Final Fortnight

This morning we run the usual parkrun at Forest Rec and then in the evening we have a night out with some friends we haven’t seen for a couple of millennia.

It seems fitting to meet them in the Crafty Crow, which we also haven’t frequented for aeons, and where Charrington Oatmeal Stout becomes number 176 on my dark beer trail which is now into its final fortnight. So, I’m probably not going to quite reach the double century.

Then we eat in the Calcutta Club, just around the corner on Maid Marion Way. It’s a good meal and an excellent night out is completed with our usual pub crawl up Derby Road. We grab one just before they close in the Room With A Brew before finishing up in the Blue Monkey. I hope our friends made it home ok because I think we were all feeling a bit sloshed by the end of the evening.

(Saturday 15^th April)

Winter Solstice

Some friends are holding a pagan festival of sorts, complete with Pagan Wassail, to commemorate the start of the winter solstice.

We consider something similar but in the end the only ritual I participate in, and as a mere observer, is as Derby County steamroller another fellow championship club, this time Doncaster, as they record their seventh straight win to go within sniffing distance of the top of the table.

L’s choice of ritual is even better, panto, in Yorkshire, and featuring H from Steps.

She heads up to Sheffield on the train while I drive up later to meet her afterwards, bringing Daughter and a sack full of presents back home at the same time.

Back home and waiting for us is a little Christmas treat. Before the match I’d headed off to find the Lincoln Green Brewery in Hucknall and to pick up a boozy Christmas present. L had asked if I could pick her up a bottle of the wonderful Tuck whilst I was there. Having found the place the proprietor tells me they’re all out of bottled Tuck but they do have nine pint polypins... and it is Christmas... 

(Saturday 21^st December)