposed to be on a diet, but the steak was calling out to me, so a perfectly cooked steak duly arrived, complete with a mountain of chips, mushrooms and tomato!

I was up here  to judge the beer of the North East of England at the racecourse on the Wednesday.  The sun was shining outside, with blue skies, but inside there was water dripping onto us.  It is the first time I can remember when I have been in the sun outside a beer tent, but rained on when inside.

The first round of best bitters was mediocre, with half the beers cloudy, and almost all of them flat.  Very little aroma and very little taste. Very disappointing.

The second round I was put on the speciality bottle beers, which I was dreading, as this is not my beer of choice.
However...
We had a couple of beautiful wheat beers, very smooth, a smoked beer, a coriander and lemon beer that tasted just like a nice smooth pale ale.  Then the Milk Stout arrived and Wow!  The appearance of this drink was a delight in itself, the aroma was amazing and the flavour perfect.  For the first time ever, both me and Jenna agreed that this drink could not be faulted, and gave full 60 out of 60.
Last in this round came a chocolate porter.  Massive chocolate aroma, and a superb chocolate flavour, this had to be the Triple Chocolate Porter from Saltaire.


On the last round, I was judging the strong cask bitters, and again, half of the beers were hazy, and most of them were flat.  Boring, boring, and then the last beer of the round, although unfined, was clear, had a wonderful hop aroma, and a not too overpowering hop flavour that made this a superb IPA.

The overall finals are always hard to judge because you have eight different beer styles to judge against each other.  The only way to do this is to judge each one as itself, then compare the scores at the end, with a bit of side by side comparison at the end.

Altogether an enjoyable day, despite the poor quality of some of the beers, and we  rounded off with another superb steak!

Maggie hasn't shut it all down

Another afternoon on the boat, and I have just spent a small fortune on marine ply, but with a cunning plan.
I have had the ply delivered to the house, where, I have a (just plastered) completely empty room awaiting decorating.

Rather than struggling to cut the ply to size on the boat, I can measure and make patterns as necessary, and cut the 8x4 sheets at the house, where there is room to manoeuvre them.
So, armed with a roof template, and a side template, I have managed to erect the first wall in the boat, between the bedroom and the WC.  However there is still a considerable gap at the top of the wall. So much for the clever templates!

I had far more success with the wall linings, and soon I have the first porthole liner temporarily in place.  Nice!

Friday I was in Grantham, and it was like a ghost town. In the town centre on a Friday dinnertime, we were virtually alone.

Seeking food, we ventured into the Blue Pig.  This is nothing to do with a coloured animal, the blue indicates the owner, years ago, supported the torys.

The blue Pig was a great find, a nice pint of Oldershaws Blonde, and the most amasing mixed grill for £8.99.

We wandered into the town centre and spotted a great name for a design company.

In the town square there is a statue to Newton.  I didn't know he was from Grantham.








We went in the Lord Harrowby, which was a short walk from the town centre, and very quiet, but a great little pub, with a great pint of Brewsters Calamity Jane.

We then found where everybody was, they were in the Nobody Inn. A real quirky pub with a great atmosphere at the North of the town centre. The toilets are amusingly hidden, but I won't spoil the suprise by saying where they were!
One last pint of Brewsters Aromantica in the Chequers and it was time for the train back home.

Hops

It was that time of year again, down to the hop farms to see how the crops have faired, order next years hops, and try some new varieties.

 We were down at Stocks farm near Worcester, which grows apples as well as hops.

There were apparently 400 people here this year, many new faces and new breweries again.





Many of the hop varieties seem to have been OK, but some seem to have suffered with the weather.














There is a new English hop variety, Jester, which makes a tasty beer.  These seedlings will hopefully have enough of a crop next year for us to get some.







We had a quick look at the stripping machinery, which looks to be older than me.










There is a board near the packing sheds which has the hop productions for this farm going back 50 years.

The evening was spent at the Talbot at Knightwick, having a nice relaxing evening of sunshine, beer and great food.

The following day after the most amazing breakfast, we hot-footed it back to Rammy with 20kgs of freshly picked hops for a new brew of Green Manalishi.

Friday I managed to get the solar panel finished and connected just in time for the black clouds, rain, and complete lack of sun!

A farewell to Timmy Tree

The plasterers had finished at Darwen, so first thing monday morning I got some paint from Screwfix, and dropped it off in Darwen.  I then dropped the V70 off for MOT and service.
I decided to have a breakfast with Lady P at Caroles' Cafe, where I heard the news that Timmy Tree had been found dead in his car on Sunday Morning with a suspected heart attack.

I couldn't believe it.

Here's to you Timmy Tree, missed already.

Pre-emptive Engineering and de-digitisation

I finally got down to Alvechurch at the weekend for the RCR Engine Maintanance course.

My initial thoughts were that this would be "change the oil", but the course covers not only the engine, but the gearbox, drive shaft, cooling, water systems, electrics and a whole host of other subjects.
My fears of information overload vanished due to the relaxed informality of the course, and the frequent visits to the workshop for practical sessions.  However, the engines in the workshop are on frames at working height (no doubt for some H&S reason), and, in a nb, this is the view of the you will never get.  I now know far more about diesel engines from this course, but I will see how this knowledge works when I am dangling upside down over my engine, fighting gravity for my tools!
I stopped in the Holiday Inn Express in Redditch Saturday night, where the snotty receptionist looked down his nose at me, and demanded a deposit for a room that was already booked and paid for. Anyone who works on a reception is an advert for your business,  In this case Holiday Inn Express look at you like a piece of dirt coming in off the street, and how dare you want to stay in a hotel room you have already booked and paid for.
Avoid Redditch HIExpress, dodgy bastards.
I went for a wander around Redditch to cool off a bit, and see the sights.  The place was deserted withthe exception of two Wetherspoons.  the first one had no staff apparent behind the bar, so I left.  the second one had a very friendly staff, who served me with a warm, stale and flat Phoenix Navvy.  Typical Wetherspoons.
On the Sunday morning, while waiting at the marina I saw a classic example of luck winning out over stupidity. I am not sure whether it was a hire boat or a share boat, approaching the marina with teenager at the well deck, and a bloke shouting from the tiller "Pay attention, you'll have to be quick!"
There was a gap in the moored boats that he was bearing down on.  Just as the boat got close to the bank, the teenager jumped from the bow with rope in hand, threw the rope around a bollard, and tried to pull the boat to a stop.  Now it doesn't take A-level maths to work out, 20 tonnes of boat at 3 mph, pulling against a rope wrapped around a 7 stone teenager's hand.
"Luckily" the young lad dropped the rope, retained his hand and all the digits,  and the boat was brought to a halt by smashing into the boat in front.
The training course finished with the last couple of hours for hands on practice.  I left to make the journey up the M5 and M6.

I spent Sunday evening at a beer tent in Littleborough, with a couple of bands in the large marquee, and our bar next door in the smaller one.

Good Music and good beer, but none for me, as I had to get back to Rammy, then drive over to Chorley to stop on the boat again.

If you go down in the woods today...

I changed train at Leeds today with 45 mins to spare, so I went down to the canal basin to the coffee shop that does the most fantastic coffee and ham and cheese toastie, made with real bread, real ham and real cheese.  Superb









The "dry" dock here was full of horrible green algae.  I'm not sure what causes this, but it doesn't look good.

Got the train down to London, and over to Olympia for CAMRA's GBBF food and cider festival.  Hidden away behind all the corporate stalls, there were a few bars serving real ale, most of it flat.
The Betty Stoggs band were here making a racket as usual.

I had a nice pint of Cairngorm Black Gold, and a Stonehouse Station Bitter at the SIba stand, then set off around the rest of the stalls.  The stands have beers from different counties, but in a completley random order which makes no sense.

Towards the rear of Olympia we had sulphorous beer after sulphorous beer, throwing them all away. Redemption Hotspur had just won at Tonbridge the other week, so I tried that.  An overpowering sulphorous smell, and a rancid taste. ALL of these beers can't be off ?

The quality of beers was poor at olympia last year, but there are too many beers that I know are good, but are terrible here.  The general consensus is to leave and find a decent pint in a pub somewhere, and don't bother returning to GBBF, which is a great display of food and cider, and a great demonstration of how badly beer can be served.

ZZzzzzz...

Saturday evening, I put the Fridge and Freezer in to the V70, strapped the mattress to the roof, and headed for the boat. It's amazing how much the car blows about on the motorway with a double mattress on the roof!

 After clearing a path through the engine room, Ian gave me a lift with the mattress and it went in remarkably easily. Fridge and freezer followed through the side hatch.
I had decided that I may as well sleep on the boat so I could get an early start in the morning, so I set the mattress on the floor in the potential kitchen, and threw on a scattering of pillows and quilt.
I put the bed rails outside, marked them out and cut them just in time for it to go dark.

 I loaded the rails back on the boat, and decided to try out the Lock & Quay at the end of the road for a solitary planning meeting, where I had a couple of fine pints of Blond Witch, reminding me of the Ex.

It was a remarkably comfortable sleep on the boat, although how much of this is psychological, sleeping on your own bed, etc. I don't know.
Ian said the best way to join the bed rails was to use a biscuit joiner.  When I said I have no digestives, he produced a small angle-grinder like power tool, and some compressed wood biscuits.





I had a try out on a couple of scraps of wood, and it seemed neat enough.



I got the frame together ok, but struggled for what seemed like an eternity to get it square.  As well as not being able to use a level, the boat sides are not vertical, and near the back of the boat the sides aren't even straight.

After much tweaking and cursing, the diagonals were with in 1/4" of each other, and the side rail was packed out from the side of the boat.


I then spent what seemed to be my entire life twice over cutting spacers for the slats, drilling pilot hoes in each. These were then glued and screwed in place to give the correct spacing for the slats, and it was starting to look like a bed!


Pedantic Interlude.
Just a quick not to all the pedantic trawlers out there, I know the word used three paragraphs ago should have been "stern".

I had just finished cutting the lengths of 3x2 for the walkway down the side of the bed when CRASH!
The corner biscuit joint had split apart, and the front corner of the bed frame had collapsed in a pile of slats.  CRUMBS!
Loads of glue, a ratchet strap, and plenty of huge screws should hold it.  I think biscuit joints are a bit delicate for a heavy duty frame like this.
The storage/walkway was shoehorned down the side of the bed, but the side rail of this stands slightly proud due to the angle of the side of the boat.  I will rectify this (and all the other badly fitting bits of woodwork) when I get the electric planer hooked up.
Mattress, sheets pillows, etc and the bed is extremely comfortable.

I unpacked the Fridge, freezer and WC then decided to call it a day. Very productive.