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The annual Catch The Wind Festival 2010 brought one of the better days of the year for adults to fly kites. The kids just had to sit and watch and hope that mum or dad would get fed up eventually and hand over the kite strings. At least those with kids did but [...]]]>

The annual Catch The Wind Festival 2010 brought one of the better days of the year for adults to fly kites. The kids just had to sit and watch and hope that mum or dad would get fed up eventually and hand over the kite strings. At least those with kids did but as usual there were far more adults than kids on the beach.

It didn’t seem as well attended as last year, the crowds on the promenade didn’t seem as busy and not as many non-organised kites being flown. Some people made the most of it with BBQs on the beach and the ice cream vans coining it in.

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Long hot day and it’s going to be a warm evening so what better than a cool drink? There’s a litre of Heineken in the fridge already so lager is on the menu tonight. Where better to pick up a few bottles than the Wineyard and Deli? As usual I end up walking [...]]]>

Long hot day and it’s going to be a warm evening so what better than a cool drink? There’s a litre of Heineken in the fridge already so lager is on the menu tonight. Where better to pick up a few bottles than the Wineyard and Deli? As usual I end up walking out with far more than I intended. My original idea for a bottle or two of lager turned into 7 mixed lagers and a bottle of tequila.

So it’s tequila tasting night. Can I make a brew as good as my joint-favourite lager, Desperados? (The other joint-favourite is Zeitgeist or Guinness Black Lager, same stuff). I will be updating this blog as the evening progresses with photos to accompany the notes.

First off the mark is Tequila on it’s own. What can I say? If you can’t imagine what being stranded in a desert and sucking the juice out of a cactus to survive tastes like, buy a bottle of Tequila and pour yourself a glass. The heat poured into my stomach and I turned to make sure I had some paracetemol.

Turning towards the fridge to cool down, the Heineken is well chilled after 24 hours. Tequila and Heineken, there still remains the image and taste of a cactus but yet again the lime changes everything. The cactus has gone and the lager comes back to the taste buds but with an over-sized alcoholic content. One pint, a shot of tequila, lime and a light head. Make the most of this particular update, it’s probably the last sensible update tonight.

Heading back to the fridge I remember the home made bread that was waiting for me when I awoke this morning. A thick crusty slice and let’s see if it soaks up some of the alcohol …. No, still light headed. Ahh well, let’s go for it. First decision of the evening has to be if you wouldn’t normally think of tasting cactus, don’t try tequila on it’s own.

And so to the La Trappe Trappist, with tequila and lime of course. Hmmm, different. On it’s own not the taste I was expecting, with tequila and lime … can’t wait for the next drink to try because this is disgusting. Luckily Mr Bean is enough of a distraction to allow me to drink it, slowly, without realising how bad it is. Laugh, drink, WTF!, laugh.

Actually, this tasting thing isn’t going to last, not after Trappist, tequila and lime. If I find a mix suitable to talk about later and manage to see QWERTY instead of DRUNKY then I’ll update this blog but right now, I’m looking forward to curling up on the sofa.

Another 30 minutes and still looking at the Trappist wondering why I added tequila to it. Down the sink and onto the next but this time I’ll taste before adding tequila to make sure there’s a chance it won’t make me ill. Not even the HX5 with image stabiliser will help focus on the bottles so no piccies for a while.

La Trappe Blond? Well, it’s drinkable but I won’t be buying any more from the Von Trappe family again.

Moving on, Brew Dog 77 Lager and lime. That’s more like it, not bad on it’s own but the lime just gives it the edge. At university many many years ago we’d laugh at the girls with their lager and lime but putting aside the thick cordial, I have definitely decided lime improves any lager. That brings back a memory, out with the girls on a Guinness promotion night. As a student uni rep, we had free Guinness while everyone else paid about 10p/pint but the girls stuck to their lager & lime. After a few hours, whenever someone shouted “coming through”, a gap would open between bar and loos as one of the guys headed home to throw up before coming back for more. That and the five legged pub crawl, time to go for a wander back around UMIST and see if the old bars are still there. Not now of course, the 77 is making up for the stupid mistake of thinking La Trappe brewed lager, that’s the last time I assume beer on the right, lager on the left.

I think I’ve finally found something positive to say about Tequila. Drink enough of it and even Britain’s Got Talent looks good. So we move from 77 to Warsteiner, with lime of course. Why did I choose Warsteiner? Not a clue! A stock lager, standard taste, lime to the rescue.

And so we come to the end of the evening. Only a few bottles left and the Tequila safely locked away, ready to bring out at the birthday bash and watch everyone elses reactio. Time for a Corona and lime, can’t think of anything better apart from a Desperados.

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So what’s been going on recently? CountryFest at the County Ground near Milnthorpe [...]]]> Yet again I find myself posting a catch-up. Life inter-twines with work and I rarely if ever discuss work on forums or blogs. Same goes for weekends, most of them spent with family who might not appreciate me discussing our lives publicly.

So what’s been going on recently? CountryFest at the County Ground near Milnthorpe (Martin Platt sells cheese). A stroll around Lancaster. A few drinks. A day trip to Valetta. A few more drinks. A day trip to Edinburgh. An evening in the Palatine trying tequilla. Watching the last match at Christie Park (Christie Park vs Jaws, Jaws is winning).

Most of it is in photos, click here for my Flickr PhotoStream.

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I doubt I will ever understand rail fares. £27 off-peak to Edinburgh, £74 to London – 40 miles further but only 15 minutes longer journey time. So why nearly 3 times more expensive for a Saturday day trip?

So, keeping up my tight-fisted reputation, I took the cheaper trip to Edinburgh. A message to one [...]]]>

I doubt I will ever understand rail fares. £27 off-peak to Edinburgh, £74 to London – 40 miles further but only 15 minutes longer journey time. So why nearly 3 times more expensive for a Saturday day trip?

So, keeping up my tight-fisted reputation, I took the cheaper trip to Edinburgh. A message to one of my colleagues sums up my first impression, I’ve heard more Scottish accents in our Hull office than I was hearing in Edinburgh. Especially along the Royal Mile, most shops had multi-lingual signs and were being poured over by foreign tourists, with a noticeable lack of American accents.

I chose not to take the tourist buses, instead walking up to the castle, back down the royal mile, away from the town centre, back in via St James Shopping Centre, out the other, found one or two exclusive shopping streets and eventually back to Waverley Station and home.

I expected the trains to be a bit busy but both directions, Voyagers were doubled up as 10-coach trains and I had a coach to myself all the way home. I didn’t see anyone else go past in the front 5 coaches so the shop assistant had a very easy journey.

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Starting off with the idea of a weekend in Newcastle, we booked a weekend in Belfast. Not sure why but thanks to Ryanair and Lastminute.com we got an excellent deal. Very uneventful to the airport and got on the plane nice and early. Then got off the plane because Ryanair operations decided to send the [...]]]>

Starting off with the idea of a weekend in Newcastle, we booked a weekend in Belfast. Not sure why but thanks to Ryanair and Lastminute.com we got an excellent deal. Very uneventful to the airport and got on the plane nice and early. Then got off the plane because Ryanair operations decided to send the plane next to us to Belfast instead. So we got off, queued for 20 minutes and got on ….. the same plane because operations changed their mind.

A quick taxi ride to the Hilton and checked in. Lastminute.com confirmation said room only, Hilton said B&B, get in there! Dumped the bags and straight out. Bit of sightseeing but aimed towards The Crown, an historic gas lit pub. A few drinks in The Crown watching the football scores come in, well done MFC.

What better to follow a few pints but some food. The iPhone said we were near a few restaurants and one sounded rather interesting, Made In Belfast, so we headed there. Normally fully booked on a Saturday night, we got a cancellation and sat straight down. The restaurant is Banksy meets Northern Ireland Cuisine. Whacky but an amazing place, fantastic food and nice wines. My only disappointment from the restaurant is my camera decided to take a blurry photo of a genuine Banksy on the wall, the one with George Best.

Absolutely stuffed, back to the hotel to rest for an hour. Somehow I managed not to fall asleep through Britain’s Not Got Talent then down to the hotel bar for a nightcap. As usual we sat people watching and there was enough activity to keep us there an hour or two.

Sunday morning breakfast and a full fry-up then off on the open top bus tour. A good hour and a half later, windswept and cold, into the café across the road from the bus stop. Then a bit of shopping – they open 1pm-6pm Sundays in Northern Ireland. Still cold, nipped in to The Roost Lounge for a drink and lunch. A band were setting up so we stayed a bit longer.

This weekend it’s Festival of Fools, 4 days of street theatre. We came across an act just starting and stayed to watch. Funny enough to keep us out in the near cold for an hour. And so the weekend was nearly over. We didn’t realise how late it was and how long we’d been out.

Back to the hotel for our bags, a drink and tea before the quick taxi ride back to the airport.

Yet again Ryanair kept us entertained. Yet again on the plane early only for the lights to dip followed by a loud steady warning bleep from the cockpit. Sat at the front we could hear the stewardess/pilot conversations going on. The ground power had failed and tripped something on the plane setting of the warning tones. No engineer’s in Belfast, the pilot got his torch and climbed into the front wheel to reset the tripped switch.

We sat there for 10 minutes in darkness, the sun was setting and they had to reboot the plane to force the automatic tests to make sure everything was OK. Even the emergency lighting went off. Eventually everything sprung into life except for the warning tones to back to Liverpool and a short drive home.

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http://www.morecambe.gov.uk/index.php

The only complete page seems to be the councillor’s details, [...]]]> It’s been nearly a year in the making so you might exepct a bit more content but sadly there is little to read. As for What’s On, well, I hope after the recent news in the local press there’s a bit more than nothing.

http://www.morecambe.gov.uk/index.php

The only complete page seems to be the councillor’s details, obviously they are keeping costs down by all having the same mobile phone number There’s a sort-of discussion board, they type the questions and we can reply. It doesn’t work, they are using captcha technology but don’t display the captcha letters to type back.

I’m guessing the web site wasn’t meant to be seen publicly yet but thanks to Google Alerts, it’s been found

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