The Largest Game Of Hide And Seek
It's been something of a disruptive weekend really, with plans being changed at whim and the like. Friday we were due to go to the rock club with Stray, but he cancelled at around 8pm, meaning it was just going to be Wolfie and I. I had worked from home that day in anticipation of a late night but thinking through the scneario, and being reminded of the impending need to remortgage the house, we thought it best that we stay in and save the money. We had a load of beers in the fridge anyway and this meant we had a rather relaxed evening watching Taskmaster, while it also enabled me to get some lengthy guitar practice in.
Stray was out on Saturday, however, as we had planned to go to the Nomadic Brewery open day. This is literally just down the road from where I work and they wanted to christen the building before they moved all of the brewing equipment into it. This saw them run a modest beer festival, with their keg ales being the main exhibit. Brewers Toast, who brew all of their beers from stale bread, and the Truth Hurts Brewery were the only others in attendance, meaning there was only five beers on draft at any one time (plus four bottles of different Toast beers). This meant sampling the beers was quite straightforward, and we did enjoy just relaxing in the ambience of what was really a whitewashed warehouse. This event was run in part by Mike Hampshire, which is how I had known about it, and there were a good one hundered people in attendance. We spent most of our time stood up, but we did move to the tressle tables and picnic area with its miscellany of chairs as the numbers thinned out later on.
Having a taste of beer, we then headed over to the North Bar Tap Room, which was just over the road. They have an Octoberfest event on right now with currywurst chips being on offer as part of it. These were delicious and as we sat over two different thirds of their newest beers, we did think how lucky we were to have all of these amazing breweries right on our doorstep.
The next trip was to Brewdog North Street as they had a Ridgeside Tap Takeover on. This had actually taken place on Friday and the initial plan had been to go here before the rock night but with the Scofflaw Tap Takeover at Brewdog Leeds cancelled due to Scofflaw's crass 'free beer if you support Trump' campaign, we thought we might as well take in Ridgeside. These beers were surprisingly excellent, highlighting just how improved this brewery has become over the last two years or so. We also had pizza in this bar and quite a heart-to-heart conversation as things have not been going particularly well for any of us right now. It was an important way to end the evening though as Stray headed off about eight, leaving Wolfie and I alone in the bar. It was after this that things started to take a turn for the worst, with my self-harm issue manifesting itself very intensely. The edge was taken off it slightly by seeing a husky doggo friend - we actually moved to be closer to him - but I spent most of the evening in the bathroom repeatedly punching or scratching myself. The intensity of feeling only grew once we had left the bar and I think last night was as close to suicide as I have ever come. Fortunately, Wolfie was on hand to protect me and my mood swiftly oscillated back towards euphoria before crashing once again. I should probably stop drinking as it only exascerbates it.
I woke up groggy, even though I stayed up about fours hours after we had gotten home. I was in a melancholic music mood and hit after hit forced me up later and later. I was largely with it by that point and I didn't make an arse of myself online or anywhere, so that was something. However, I did wake up feeling incredibly down and have been wallowing through that morass all day. Fortunately, Arcais was on hand as we had arranged to do a canal walk together. This had meant to be a whole group thing, but I have gotten sick of organising everything and so it was just us two in the end. We met at Apperley Bridge with the intention of walking to Shipley. It was a nice crisp sunny autumnal morning and although I was still a little on edge following the events of last night, I soon relaxed into it, particularly after Arc had shown me the delights of Geocaching. I had never really been introduced to this before and thought the whole concept was fantastic, so soon I was massively on board trying to find as many caches as possible. This saw us detour well away from the canal and into Buck Wood, looking for a range of cannisters, containers and film cases. Arc had brought some little stickers to leave, but most of them were just log books we needed to fill in, but it was amazing to be involved in this huge game of hide and seek, and I had to admire the ingenuity of the people who had deposited the caches. A lot of the time, they just look like rubbish, but wedged under stones or rocks, they took on a deeper meaning. My favourites were those just clipped onto or underneath buildings, with some having had brackets specially made.
We spent about three hours walking, far longer than we had intended, not getting into Shipley until well after 2pm. I hadn't ever been to the main town centre bit before, so I found this strangely fascinating, even if the place had a depressed air about it. We ended up in Costa, where I got a delicious ham and brie panini and a black forest hot chocolate, with purple sprinkles on top. This was incredibly calorific but exceptionally good, a unique thing that I had not tried before. After lunch, we then decided to walk around Iceland as they have just launched a new veggie range over which Arc was incredibly excited before we headed our separate ways - Arc back to Eccles Hill and me back home via Bradford. Wolfie has been revising for most of the day, then popped out, so I've had the house to myself since then. I was so tired, I fell asleep for about two hours but I have still managed to squeeze a gym session in though before writing this. It's looking like we will be doing another geocaching event in two weeks, with most of the group in attendance too, so that's something I am very much looking forward to. Indeed, we may even get the day walk and picnic that I had intended today to have been all along.
Stray was out on Saturday, however, as we had planned to go to the Nomadic Brewery open day. This is literally just down the road from where I work and they wanted to christen the building before they moved all of the brewing equipment into it. This saw them run a modest beer festival, with their keg ales being the main exhibit. Brewers Toast, who brew all of their beers from stale bread, and the Truth Hurts Brewery were the only others in attendance, meaning there was only five beers on draft at any one time (plus four bottles of different Toast beers). This meant sampling the beers was quite straightforward, and we did enjoy just relaxing in the ambience of what was really a whitewashed warehouse. This event was run in part by Mike Hampshire, which is how I had known about it, and there were a good one hundered people in attendance. We spent most of our time stood up, but we did move to the tressle tables and picnic area with its miscellany of chairs as the numbers thinned out later on.
Having a taste of beer, we then headed over to the North Bar Tap Room, which was just over the road. They have an Octoberfest event on right now with currywurst chips being on offer as part of it. These were delicious and as we sat over two different thirds of their newest beers, we did think how lucky we were to have all of these amazing breweries right on our doorstep.
The next trip was to Brewdog North Street as they had a Ridgeside Tap Takeover on. This had actually taken place on Friday and the initial plan had been to go here before the rock night but with the Scofflaw Tap Takeover at Brewdog Leeds cancelled due to Scofflaw's crass 'free beer if you support Trump' campaign, we thought we might as well take in Ridgeside. These beers were surprisingly excellent, highlighting just how improved this brewery has become over the last two years or so. We also had pizza in this bar and quite a heart-to-heart conversation as things have not been going particularly well for any of us right now. It was an important way to end the evening though as Stray headed off about eight, leaving Wolfie and I alone in the bar. It was after this that things started to take a turn for the worst, with my self-harm issue manifesting itself very intensely. The edge was taken off it slightly by seeing a husky doggo friend - we actually moved to be closer to him - but I spent most of the evening in the bathroom repeatedly punching or scratching myself. The intensity of feeling only grew once we had left the bar and I think last night was as close to suicide as I have ever come. Fortunately, Wolfie was on hand to protect me and my mood swiftly oscillated back towards euphoria before crashing once again. I should probably stop drinking as it only exascerbates it.
I woke up groggy, even though I stayed up about fours hours after we had gotten home. I was in a melancholic music mood and hit after hit forced me up later and later. I was largely with it by that point and I didn't make an arse of myself online or anywhere, so that was something. However, I did wake up feeling incredibly down and have been wallowing through that morass all day. Fortunately, Arcais was on hand as we had arranged to do a canal walk together. This had meant to be a whole group thing, but I have gotten sick of organising everything and so it was just us two in the end. We met at Apperley Bridge with the intention of walking to Shipley. It was a nice crisp sunny autumnal morning and although I was still a little on edge following the events of last night, I soon relaxed into it, particularly after Arc had shown me the delights of Geocaching. I had never really been introduced to this before and thought the whole concept was fantastic, so soon I was massively on board trying to find as many caches as possible. This saw us detour well away from the canal and into Buck Wood, looking for a range of cannisters, containers and film cases. Arc had brought some little stickers to leave, but most of them were just log books we needed to fill in, but it was amazing to be involved in this huge game of hide and seek, and I had to admire the ingenuity of the people who had deposited the caches. A lot of the time, they just look like rubbish, but wedged under stones or rocks, they took on a deeper meaning. My favourites were those just clipped onto or underneath buildings, with some having had brackets specially made.
We spent about three hours walking, far longer than we had intended, not getting into Shipley until well after 2pm. I hadn't ever been to the main town centre bit before, so I found this strangely fascinating, even if the place had a depressed air about it. We ended up in Costa, where I got a delicious ham and brie panini and a black forest hot chocolate, with purple sprinkles on top. This was incredibly calorific but exceptionally good, a unique thing that I had not tried before. After lunch, we then decided to walk around Iceland as they have just launched a new veggie range over which Arc was incredibly excited before we headed our separate ways - Arc back to Eccles Hill and me back home via Bradford. Wolfie has been revising for most of the day, then popped out, so I've had the house to myself since then. I was so tired, I fell asleep for about two hours but I have still managed to squeeze a gym session in though before writing this. It's looking like we will be doing another geocaching event in two weeks, with most of the group in attendance too, so that's something I am very much looking forward to. Indeed, we may even get the day walk and picnic that I had intended today to have been all along.