So I've spent most of the past few days drinking in a field in Reading. The beer festival is always a good event and this year was bigger and better than before with more choice of beer.
The additional bank holiday was very useful and meant that there were two full days for the crowds to spread themselves over. This along with the larger capacity this year which was also helped by the lack of rain forecast all meant that we didn't end up with quite as enormous a queue as last year and that it took a good long while before it was one-in, one-out. We queue jumped with our Ale Trail tickets though.
Dickon and I made Wednesday evening, Thursday afternoon and evening, Friday all day and Saturday all day. I managed to get through 60 halves of different beers in that time.
The beer was all impeccably kept as you'd expect but this was all the more impressive given the concerns over the hotter weather before the beer festival. Breweries definitely adapt to people's tastes or their perceived tastes and it seems that milds, porters and stouts have in general got a little sweeter. Also Dickon appreciated that there were more pale ales and hoppier ales at the festival than there have been in previous years; some years the festival has been used as a good example of "May Mild Month" to the possible detriment of other styles. This year with the bigger range every style was well represented.
As ever for me the porters were the stars really and I especially
liked:
Mighty Hop - Black Pearl Porter
Box Steam - Steam Porter
Bingham's - Total Eclipse
Plain Ales - Inncognito
Two Towers - Jewellery Porter
In the bitters I really enjoyed:
Bays - Topsail
Arkell's - Moonlight
Dark Star - Partridge Best Bitter
Bewdley - Worcestershire Way
Also whilst I only had a sip of Dickon's pint before the barrel went I
always find Thornbridge Jaipur very tasty.
Oh and Art Brew should get an honourable mention for their Lemon which whilst
I didn't manage to try at the festival I did have some a few days before in
the Hobgoblin; it's a nice drinkable pint that doesn't feel as if the lemon
has been forced into it.
Bingham's are in my list above and their Total Eclipse is a fantastic Black IPA. This is a style that I'm very glad to see and wasn't something I knew at all until earlier this year. We're very lucky to have Bingham's; all their beers are superb and they brew down the road in Ruscombe. They managed sales into lots of the ale trail pubs we went into so I'm sure the people who really care about beer in Berkshire already know about them but if you're just passing through or you see one of their beers on at another beer festival then do try some.
On the down side the over-sweetening went too far for me with Bristol Beer Factory's Bristol Stout and Harviestoun's Black Watch IPA. Also Best Mates beer tasted really quite strange; a couple of friends tried some independently and neither liked it.
Five years ago we all looked younger
I'll stick my photos up on my flickr at some point.
Right, where's my bacon sandwich?
I walked 26 miles on a whim on Saturday. You can see a pretty map of the route.
It was a bit of a crazy idea that kinda just came to me. I knew I wanted
to do more exercise and I hadn't been on a long walk since my 15 miles from
my house round past Mapledurham, Pangbourne, Tilehurst and home. There's
also a really good pub in Frilsham (well, in the middle of nowhere really)
called the Pot Kiln. And I've been
feeling fairly antisocial lately so why not just fuck off on my own all day
long. Oh and the clocks went forward so we have more light during a normal
day.
See, perfectly sane.
Anyway, I plotted out a route to the pub and decided it made most sense to go via the canal. And then I plotted out a route back and it seemed to make sense to come back a different way and well when you totted it up it made 26 miles. I realised I'd have to leave early but I was up stupidly early, went and bought some provisions, got my haircut, made sandwiches, got organised and left at 9:50. I reckoned I could get a taxi from Tidmarsh or walk to Pangbourne and get a train if I got fed up.
Like I said, I walked round this route. The pub is at the 14 mile marker; there's a small dog leg if you zoom in. I made Aldermaston Wharf (8.2 miles) at 12:15 and ate a couple of sandwiches, got near Bucklebury by 13:40 and the pub by 14:15. I had a pint of West Berk's Mr. Chubb's lunchtime bitter and a packet of crisps at the pub. But I gave in to temptation and had a pint of Dark Star Espresso stout; still I managed to be out of the pub and back on my way again by 14:45.
I enjoyed the walk through to Bradfield but around the 19 mile mark I was thinking I'd just get a taxi from Tidmarsh. I made the A340 south of Tidmarsh for 17:00 and had a bit of a burst of energy so decided against the taxi. I also stopped at the Greyhound in Tidmarsh but only to ask if they'd fill my water bottle; thankfully they were happy to do so. I must go back and buy something. I made the edge of Tilehurst (22 miles) by 17:00 but my thighs were really aching by this point and the backs of my feet. It was road all the way back from here so not very exciting but I made it back for 19:00. I average 3mph on the whole route; 3.2 to the pub and 2.8 on the way home.
I'm glad I did it though I ached last night. A bath and stretching at home seem to have stopped anything worse happening; I wasn't sore this morning. I took my camera around with me and the photos are up.
So I've been working in London for a year and three months now and I'm still commuting in. I do constantly think about moving house or moving jobs though.
Today was a tube strike and I walked from Paddington to work. It was a bit of an eye-opener really; I don't think I'd realised that each different bit of London was so individual. I constantly debate with myself the pros and cons of moving in to London. Being able to stay out later, having a better commute to work, being more sociable with the Londoners I know vs living on top of everyone else, not being able to escape as easily, not being able to afford as nice a place to live, missing Twyford friends. But today made me wonder if there is a part of London that's quiet but close in that would suit me. Maybe I should look.
I've also been considering a place closer to the centre of Reading because the annoying bit of my commute is the bus to/from the station too.
Maybe one day I'll make my mind up.
About 4 weeks ago I started working for ScanSafe. I keep forgetting who I've actually told so there you go :)
They do web scanning and I work in Holborn now, commuting in from Reading. Working in an office is good actually; the people are all really friendly though there are obviously some characters. I'm working on the operational team doing project work for them.
Ultimately the commute might kill me so I might move closer to Reading station or closer to London. I don't really know yet and I'm not sure either is an obvious win given I'd have to move out of here.
Anyway, that's my news, what's yours?
It's all Paddy's fault.
Back in May I bought a Nikon D80 which is lovely and since then I've been taking lots of pictures. I've also been discovering how easy it is to spend money on camera bits. Anyway, Paddy suggested I get some of the photos I really liked printed up as they look a lot better that way. I was a bit skeptical at first but I got some printed up by fotopic.net in 6x4 to start with.
It took a bit of work cropping them to exactly the right size but I was really impressed. They do a great job of getting the prints to you quickly and my photos looked better printer somehow (though a couple that needed rotation became obvious). Fotopic lets you blow prints up to 15x10 inches and I chose five of the ones I really liked and get those reprinted larger. They look amazing. You can just see so much more.
The only slight technical hitch was that then I had to frame them to put them on the wall. Noone does 15x10 inch frames (if you know of someone that sells clip frames that size tell me). You can get frames in the A4, A3, A2 etc sizes easily. You can get frames in metric sizes that are the same aspect ratio like 60x40cm and ones that aren't like 40x30. Ho hum. I didn't do my homework and expected that fotopic would only sell enlargements that anyone on the high street would easily frame for me.
In the end I went to picturelizard and got them to make me up frames to the right size. They arrived the other day and putting the pictures on the wall makes it all worth while. It's just a shame I paid more for 1 custom frame than I would have paid for 5 almost-the-right-size-but-not frames. They're also not amazing quality (the 3.50 wrong-sized frame from John Lewis is better) but they're on the wall now.
Basically, if you take digital photos, choose some and get them printed. Even 6x4 they look a lot better than on the computer and it's harder to pass round a computer than a pack of photos. And if you get things enlarged then work out how you're going to frame them first.