The north and beer

[shermarama]

Last weekend - drove to the NORTH along 370 miles of the A1, to a campsite in the village of Coldingham, just into southeast Scotland. We stayed in a static caravan, which was sufficiently well-appointed (gas stove! on which you can turn things down when they get to the boil!) that it was easy to forget it was a caravan, until someone walked around and it wobbled, or until the tissue-thin walls revealed Alan as our caravan's champion snorer. (An interestingly irregular snore, with plenty of volume capacity but also a lot of dynamic range, for snoring connoisseurs.) There are two pubs in the village, not counting the campsite's own terrible bar, which we mostly didn't, and one had various lagers and no real ale, and the other had Harviestoun Bitter & Twisted on draught but only Tennent's rubbish lager, which led to a certain amount of tension. The one with the ale also did amazing food, though, so we had a blow-out dinner on the last night, including a whole baked Camembert and a dish called Scottish Chicken involving haggis, black pudding, chicken and a wholegrain mustard sauce which was amazing. We also actually did some diving - two days of shore diving and two days on a hard boat, all of it on rocky reefs in about five to fifteen metres, with no metal in sight but lots of life, including prodigious numbers of crabs and lobsters. Sometimes the lobsters were in pots, but only the small ones since the large ones are too canny to fall for them, and sometimes the crabs were in the pots, but only to nab the fish left in there as bait since crabs can get out again, and where the crabs were ripping up the bait there were usually clouds of smaller fish swimming in and out nabbing the leftovers, crabs being messy eaters. All in all wildlife 1, lobster fishermen 0. I've not done that much shore diving before but on the basis of that I'd be happy to do it again. Even the dive off Pettico Wick which involved getting about thirty kilos of gear each up and down a cliff wall, although the bloke from another group who'd fractured his ankle halfway up and had to have his drysuit cut off by the ambulance crew might not agree.

It was a long drive home after having done two dives on Monday morning, but there was an amusing diversion in the middle. There was a literal diversion off the A1 in Rutland, and with Chris to map-read for me we set out on an ambitious route of B roads to get down to Stamford and thereby back on the A1. There was a whole convoy of us going the same way, so I assumed that since almost everyone else has sat-nav, that must be telling them to go the same way, and thought no more of it, til we got to a small village where I missed a right turn. I realised as I passed it that I'd missed it, and the next right was just after it and with a wide opening, so I signalled right and turned right round on myself. As did the next several cars, who must have just thought I looked like I knew where I was going. I thought people didn't do that sort of thing any more, in the age of sat-nav?

I'm working the GBBF tonight. I think being on this side of it is going to be more fun than just being a punter, as I often find these things to be. For a start there's a whole volunteer area on the top floor with a canteen and a couple of bars, with some beers that aren't available at the festival, and then we can also buy reduced-price beer tokens to buy beer on the main floor with. You're not supposed to drink in front of the public or be drunk when serving, but another perk is free entry on a night you're not working, so we went last night and got eight halves of interesting ale for a fiver. If some of you are going later in the week and it's still on, the Dunham Massey Chocolate Cherry Mild on the Wetherspoons bar tastes like cherry coke, more or less, and is very entertaining. Although frustating if you're Chris and like everything cherry flavoured but hate milds.

Comments

[steer.livejournal.com]

Shore diving can be really great can't it.

Still, I was on a pretty luxurious hard boat (Dive time out of Weymouth) this weekend and very grateful for the crew with their soup, coffee and sandwiches.

[shermarama]

Our hard boat wasn't exactly luxurious. We managed to get the only one in the harbour without a lift nor even a fin ladder, and the refreshments were tea or coffee, neither of which I drink, and cheap and nasty chocolate biscuits. We weren't going very far on the actual boat, though. And all our club are much more used to RIB diving, so anything solid feels like an improvement.

[steer.livejournal.com]

I've still not done a RIB actually. I've dived from really good dive boats with the full "let me take your BCD for you sir, you sit down here" and shabby tiny fishing boats with an outboard and a local fisherman saying "I get two points if I aim at your head as you surface right?" but never dived from a RIB. (It would be a nightmare with our club since we are used to S P R E A D I N G O U T when putting dive gear on a boat. I swear, twelve of our club could cover the deck of an oil tanker with dive gear.

[shermarama]

Our club owns two RIBS, so almost all of our diving is done from them. You get used to it, really; everything has a place and you have to keep it in its place. Kit in mesh bags up the front til you're using it, and then I usually extract all of it at once and put things like gloves and hood in pockets til I put them on, because there's nowhere to put things down. In the Scillies there was nowhere for air fills at lunch, so we had a complete second set of cylinders stowed up the front to be changed over at lunchtime too.

[steer.livejournal.com]

Ooooh... two RIBS get you guys! We have to save up for a snorkel in Hackney. :-)

I systematically put gloves and computer in the pocket of one fin and mask in the other. Means I always know where they are. (Hood is attached to wetsuit so unlikely to be lost).

[khalinche.livejournal.com]

You were there last night too? Bah. I doubt we crossed over, though, because I went with timeplease et al for the daytime trade session when it was a bit quieter and less crazily full, and we left about 6. Which was right after I discovered the Rogue Ales chocolate stout (not just chocolately malt but actual, proper rich chocolate-flavoured beer NOM NOM NOM) which was just as well because I probably would have just ended up drinking that for the rest of the evening.

I was just complaining to himself the other night about the lack of Harviestoun's Bitter&Twisted on draught south of the border, as it is something like my favourite blond beer. It might show up at the next Pembury beer festival :-)

[shermarama]

We wouldn't have done, no, I only got there about half seven. Tuesday night wasn't excessively busy, and last night didn't feel like it although apparently it was substantially busier than last year's Wednesday. I'll have to look for that chocolate stout; I think I'm there again on Saturday.

Bitter & Twisted is everyone's favourite blond beer once they've tried it.