Just had a manic weekend. Ish. Plan was to do a winter Torridon trip this weekend, but no-one wanted to play out. There were other options to help with an adventure race in the lakes, take part in it, go to the Outdoors show, go to Wales with Networkers, meet with Ali in the Lakes, or go to a posh do at Phlegms on Saturday night. Really had no idea what to do this weekend. Decided that (as teh forecast was ming for saturday) to head to Tawd Vale and help at the Dungeons and Dragons cub event with Crew, running a rope bridge for the day. That meant I was free on Friday night.
So, agreed with work to meet people at the Preston Beer festy. Caught the train to Preston (met Jake Kelly, had a chat about Dolomites on the train), then wandered to the venue. Met Foxy and Adam in the queue, then when we’d got inside met a load of others, including a stack of Scouters from Preston & Fylde way. Drank a stack of beer, got me a glass, had a top time, really chilled and cool. Managed to blag a promise of a lift back with the Boss who lives just round the corner. However, as we’d all had a few by the end, we staggered into Preston and tried to get into a pub, me being blocked for having trainers on.
“Ah,” thought I, “we’re in THAT world again”. The one where you need to confirm to by a drink at stupid prices. That world that I loathed for years until I realised that if I stopped going into towns on a Friday night and went to mates or to hills, I can avoid and never have to set foot in again. Everyone else was more than willing to come out and try somewhere else, which I do appreciate ; I could have got the last bus back but everyone seemed happy enough. Ended up in some … well, ‘dive’ is a bit strong, but certainly wasn’t my kind of place. Everyone else seemed to be happy, and met Tim from Southport who I’d not seen for years so spent the time catching up with him. Shite beer after an evening on excellent real ales was a bad idea, the music was dire, and “mutton dressed as lamb” came to mind quite a lot. When the boss admitted that she thought it was shite too, we rang for the lift and ran away.
0700 Mark and Liv picked me up and headed to Tawd. Spent the day building, running, and then taking down two rope bridges over the Tawd river. Bit of hassle getting them all rigged up, but a good laugh, with good people. Weather wasn’t that bad either. Afterwards, decided to go to the Ship for a beer, and to work out what to do that evening, as most of us were free. Get to the Ship and it was uncharacteristically busy, i.e. more than 3 cars in the car park. Go inside and …. find that we’ve just hit the Ship Beer Festival.
Winner! Many hours later, stagger back to ours after beers and Curry in the boozer. Mark, liv, Martin and Nige all crashed over, more beers and whiskeys, plus bananaman and Wombles VD’s, and a delivered set of pizza and kebabs!
Sunday, slow start with everyone, but alone at about 11am. Cracking weather, but too late to get anywhere, so went for a run from Burscough to Parbold, over Parbold Hill and down Hunters Hill Quarry and back. Really cool run, first time in a while, but stiff as a board now. Looking forward to getting out running properly again now.
‘Rents came round just after I got back (about 2 hours run I think), and we spent the afternoon attacking the hedge. It’s big, long, and over stones, so everything has to be sheeted out to collect the brash. All done, packed away, and now tired! Cracking time though.
