To the hill fort!

We walked up a hill just behind our campsite - the one behind Yos in yesterday's picture - to see the iron age hill fort there. It was spectacular. It's called Tre'r Ceiri Hillfort.

Trefor, Llyn, Ed's birthday

To celebrate Ed’s birthday, we all went camping to Anglesey. The roster was as follows: Ed; Miriam; Thom; Patti; Ali; Sam; Ben P; Yos; Dunk; Laura; me; someone who wasn’t very friendly whose name escapes me; Owain the climber. Laura and I ran into Dunk in the big Tesco at Bangor, and we conspired on what food to pack. The weather was lovely, and we pitched the tent in the sunshine.

We cooked a barbecue on the beach, and then huddled around a fire made from driftwood as the night drew in.

Christmas Dinner chez Miriam

“Come for Christmas dinner DTRMCR,” said Miriam, “it’s going to be lovely!”
“Yes, please, that sounds lush! I will. What can I bring?”
“Well, may I borrow some chairs?”
“Yes, we’ve got loads, how many do you want?”
“Erm… seven?”
“No problem!”

Life is not all cake and owl.

The pizza party wheel just keeps on turning, and the pizza party wagon rolls on and on and on. Building on the good work of the party with the Padmores and the one with Megan, the third shindig was AWESOME!

We had guests: Champ; Paulina; Laura; Rory; Laura; Pippa; Hannah.

We had games: Pass the Parcel; Talking Heads.

We had cake. Home-made, hand-decorated owl cake.

Pippa and Paulina took steps towards peace between each other (maybe via a two-state solution?) by finding common ground over Twin Peaks. Pass the Parcel went down very well – generosity won hearts and minds all around the room. And then Dunk unveiled the cake. Triumphant! Kate’s face said it all.

Break on through to the other side

Bleugh! After our heavy, heavy night in Chorlton, I had a spectacular hangover. Kate did too. Unfortunately, Kate had to go to work at 8am, and then go dancing to celebrate her own birthday that evening. I was able, thankfully, to stay in bed.

Lucian called, explaining that he was in town, and asking if I fancied joining him for a pint. Yes, I thought, why not? Because you feel rough as arses, and very dehydrated? Not good enough! We met in the Northern, and enjoyed a few pints in the company of Jamie. Jamie, a teacher, had raised two butterflies in his class at school. The kids had named one of them Michael Jackson. Pun king Lucian was soon riffing away - "It don't matter if you're Cabbage White." Jamie pointed out that these puns were amongst the least transferrable of all gags because they were so specifically tied to the concept of a butterfly named Michael Jackson. Four pints and many laughs later, we said farewell and I shot back to Stretford.

I don't know how Kate managed to push through her tiredness, but after some booze in the house, we were out again. In the Sand Bar, we ended up divided into two groups: Chaw's friends and Kate's friends. Danesh Ali, Miriam, the Padmores and several others showed up at once, which furthered the wedge between the two halves of the party. So it goes, I guess. When it came to moving to a dancing place, Chaw and her friends elected to drink at the Deaf Institute, while we trooped to the Tiger Lounge. Robbie was there, and Champ too. We danced and drank and danced some more. It was - I think - a brilliant occasion. I think, because my drunken memories are vague... Karaoke at 3am... Chips... Another hangover approaching...?

You'll never get to heaven in a camper van...

T Shirt: Batman, light blue
Weather: Hot, with light rain later on.

What a relaxing day. Partly out of solidarity for Dunk’s driving, and partly as a result of feeling queasy during the day on Saturday, I decided to stay off the booze all day. My knee hurt a little too, so I planned to spend as much of the day sitting down as possible.

We ran into Miriam and the Padmore party, Evan, Clem and Al at the bank by the main stage. In a tumble of hugs and joy, we sledged down the hillside on our backsides.

The group dynamics of the festival as a whole were strange – the parties that we lounged around with were made up of various friendships, some strong and deep, others mild and frivolous, some overlapping, others independent of one another. I know Thom, who knows Spud, but Spud and I don’t know each other at all. The rules of interrupting a conversation between two of your friends are markedly different to those governing interrupting a conversation between your friend and a stranger. With the former, in general, one would wait until they were done, whereas with the latter, in general, one might interject earlier. This difference was very prominent in the festival environment. I found myself interrupted as the stranger, or interrupted as the friend, on more than one occasion. I’m sure I must have interrupted as the outsider too.

There were so many people there, flowing past, who maybe I’d meet again, or maybe not – Sally Pilkington, Evan, Spud, Cassie. Who knows?

I wasn’t impressed with Trembling Bells, whose vocal gymnastics bored me, but I thought Cranium Pie were ace. I might have gotten over my crush on the She of She Keeps Bees – not quite as charismatic when she’s a bit further away. I thought that the Yellow Moon Band didn’t really get going, a difficult trait to succeed with at the tired end of festivities. Dirty Three were fun, and funny. And Wilco? Wow. Stunning.

Dunk’s endurance drive home started at 12.26, and ended at 4.20. What a hero. We tried to keep him awake with classic rock, volume up LOUD, and with a little rhyming game…

You’ll never get to heaven in baked bean tin…

…because a baked bean tin’s got beans in.

The best of which was

You’ll never get to heaven in a bacon sarnie…

….because a bacon sarnie smells like Arnie

“I’ll be BAC-on.”

The Green Man party line-up

looks like this:

Dunk
Kate
Ryan
Miriam
Culture Thom
Ali Danesh
Ed Chemical?
Paul Collins + some
Saxaphone Kate
Nic from Oddest + some
Sionedd + some

…and I think there are a couple of bands on too.

Work sucks, I know

Sam, whose job has changed under the workings of a Dark Lord and is moving to a police station...

Thom, trying to find a job in London to be with his belle...

Miriam, whose organisation is making 50% of its workforce redundant...

...hanging out with some friends this evening made me feel better about my current working arrangements.

Cycling, Miriam, Beer, Beer, Beer

I went to a cycling conference with ALF. The audience’s attire was mixed: a suit here; a short-sleeved shirt, smart shorts and loafers combo there; several in a polo shirt and khakis; one or two hardcore types in neon and lycra.

Afterwards I met up with Miriam, who I hadn’t seen for ages. It was brilliant to see her. We talked about cycling, about running, about work, and about chewing gum. Nothing much, but much more than nothing too. We pulled into Stockport, and hooked up with Thom and Al before the Beer Festival. Thom was being weird again, as he has been for the last six months since he moved out of Withington. Distant, disinterested, elusive. Where’s his appetite for fun gone?



At the beer festival I drank…

Crown Wheat Beer 5.5%
Ulverston Harvest Moon 3.9%
Salopian Barry's light Mild 4.0%
Marble Bee 4.8 %
Farmhouse medium 5.8%
Janet’s Jungle Juice at 6%
A pint of something else strong

…and thought I’d lost my keys. Hammered.

Knott the wisest move

Friday Pint After Work Club with ALF became Knott with Liz. Thom came down, but didn't really have much to say for himself, and cleared off pretty quickly. We went to Atlas, to Dulcimer, and home with a kebab and a bottle of whiskey. I was sick. Not very smart.

Celebrity Salad

Vin lives just off Green Lanes, near Finsbury Park. Even though I’d seen him recently, I felt pretty bad for ditching on the Ship’s birthday bash, so I gladly accepted the invitation to his Christmas meal. The house is lovely, with lots of communal space. It felt very homely to sit at the table, reading the letters page of New Scientist, as Helen made a cake and Hammond assembled mince pies. We drank champagne and watched Arsenal v Liverpool. I hadn’t seen Anna, Martin or Dave O since what felt like forever, and I really enjoyed catching up with them - even Martin, who I pretend to hate. Mulled wine followed, and then Celebrity Salad, a game.

1. Find a hat, some paper, some pens, and a watch that counts seconds.
2. Divide into two equal teams, appoint a scorer for each.
3. Each player writes five names of noteworthy people on slips of paper and tosses them into the hat.
4. Players take turns, alternating between teams, of one minute to get their team mates to guess the names pulled out of the hat, with the following restrictions:
· ROUND 1 – Players can say anything except what is written on the cards.
· ROUND 2 – Normal charades rules.
· ROUND 3 – A one-word clue, delivered with no actions.
5. One name guessed is one point scored.
6. No name pulled from the hat can be skipped.
7. A name is ‘live’ until successfully guessed, at which point it is put outside the hat until the next round.
8. A name pulled out of the hat, but not correctly guessed by the end of the turn is ‘live’ and goes back into the hat.
9. A round goes on until all names in the hat have been correctly guessed.
10. At the end of the round, all names go back into the hat for the next round.
11. After three rounds, the team with the highest score wins.
12. The non-guessing team are responsible for making sure the guessing team and the clue-giver are within the rules of the game.

It was great to see Chris Sewards and John Gripton too. Good times. Port followed, then Jack Daniels, and eventually stupor.

Thom's house

My good friend Thom moved away from Manchester today. He was the main connection in my life between Sheffield and Manchester, and now he has gone, to Chester, briefly, and then on to London. Last night I went round to his house to collect the Woody Guthrie CD I’d lent him, and for one last beer under his roof. I was glad Ed was there too.

I felt sad. With all the toys packed away, it didn’t seem like their house anymore. What happened to the bookshelves? And where had that breakfast bar come from? It was like looking at an echo of the place I knew, the same but fainter, distorted. Thom’s house was the setting for lot of fun times. I remember sweet potato and goats cheese mash and making a crumble one Sunday after the football. I remember playing the name game on the night that Owen was leaving. I remember a very spicy Chorizo soup. I remembered kissing Liz for the first time, the exact moment, in the yard. The pizza party, jerk chicken with Kier, watching The Warriors projected onto the wall. I remember chopping with Miriam one afternoon, as we waited for everybody else to get there. I remember taking Pippa round for mulled wine last Christmas.

“It’s odd how your situation mirrors mine,” said Thom. “There’s something therapeutic about putting things into boxes, don’t you think?” Thom’s house was a happy place for me, an escape from Everett when I wanted to bolt. I wish that I could get it out of a box when I need it in the future. That’s not how things work though.

NTS 16

NTS15

Fireworks

Ingredients for a good fireworks night:



4 bottles of good cider
1 flask of mulled wine
Miriam
Liz



10 sparklers
Thom
1 chicken, roasted
tonnes and tonnes of tasty cheese

Chorizo soup, Pete, 4-1

Chorizo and bean soup with Thom, Miriam and Ed, was very tasty, but also so spicy that my ring stung the next day. Yum, but oww! Pete, Pippa's ex with whom I'd not seen eye-to-eye back in the day, was in the Vic. We chatted, got on ok. Very well, actually. England won 4-1. Walcott scored a hat-trick. I'd predicted a 2-0 defeat.

Green Man photodiary

Colin's shed

We helped Colin clean out his shed tonight.

"Do you have the capacity to help put up another shed?" he asked. I hope I can say, "Yes!" to him.

Pizza party

Miriam invited Liz and I round to hers and Thom’s (and Ed’s) for one the best dinners I’ve had in ages. Skater Paul made the table up to six. Ed made courgette fritters from a Nigel Slater recipe that we astonishingly tasty. I felt I’d eaten mine rather too quickly as I lustily watched everybody else savouring theirs. The main course, the main joy of the meal, was pizza.

After part-baking the handmade base, Ed brought it over to the table, and – by committee – the six of us decided on our toppings. Five more minutes in the oven, one slice of heavenly pizza each, repeat until fade. Delicious, and easily the most sociable and collaborative meal making process I’ve been through for ages. And the most enjoyable.

At one point in the evening, smoking outside with Liz, we shared a smile and a little reminiscence. It was where we’d had our first kiss.

I hadn't played chess for ages...

...not since Uni, at least. I think it might have been against my old housemate Ben. But I played tonight, and I won.

I met Liz after work and went for a sly couple of pints at Dukes 92, then we ate chips over ale together in the back of the Vic. I went round to Thom and Miriam and Ed's house for a few beers, a nibble of bruschetta, a little pot and a consequently very intense game of chess.

Never the master tactician, I didn't set out with any particular strategy, other than to try to keep hold of my big hitter pieces. I tickled Thom into leaving his Queen open, then rattled around the back corners of the board clearing out his rooks. Blitzkrieg!