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Two Birthdays
Mar. 27th, 2019 10:53 pmIt has been an incredibly busy few days on account of the birthdays of two close friends - Arcais on Saturday and Stray on Tuesday. This meant we have been out a fair bit, with Saturday seeing me make the unenviable journey of travelling from Manchester to Hull via London. There was a reason to this though - I had been out in Manchester on Friday night with a work function (where I got seven free bottles of beers, so I was pretty pleased), staying over at Stray and Edi's on Friday evening. I didn't get around there until about 11pm and we spent the rest of the evening ranting about Brexit, such is the very swift movement on this issue right now.
Saturday saw me go down to London for the Put It To The People March, necessitating a rather early start which was made difficult by a lack of sleep and high alcohol consumption the previous night. Stray had kindly let me have his bed, which was a little lumpy bumpy but comfortable nonetheless, and I did at least manage to get out at 7:30am and catch the tram to Piccadilly, where I made the 8:15am service to London with time to spare. I had hoped to travel with Patter, but his train was twenty minutes later and £28 more expensive, so I opted to just meet him at Euston and go on the march together. I had arranged to meet up with some of the Furs For Europe crew outside the Burger King at Leicester Square and sensing the Underground being busy, we decided to walk there instead as the weather was decent enough and the stroll was just a half hour. This turned out to be something of a mistake as all of the walking that day meant I developed a blister on my foot, which still hasn't shifted.
There were seven of us on the march in total, with Stonewolf unable to meet us due to being too late. I had tried to arrange to meet Nall's crew too but alas there was no signal once we had gotten to Park Lane such were the throngs of people. Official estimates put the march at over a million although it did seem a little more sparse than the October event. However, this may be the way it was organised this time as last time the police were caught out, so perhaps this was deceptive. We stood on the corner of Park Lane and Curzon Street waiting for anyone else to come, with the march not setting off for a full ninety minutes after we had arrived there. I glimpsed producer Andrew Harrison from Remainiacs, who I had met at the live show in early February, but he had darted off before I got chance to speak to him. Meanwhile, there were a number of speakers in the park near where we were so we had something to listen to at least.
The march was incredibly good natured, with loads of dogs and witty placards so I fit in perfectly. The only shame was that having to be in Hull later in the day meant I had to leave it shortly before 2pm, when we had only got to Piccadilly. I would have liked to have stayed around longer, but I needed to get back up north for Arcais's birthday and I was busting for the lavatory, a situation that took about fifteen minutes to resolve itself as I managed to dart into a busy pub to relieve myself. Like in October, when I had to get back home swiftly too, the yomp to King's Cross proved to be perilously tight but we did make it in the end, with Seadragom managing to pursuade the guard to let him use his staff pass whereas I found my reserved seat in a different coach. I had to write the story in Arc's card anyway and that took me the best part of two hours - with writing on a train being particularly difficult.
Once we had arrived in Hull, there was just enough time to meet everyone at the hotel before we went out for dinner. The original plan had been Nando's but they couldn't do a booking for 21 people, so we settled on Handmade Burger Company, which was a suggestion of my own. As we approached, we saw two huge tables in the centre of the restaurant and soon we were eating quite adequate burgers. The company was good though and it was great to visit the chain again, as it's not a place I usually go. After this, it was the main event, as Arc had hired a children's play area called Big Fun for her main party. This was a two hour booking and the main idea was to do something like Fun House in the giant obstacle course. This idea was swiftly dropped after about ten minutes though and it became something of a free-for-all, with us clambering over the nets, soft play obstacles and going down the slides. The dark and swift red slides were fine, but there were two which were just vertical drops at the start. I managed, after fifteen minutes of hesitation and a £10 bribe from Kisaro, to go down the lower of the two slides, which was somewhat exhilarating. Adia had similar jitters to me, but eventually had a no-nonsense moment and thought fuck it, before launching herself down the thing. The rest of the time I felt a little worried my girth would get me stuck in some of the obstacles but I needn't have worried as I was more agile than I thought, and indeed one of the few people not to get DOMS afterwards. However, it was quite tiring exercise, particularly after being up all day, so I was quite happy to end the session with a Slush Puppie and a chat underneath the largest Food Hygenie Rating sign I had ever seen. I congratulated the lady behind the counter on this, along with her excellent Nineties punk-pop soundtrack which really added to the evening. The only other thing to point out here was the love of the temporary Paw Patrol tattoos with Arc getting a whole sleeve of them and me just getting one of Chase as I wanted to say 'Chase is on my face'. I never bothered in the end.
There was talk about people wearing fursuits for the event, but in the end, a few of us (not me) just wore the heads for a group photo. It was then back to the Holiday Inn for a few drinks in the bar, which is when I started to flag. I found this a little dull really and with the beer being expensive and the bar closing by 11pm, the night was definitely winding down. It had been suggested by Stray that we go to rock/metal nightclub Spiders, which was about a twenty-five minute walk away, and indeed he, Otter and Kisaro had left the hotel shortly after 11pm to do just that. We had pints of Guinness to drink and were in two minds, not wanting to leave Arc on her birthday, but with the evening winding down, shortly after 11:30pm we decided to go join them. Despite not finding a cash machine on the way, resulting in an embarrassing incident where we had no money to pay the entry and none of our friends turned up to bail us out, the evening was truly fantastic. The beer is so goddamn cheap at £1.80 a pint that I barely touched the £10 that Kisaro had given me, while the seven bars and three stages dedicated to different genres of music added a diversity which made the night fly by. The place was also busy, very busy, which was good to see and soon enough we were perched on a table listening to classic songs throughout the evening. It got a bit emotional when Linkin Park's 'Numb' came on, while I was delighted to air guitar Bowling For Soup's 'Girl All The Bad Guys Want' correctly, something Stray noticed himself. We stayed at Spiders for two hours, loving the dungeon-like theme with the metal spider's web cages, as well as the vivacity of the crowd. Indeed, on the balcony overlooking the drab industrial estate where it's situated, we met one fun loving girl who told Wolfie he was gorgeous before sticking an ice cube down his back. It was that sort of night.
We got back to the hotel shortly after 2:30am and with Wolfie hungry, he ordered a chicken mayo sandwich. He was quite pissed off that you couldn't get pizza as the advert in the lobby suggested this was available twenty-four hours, but the sandwich was exceptional and we did enjoy watching 'The Last Leg' together. Then it was bed, awaking shortly after 10:30am, grabbing a shower and trying to find something to eat before our rendezvous at The Deep at midday. We ended up in a craft beer bar oppostie Princes Quay where they served an excellent bacon bap, with characteristic Yorkshire friendliness. The range of craft beer in this place was quite remarkable and definitely one to come back to later in the year. The same is the case for the Old Dock area, which has been gentrified and is full of hipster eateries and trendy bars, including a distillary. We resolved to spend a weekend in Hull at some point in the future, to do some of these as well as attend Spiders again.
The Deep was quite fun, despite it being our third visit, with a fair number of the group in attendance. I got talking to the rather nice ladies shepherding us towards the cash desk before we spent a healthy two hours walking around the vast complex observing the range of fish and other animals they keep there. I deftly avoided the snakes but did see my friends the eels once again, anchored as they were into the grond and just bobbing about. I don't know why I like them considering they are quite snake like, but they have this cuteness about them which is quite endearing. Furthermore, they don't really move like snakes either. The penguins were another highlight, as they always are, while I did enjoy the stingray who swooped in front of me smiling its ass off on not one but two occasions. The turtles in the giant enclosure, as well as the sharks were great to watch too, almost theraputic even, although the sheer number of kids didn't present the most relaxing experience. I also spent quite a lot of time marvelling at the engineering of the place, as some of the acryllic sheets must be under significant pressure. Anyway, it was a rather pleasant and stress-free stroll as I had already seen the exhibition before and the post-visit lunch in the cafeteria where I grabbed a ham sandwich and a scone with butter (just butter, despite Adia's consternation) was a nice pitstop. I also managed to buy a Paw Patrol poster in the 'Deepartment Store' so a great day all told.
People tended to split off after this, with a group of us heading back to the hotel where our cars were parked. On the way, I managed to nab a couple of geocaches that the usual crew had caught on their way to The Deep. I found all of them barring one, inside a cannon, which they must have hidden incredibly well. Once everyone had gone, it was just me, Wolfie and Patter left, so we spent a pleasant hour just wandering around Hull, picking up a few more caches and marvelling at some of the architecture of this underrated city. The huge gothic town hall was perhaps the highlight here, but we also stumbed across the Minster, which is somewhere I had never been before. It was quite a unique place, not architectually per se, but by the fact there was rock music coming from the sound system and a cafeteria down one of the naves where you could buy beer. In the far corner of the church there was also a number of plaques commemorating sailors from Hull who were lost at sea, either in shipping disasters or wars such as the Falklands. This highlighting of the city's naval tradition made the Minster somewhat unique although it was noticeable just how quiet it was at 5pm on a Sunday afternoon. There were three friendly staff who were there though, with one surprised that I had never been there before, and this did make it quite a special village. The courtyard outside with its odd water feature was also unique and I must admit my bearings had become somewhat confused as it didn't take too long to get back to the hotel from here. By 5:15pm we were back at our car, just over an hour later we were back at home and an hour after that we were trying a wonderful massaman curry from The Lime Leaf in Pudsey, a new takeaway that I thought was actually a restaurant as I went to the wrong Lime Leaf website. Considering it was a twenty minute walk from our house, this was annoying but we managed to get our food back home without it going too cold and it was a wonderous delight.
Tuesday was Stray's birthday and I had suggested a couple of weeks ago that we go out in Huddersfield to celebrate as the town is equidistant between Leeds and Manchester. This is what we did, with us convening at The Head of Steam shortly after 6:30pm. I had met Wolfie at Leeds station having been to Little Leeds Beer House to pick up Stray's birthday present, while I had written his story on Sunday evening once I had eaten my Malaysian food. When we arrived at The Head of Steam, Patter, Stray and Edi were already there, and we grabbed a drink and joined them. We had forty-five minutes of chatter, as well as answering the latest quiz that Stray had devised for the working men's club (which we won with a score of 34/40) before deciding to head down to the politically incorrect named Gringo's for some Mexican food. I had a Tijuana style burrito with wedges, which was fantastically delicious, and we all agreed that this was a place that was definitely worth coming back to. We had booked our train back home, direct to New Pudsey, at 22:08 so once we had finished our meal, we had time for one further drink elsewhere. We decided to go to The Corner, an upstairs bar run by the Malliston's Brewery. The range of drinks they had there was quite good, including a delicious nutty brown ale which was very moreish. Alas, we couldn't stay there too long though as we needed to get our train, which saw us get back home at around 11:30pm and that included stopping off at ASDA to do the weekly shop. Huddersfield is incredibly convenient for a night out and one we must do again at some point such is the range of food and drink options there at very low prices. Ultimately though it was good to spend time with Stray on his birthday, not to mention Patter and Edi, the latter of whom we have started to get to know quite well of late. We are already looking forward to seeing them again the weekend after next.
Saturday saw me go down to London for the Put It To The People March, necessitating a rather early start which was made difficult by a lack of sleep and high alcohol consumption the previous night. Stray had kindly let me have his bed, which was a little lumpy bumpy but comfortable nonetheless, and I did at least manage to get out at 7:30am and catch the tram to Piccadilly, where I made the 8:15am service to London with time to spare. I had hoped to travel with Patter, but his train was twenty minutes later and £28 more expensive, so I opted to just meet him at Euston and go on the march together. I had arranged to meet up with some of the Furs For Europe crew outside the Burger King at Leicester Square and sensing the Underground being busy, we decided to walk there instead as the weather was decent enough and the stroll was just a half hour. This turned out to be something of a mistake as all of the walking that day meant I developed a blister on my foot, which still hasn't shifted.
There were seven of us on the march in total, with Stonewolf unable to meet us due to being too late. I had tried to arrange to meet Nall's crew too but alas there was no signal once we had gotten to Park Lane such were the throngs of people. Official estimates put the march at over a million although it did seem a little more sparse than the October event. However, this may be the way it was organised this time as last time the police were caught out, so perhaps this was deceptive. We stood on the corner of Park Lane and Curzon Street waiting for anyone else to come, with the march not setting off for a full ninety minutes after we had arrived there. I glimpsed producer Andrew Harrison from Remainiacs, who I had met at the live show in early February, but he had darted off before I got chance to speak to him. Meanwhile, there were a number of speakers in the park near where we were so we had something to listen to at least.
The march was incredibly good natured, with loads of dogs and witty placards so I fit in perfectly. The only shame was that having to be in Hull later in the day meant I had to leave it shortly before 2pm, when we had only got to Piccadilly. I would have liked to have stayed around longer, but I needed to get back up north for Arcais's birthday and I was busting for the lavatory, a situation that took about fifteen minutes to resolve itself as I managed to dart into a busy pub to relieve myself. Like in October, when I had to get back home swiftly too, the yomp to King's Cross proved to be perilously tight but we did make it in the end, with Seadragom managing to pursuade the guard to let him use his staff pass whereas I found my reserved seat in a different coach. I had to write the story in Arc's card anyway and that took me the best part of two hours - with writing on a train being particularly difficult.
Once we had arrived in Hull, there was just enough time to meet everyone at the hotel before we went out for dinner. The original plan had been Nando's but they couldn't do a booking for 21 people, so we settled on Handmade Burger Company, which was a suggestion of my own. As we approached, we saw two huge tables in the centre of the restaurant and soon we were eating quite adequate burgers. The company was good though and it was great to visit the chain again, as it's not a place I usually go. After this, it was the main event, as Arc had hired a children's play area called Big Fun for her main party. This was a two hour booking and the main idea was to do something like Fun House in the giant obstacle course. This idea was swiftly dropped after about ten minutes though and it became something of a free-for-all, with us clambering over the nets, soft play obstacles and going down the slides. The dark and swift red slides were fine, but there were two which were just vertical drops at the start. I managed, after fifteen minutes of hesitation and a £10 bribe from Kisaro, to go down the lower of the two slides, which was somewhat exhilarating. Adia had similar jitters to me, but eventually had a no-nonsense moment and thought fuck it, before launching herself down the thing. The rest of the time I felt a little worried my girth would get me stuck in some of the obstacles but I needn't have worried as I was more agile than I thought, and indeed one of the few people not to get DOMS afterwards. However, it was quite tiring exercise, particularly after being up all day, so I was quite happy to end the session with a Slush Puppie and a chat underneath the largest Food Hygenie Rating sign I had ever seen. I congratulated the lady behind the counter on this, along with her excellent Nineties punk-pop soundtrack which really added to the evening. The only other thing to point out here was the love of the temporary Paw Patrol tattoos with Arc getting a whole sleeve of them and me just getting one of Chase as I wanted to say 'Chase is on my face'. I never bothered in the end.
There was talk about people wearing fursuits for the event, but in the end, a few of us (not me) just wore the heads for a group photo. It was then back to the Holiday Inn for a few drinks in the bar, which is when I started to flag. I found this a little dull really and with the beer being expensive and the bar closing by 11pm, the night was definitely winding down. It had been suggested by Stray that we go to rock/metal nightclub Spiders, which was about a twenty-five minute walk away, and indeed he, Otter and Kisaro had left the hotel shortly after 11pm to do just that. We had pints of Guinness to drink and were in two minds, not wanting to leave Arc on her birthday, but with the evening winding down, shortly after 11:30pm we decided to go join them. Despite not finding a cash machine on the way, resulting in an embarrassing incident where we had no money to pay the entry and none of our friends turned up to bail us out, the evening was truly fantastic. The beer is so goddamn cheap at £1.80 a pint that I barely touched the £10 that Kisaro had given me, while the seven bars and three stages dedicated to different genres of music added a diversity which made the night fly by. The place was also busy, very busy, which was good to see and soon enough we were perched on a table listening to classic songs throughout the evening. It got a bit emotional when Linkin Park's 'Numb' came on, while I was delighted to air guitar Bowling For Soup's 'Girl All The Bad Guys Want' correctly, something Stray noticed himself. We stayed at Spiders for two hours, loving the dungeon-like theme with the metal spider's web cages, as well as the vivacity of the crowd. Indeed, on the balcony overlooking the drab industrial estate where it's situated, we met one fun loving girl who told Wolfie he was gorgeous before sticking an ice cube down his back. It was that sort of night.
We got back to the hotel shortly after 2:30am and with Wolfie hungry, he ordered a chicken mayo sandwich. He was quite pissed off that you couldn't get pizza as the advert in the lobby suggested this was available twenty-four hours, but the sandwich was exceptional and we did enjoy watching 'The Last Leg' together. Then it was bed, awaking shortly after 10:30am, grabbing a shower and trying to find something to eat before our rendezvous at The Deep at midday. We ended up in a craft beer bar oppostie Princes Quay where they served an excellent bacon bap, with characteristic Yorkshire friendliness. The range of craft beer in this place was quite remarkable and definitely one to come back to later in the year. The same is the case for the Old Dock area, which has been gentrified and is full of hipster eateries and trendy bars, including a distillary. We resolved to spend a weekend in Hull at some point in the future, to do some of these as well as attend Spiders again.
The Deep was quite fun, despite it being our third visit, with a fair number of the group in attendance. I got talking to the rather nice ladies shepherding us towards the cash desk before we spent a healthy two hours walking around the vast complex observing the range of fish and other animals they keep there. I deftly avoided the snakes but did see my friends the eels once again, anchored as they were into the grond and just bobbing about. I don't know why I like them considering they are quite snake like, but they have this cuteness about them which is quite endearing. Furthermore, they don't really move like snakes either. The penguins were another highlight, as they always are, while I did enjoy the stingray who swooped in front of me smiling its ass off on not one but two occasions. The turtles in the giant enclosure, as well as the sharks were great to watch too, almost theraputic even, although the sheer number of kids didn't present the most relaxing experience. I also spent quite a lot of time marvelling at the engineering of the place, as some of the acryllic sheets must be under significant pressure. Anyway, it was a rather pleasant and stress-free stroll as I had already seen the exhibition before and the post-visit lunch in the cafeteria where I grabbed a ham sandwich and a scone with butter (just butter, despite Adia's consternation) was a nice pitstop. I also managed to buy a Paw Patrol poster in the 'Deepartment Store' so a great day all told.
People tended to split off after this, with a group of us heading back to the hotel where our cars were parked. On the way, I managed to nab a couple of geocaches that the usual crew had caught on their way to The Deep. I found all of them barring one, inside a cannon, which they must have hidden incredibly well. Once everyone had gone, it was just me, Wolfie and Patter left, so we spent a pleasant hour just wandering around Hull, picking up a few more caches and marvelling at some of the architecture of this underrated city. The huge gothic town hall was perhaps the highlight here, but we also stumbed across the Minster, which is somewhere I had never been before. It was quite a unique place, not architectually per se, but by the fact there was rock music coming from the sound system and a cafeteria down one of the naves where you could buy beer. In the far corner of the church there was also a number of plaques commemorating sailors from Hull who were lost at sea, either in shipping disasters or wars such as the Falklands. This highlighting of the city's naval tradition made the Minster somewhat unique although it was noticeable just how quiet it was at 5pm on a Sunday afternoon. There were three friendly staff who were there though, with one surprised that I had never been there before, and this did make it quite a special village. The courtyard outside with its odd water feature was also unique and I must admit my bearings had become somewhat confused as it didn't take too long to get back to the hotel from here. By 5:15pm we were back at our car, just over an hour later we were back at home and an hour after that we were trying a wonderful massaman curry from The Lime Leaf in Pudsey, a new takeaway that I thought was actually a restaurant as I went to the wrong Lime Leaf website. Considering it was a twenty minute walk from our house, this was annoying but we managed to get our food back home without it going too cold and it was a wonderous delight.
Tuesday was Stray's birthday and I had suggested a couple of weeks ago that we go out in Huddersfield to celebrate as the town is equidistant between Leeds and Manchester. This is what we did, with us convening at The Head of Steam shortly after 6:30pm. I had met Wolfie at Leeds station having been to Little Leeds Beer House to pick up Stray's birthday present, while I had written his story on Sunday evening once I had eaten my Malaysian food. When we arrived at The Head of Steam, Patter, Stray and Edi were already there, and we grabbed a drink and joined them. We had forty-five minutes of chatter, as well as answering the latest quiz that Stray had devised for the working men's club (which we won with a score of 34/40) before deciding to head down to the politically incorrect named Gringo's for some Mexican food. I had a Tijuana style burrito with wedges, which was fantastically delicious, and we all agreed that this was a place that was definitely worth coming back to. We had booked our train back home, direct to New Pudsey, at 22:08 so once we had finished our meal, we had time for one further drink elsewhere. We decided to go to The Corner, an upstairs bar run by the Malliston's Brewery. The range of drinks they had there was quite good, including a delicious nutty brown ale which was very moreish. Alas, we couldn't stay there too long though as we needed to get our train, which saw us get back home at around 11:30pm and that included stopping off at ASDA to do the weekly shop. Huddersfield is incredibly convenient for a night out and one we must do again at some point such is the range of food and drink options there at very low prices. Ultimately though it was good to spend time with Stray on his birthday, not to mention Patter and Edi, the latter of whom we have started to get to know quite well of late. We are already looking forward to seeing them again the weekend after next.
