29 December 2016 (Thursday) - Beer

I slept reasonably well, but was till up shortly after 6am. I tiddled the dogs (who went promptly back to bed) and then watched telly. “Dad’s Army” and “Mutiny on the Buses” passed the time until "er indoors TM" surfaced.
As I watched Blakey (who still “ates you Butler”) my new phone beeped with a friend request from Facebook. I thought that was odd as I’d turned off the thing’s mobile data and wi-fi last night. Sure enough they were still off. The phone couldn’t connect to the Internet, but somehow it had received the friend request and also an email or two. I wonder how it does that. I turned on the Internet connection and had a look on-line. As always Facebook amazed me; if nothing else it shows that I truly have nothing in common with some people that I’ve known for years. I particularly get wound up by people posting these self-improvement memes which imply that absolutely anyone can be utterly successful in anything they try. They are always posted by people who’ve never had life truly piss on them. Some people are lucky; other are not. And it is really unfair that the fortunate imply the less fortunate are in their various predicaments because of some failing on their part.

"er indoors TM" eventually got up. I say “eventually” – in fairness she probably got up about the same time that the rest of the world would have done, but by then I’d been up for ages and was bored shitless with sitting about waiting.
We took the dogs round the park. It was a rather frosty morning, and the walk was somewhat delayed by pretty much everyone we encountered wanting to fuss the puppy. Mind you, apart from a minor incident when "Furry Face TM" tiddled on "Furry Shark TM"’s head, the walk passed off reasonably well.

We came home for cake, then set off to the train station where we soon found Steve and Sarah. The train was on time and it wasn’t long before we were in the Bridge cafĂ© with Jimbo scoffing a rather late brekkie. And with brekkie scoffed we went to the Firkin where we met Stevey. We also met a pint of Bunny Hop and Lemon Dream and some tropping shollies (!)
From the Firkin it was only a short walk to an old favouite; the Chambers. A pint of black IPA (abv 5.8%) went down very nicely. We could have stayed longer, but the Chambers isn’t the cheapest of ale houses so (pausing only briefly for geo-reasons) we went on to the Guildhall for Harvey’s Best, pool and a very saucy photograph in the gent’s lavatory.
The Pullman was only a short hop from the Guildhall. They were serving Educated Guess from the Mad Cat brewery. There was a serious “real ale twat” on the next table, but (to be fair) he seemed to be harmless enough.
Time was pushing on, so we made a bee-line for Kipps alehouse and a pint of Brewdolph (from the great Orme brewery). And with that guzzled it only remained to get a kebab and go home. And in a novel break with tradition I stayed awake long enough to get off the train at Ashford.

I took a few photos of the afternoon… I wonder if I will get up for the walk we’ve got planned or tomorrow…?


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