Suzie Shooter

So, beer festival. Lovely weather, after the shite that was Thursday, and, I think, loads more beers on than last year. Although we still managed an impressively high hit count on the old "I'll have X please" - "sorry, X is off/run out/not ready yet."

After years of muttering about how they should work the token system, finally, they have cracked it! Yes, 1 token = 1 half. There, that wasn't hard was it luvvies? Also, they labelled the barrels brown/gold/dark etc, which is immensely helpful, for when they declare you can't have the one you've carefully selected from the programme and you have that moment of blind panic and random pointing.

So,what did I have? *consults rather sticky guide*
( pix and further beer rambling under the cut )

Sadly I failed to get a picture of the bowler-hat-wearing dog. (No, really. No, I hadn't drunk that much, honest.)

Also saw the ever-lovely rhosyndu, and several people from the hospital obviously having bunked off in a similar fashion to me :D

Didn't stay that late, in the end, but it was a very nice way to spend a sunny afternoon!

I bought a pumpkin yesterday! (Look, little things, okay?) Anyway, the stalk stabbed my thumb full of splinters, then did the same thing to the check-out girl. I was sympathetic at the time, but I've just discovered she charged me twice for a bottle of wine, so bwahahahahah.

I was intending to have a productive morning today, but I went back to sleep, and consequently (a) have only just emerged, and (b) had really weird dreams. Kidnappings, escapes through booby trapped old mansions, henchmen, possibly now I think about it that guy from the Conchords who was on Buzzcocks, and some sort of blonde princess effort, who I was making a pass at. She didn't mind, either :D

Beer festival later. Suppose it would be too much to hope Rory/Dara/Griff are there on their way back wouldn't it.

ETA: Also on the dream front I've just remembered - yesterday at work we were moving the neonatal ward - and I had a mad dream about that, in which the lady in charge had shrunk to the size of Yoda and was wearing Jedi robes, and I was being helped by Julian Rhind Tutt and Stephen Mangan. I worry about my brain, sometimes...

ETA2: Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall - cramming in more and more innuendo each week, Y/Y?

( being the long (and possibly tedious to anyone else) account of Suzie's adventures in the big city )

So we went back to the Beer Festival on Friday, at about 3pm. And left again at about - er - 11pm.

On reflection, the Badgers Arse cider may have been a mistake...

So, Beer Festival Sponsors' Event. Free Beer, which deserves both capitals, for a period of an hour and a half. In which small space of time, it is entirely possible to become quite drunk indeed.

But anyway, the point of this drunk!post being - I has met a rhosyndu! Who is lovely, and much better at talking to random people hitherto only encountered electronically than I am. (I initially spotted her earlier on in the evening, and decided I wasn't yet drunk enough to go up and say hi. Then after a certain further period of concentrated drinking, we did a sort of across the room wave, and a shifty coming together...)

*grins drunkenly shyly, waves*

I haz an upgrade, yayz! Bumped up a banding and a scale point to the next pay level for this secondment. (Which is something like £600 over a year, and I'll only be getting it for 3 months, and there'll be tax out of that, so it's probably only actually enough for an extra pizza or something, but still, yayz!)

Cake update: we just finished off the homemade alcohol-soaked fruitcake that m'colleague had been given, and a couple of minutes later the girl from up t' corridor came in with some 'experimental' cake she'd made for us to try (lemon cake with dark chocolate chunks).

Today is turning out rather better than I'd expected (given that it started with me falling asleep again after my alarm went off and having an insane rush to catch the train).

And tomorrow - free beer at festival sponsors' event! *even bigger yayz*

Yesterday we made our return to the St Ives beer festival (so good we drank it twice).

( mmmn, beer )

Went to the St Ives Beer Festival last night - the Husband does the printing for the local CAMRA events and the company gets a supporter's pack which includes an invite to the preview evening. And *that* means an hour and a half to sample the wares, for free, before the public get their hands on it the next day.

You get a tasting glass which is (I think) about half a pint, maybe a bit less. I managed seven different beers in that hour and a half. And I tell you what, in a room predominently full of men and beards, a pair of red leather trousers don't half get you ushered to the front and served quicker, heh.

They lay on free food too, stuff like local cheese and pickles and pork pie and apple and beetroot - our sampling was going well up to the point we encountered what turned out to be a coffee flavoured cheese. Eww.

We're going again tomorrow, on the train this time so the Husband can drink. We've got free entry to the main event, and a free pint glass, and some free beer tokens. Result!

I can't *believe* I have to go out tonight, why wasn't tonight's F Word on last week when I was in? Grrr. Also, why is it overlapping the QI with Jeremy on it by five minutes? Entirely to piss off my video recorder, that's why.

Anyway, so I got bored at work this afternoon and bought Clarkson on Cars from eBay, woo hoo.

AND, I have a free ticket to the St Ives Beer festival *wins*

PS/ why no comment notifications today? grrr. hope I don't appear to be ignoring anyone...

So there we were, last night, in this very local village pub, if you see what I mean.

We got out of the Mystery Machine van to what I at first assumed was the church clock striking eight. As we crossed the road, it became obvious that it was going on for a lot more than eight, and they weren't particularly regularly spaced/professional sounding. At this point we began looking out for groups of people with pitchforks and flaming torches.

Things didn't become any more comfortable as we entered The Slaughtered Lamb the pub - not only did we get very pointed looks (probably because we didn't have webbed fingers), but as we sat down we noticed one wall was decorated with very big rusty evil looking saws and scythes and things. Gulp.

Still, the beer was good.