3 February 2018 (Saturday) - Dover Beer Festival


I didn’t really sleep well last night.  I wish the puppy would stay out of the bed. I can live with *on* the bed, but my skin crawls when she comes into it.
Over brekkie I sparked up the Internet. I’d had a few emails overnight… notifications of jobs about which I wasn’t interested, Amazon recommending that which I’ve already bought from them, crap from LinkedIn which I and no one else ever reads.
I had a particularly misleading email from Crosskeys travel. They’d offered a week’s canal boating for to hundred quid. And then I read the small print. What they’d said was actually based on a family of four going. The cost was actually eight hundred quid. Not two hundred. And that didn’t include petrol.

I spent a little while solving geo-puzzles in the Dover area (just in case) then took the dogs for a little walk round the roads. For once I remembered that on Saturday mornings the park is monopolised by the Park Run people. We had a relatively good walk; Treacle pulled like a train, and Fudge managed to stay away from the nasty dogs who were snapping and snarling at everyone and everything.

One home we settled the dogs and walked up to the railway station where we met Matt. We took the train to Dover with Jimbo joining us on the way, and we met Terry and Irene at the Maison Dieu for the Dover Beer Festival. We’ve not done this for a few years; it was good to go back. I do like the Dover beer festival. It started yesterday, but talking to the organisers only three beers sold out last night. We had a rather good session; Terry brought along crisps and pork pies. And I had a guzzle of:
  • Russian Rouble (7.3%)
  • York Chocolate Stout (5%)
  • Rutland Beast(5.3%)
  • Victorian Porter (5%)
  • Hot Chocolate Special (5.5%)
  • Nelson’s Blood (6%)
  • Laid Back Stout (5.7%)
  • Slow Black (5.1%)
  • Good Lord (5%)
  • Black IPA (5.8%)
 As we poured the beer down our necks there was all sorts of stuff going on. There was live music in the background that *wasn’t* deafening, there was a tombola from which you could win Good Beer Guides from up to eleven years ago. I even transmitted live to the world – you can see the videos on Facebook and there’s an album of photos too.

After the fifth pint we thought we’d had an elegant sufficiency and we said our goodbyes. Pausing only briefly to look suspicious as we lurked up a footpath by the railway station for geo-reasons, we managed to miss the train by a couple of minutes. We took the opportunity for a cup of coffee at the station, but this didn’t stop us dozing off on the train.
It was just as well I woke just as we pulled in to Ashford.

Once home we walked the dogs round the block, had some KFC, and watched an episode of “Hunted”.
I really should have an early night… I’ve an early start tomorrow,,,

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