Potato Grids
Dec. 30th, 2018 11:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lupestripeIt's been an odd Festive Week of relaxing and keeping busy, with work dominating much of the last few days yet there has still been time to do a range of other things too. This is how it has broken down:
Christmas Eve: This was a workday for me but fortunately I managed to get finished by 5pm, leaving the rest of the day free for leisure activities. We spent some time watching the fascinating Joanna Lumley travel documentaries about The Silk Road, while the rest of the evening was largely doing odd jobs such as writing my journal after I had gotten back from visiting my parents. Between us, we also managed to share seven beers, including some special ones we had been saving for this week.
Christmas Day: I like Christmas Day, largely because it's the only day in the year when I don't feel obliged into checking my work email. We spent most of the morning sleeping, rising to open our presents at around midday. Wolfie got more presents than usual, largely because I asked my parents to buy him a few, while I was quite happy with my haul which included a special wallet and a Brewdog Beer Visa. We hadn't yet put up any Christmas decorations, including the tree, so we did this after our bacon sandwich lunch - better late than never I suppose. We headed down to the canal in Rodley for part of the afternoon as Wolfie had found an interest in getting my cache count up to 100. I had set myself this target to reach by the end of the year, and we were at 91 on Christmas Day, with us adding four more that afternoon. I rang my father in the early afternoon and then made the more difficult call to my mother, who was hosting my elderly grandparents, later in the day while Wolfie and I cooked our roast turkey as soon as we had gotten back from the canal. It took two and a half hours to roast the turkey, which was for eight people and was to last us three whole days. We ate it in front of the Red Bull Soapbox Race shows on Dave, which was to become something of a staple throughout the week and for us is one of the true delights of the Christmas Period. We then watched more Joanna Lumley documentaries.
Boxing Day: This was another workday and one that was quite lengthy on account of us having no evening plans whatsoever. Largely being left alone by clients, I managed to do half of the work I had set myself as a target throughout this entire period, while afterwards we settled down to watch more Soapbox and eat more turkey, going through the vegetables we had bought at the supermarket on the Sunday evening I had gotten back from my parents. We were to become quite sick of sprouts. And drinking. But we also got to see the Warwick Davis vehicle Tenable, a top-ten gameshow which I think was created off the back of the phrase 'that is an untenable answer' as the pun is the only thing going for it.
Thursday 27th: Another workday and the only day this week Wolfie was in the office, meaning I was on my own in the house. With Douveux coming around to stay in the evening, I had to be a little more focused than I had been the day before, particularly as I also wanted to squeeze a gym session in, which I managed to do. I still managed to hit my full workload target just as he arrived, while we were delighted to finally finish off the cold turkey, becoming quite sick of having the same meal by this point. Douveux came around at about 7:30pm and stayed overnight, with us drinking and chatting for much of the evening before showing him some of our favourite things on YouTube. Stewart Lee was a hit, but the Chin Review certainly wasn't. Good evening!
Friday 28th: We got up about 10am and Wolfie took Douveux around to the supermarket to pick up breakfast things. He also had a package to pick up at the post office, as apparently they had knocked on the front door the day before but I failed to hear them despite being awake at the time they called around. Bacon and black pudding bagels was the plan, and we chatted some more over breakfast before Douveux headed off around midday. We were slated to go around to Stray Jim's house in Manchester that evening so again I had to be quite focused at work, managing to complete this at about 5pm amd even managing to squeeze in another cheeky gym session. We had hoped to do something upstairs, Wolfie and I, but some confusion led to an argument and Wolfie feeling frustrated, so there was no way. Glumly we packed our car at around 7pm, taking the inflatable air mattress and bedding with us for our weekend stay. I was feeling quite down on the way over, but soon perked up as we made our way towards Stray's place. Ottercon was also staying overnight and we spent the rest of the evening drinking a few beers and playing Cards Against Humanity, which I won with 29 black cards. Alas, the target to win was continually rigged so I would never be victorious, with it first being 10, then 15, then 25 and finally 30. Stray wanted to do the double and triple cards so he could have a shout at winning, but alas this plan fell flat as I played a few beauties. Meanwhile, I was in a sudden effervescent mood and spent much of the evening telling jokes and making people laugh, which descended into a few hours of YouTube watching on Stray's bed, not to mention listening to Dick Valentine's excellent porno story 'Fairfax Facial'.
Saturday 29th: We had gone to bed at around 3am having had five beers and a glass of wine. I say glass, but during the evening, Stray gave me my Christmas present - a mug in the shape of a unicorn. I am going through a unicorn phase right now, but it really is a flimsy piece of shit, with a huge lip on it which makes drinking from it somewhat difficult. Still, it does look cute, no matter how difficult it was to transport home. I had forgotten how difficult it was to sleep on an airbed, with me waking up at various times throughout the night in discomfort. There is a small leak in it too as we had to inflate the bed once more in the middle of the night, which for us was actually about 9am. Everyone surfaced at around midday and after a breakfast of gourmet sausages and bacon sandwiches, we headed on the tram into Manchester to show Stray a couple of brewery taprooms we had been meaning to visit for a while. En route, I picked up my 96th geocache at New Islington station, with the hope of nabbing some more as the day proceeded. However, what happened was we got suckered into a number of drinking establishments and what had meant to be a gentle day of intermittently visiting taprooms became something of a full-on drinking session. Part of the issue was that I didn't realise that so many were so close to each other, with me targeting Alphabet Brewing Company only to notice the familiar Toolstation which was next to Cloudwater's Tap Room as we were making our way there. Therefore, we called in at Cloudwater first, where they had dIPA v1 and v2 on tap, high strength beers to start the day. Entei-rah met us in here while Patter was to meet us at Alphabet, a huge warehouse of a place underneath the railway line leading into Piccadilly station. The bearded assistant General Manager here was great to talk to, and I spent about half an hour chatting beer with him, before finding the others perched on a stool in the middle of the warehouse. There are huge drawings of horses on the walls and the retro gaming events in January definitely appealed to some of our number. Our new hirsute friend also told us about Beer Nouveau, another taproom a five minute walk away specialising in the re-brewing of old recipes. This was quite quiet and definitely more of an old man's place, but the beers were amazing, particularly the barley wine based on a 1916 recipe. The barkeep, a bloke from Peterborough, extolled the various keg and cask scenes across the country (he rates Leeds highly for keg, Manchester highest overall) while Wolfie had a good time playing on the Wii and speaking to a few of the regulars. The Track taproom was next, which was on the third floor of a warehouse after you had followed some pink arrows, as their taproom is currently being refurbished. This had something of a Northern Monk feel about it, so I felt quite at home, but Wolfie was flagging due to the lack of food by this point and so we didn't spend too long here, instead deciding to go into the city centre to get food. Solita was the destination, and we got lucky that a party of five had just finished, enabling us to snag a space. Ent had left us by this point, but the remaining quintet grabbed their food, with me having a rather pleasant smoky burger alongside some fries coated in cheese. We tried to find another cache after this but we didn't try too hard as we noticed that there had been five consecutive DNFs while we headed to the final two bars for the night, Beatnix and Northern Monk, which were both pretty much opposite each other. The former was quite loud but had a range of cool beers on draft, while the latter I had visited before, much prefering the Leeds taproom in the actual brewery. The barman here was a little rude, perhaps because we were a little drunk or perhaps because I spent a while searching Untappd for something new, I don't care to speculate. Either way, it was a nice way to end the evening and as we were in a proper city that has public transport running beyond midnight, we made our way back to Stray's having said goodbye to Patter shortly after midnight had struck. The rest of the evening was again YouTube videos, this time with a strong Bob Mortimer flavour.
Sunday 30th: Another erratic night's sleep saw us awake again at noon to some bacon and sausages. We spent a short while chatting with Stray and Ottercon after this before leaving at around 2pm, with me having some work to do this afternoon. On our way home, we called off in Oldham to pick up some more geocaches, finding four of the five we had set out to discover in the grey gloomy drizzle of a December afternoon. This saw me reach 100 and thus hit another target for the week, after which we went to McDonald's for a celebratory cheeseburger and a Coke Zero. We then headed home via the supermarket, before ending up spending the evening catching up on a few bits of admin that needed doing. We also resolved not to have any alcohol today on account of not having a sober day since the 19th, being worried about just how much we have been drinking. And with New Year at the Brew York Brewery tomorrow, one 24-hour period without booze is probably for the best, hence why I have been on tea and cordial all evening.
Christmas Eve: This was a workday for me but fortunately I managed to get finished by 5pm, leaving the rest of the day free for leisure activities. We spent some time watching the fascinating Joanna Lumley travel documentaries about The Silk Road, while the rest of the evening was largely doing odd jobs such as writing my journal after I had gotten back from visiting my parents. Between us, we also managed to share seven beers, including some special ones we had been saving for this week.
Christmas Day: I like Christmas Day, largely because it's the only day in the year when I don't feel obliged into checking my work email. We spent most of the morning sleeping, rising to open our presents at around midday. Wolfie got more presents than usual, largely because I asked my parents to buy him a few, while I was quite happy with my haul which included a special wallet and a Brewdog Beer Visa. We hadn't yet put up any Christmas decorations, including the tree, so we did this after our bacon sandwich lunch - better late than never I suppose. We headed down to the canal in Rodley for part of the afternoon as Wolfie had found an interest in getting my cache count up to 100. I had set myself this target to reach by the end of the year, and we were at 91 on Christmas Day, with us adding four more that afternoon. I rang my father in the early afternoon and then made the more difficult call to my mother, who was hosting my elderly grandparents, later in the day while Wolfie and I cooked our roast turkey as soon as we had gotten back from the canal. It took two and a half hours to roast the turkey, which was for eight people and was to last us three whole days. We ate it in front of the Red Bull Soapbox Race shows on Dave, which was to become something of a staple throughout the week and for us is one of the true delights of the Christmas Period. We then watched more Joanna Lumley documentaries.
Boxing Day: This was another workday and one that was quite lengthy on account of us having no evening plans whatsoever. Largely being left alone by clients, I managed to do half of the work I had set myself as a target throughout this entire period, while afterwards we settled down to watch more Soapbox and eat more turkey, going through the vegetables we had bought at the supermarket on the Sunday evening I had gotten back from my parents. We were to become quite sick of sprouts. And drinking. But we also got to see the Warwick Davis vehicle Tenable, a top-ten gameshow which I think was created off the back of the phrase 'that is an untenable answer' as the pun is the only thing going for it.
Thursday 27th: Another workday and the only day this week Wolfie was in the office, meaning I was on my own in the house. With Douveux coming around to stay in the evening, I had to be a little more focused than I had been the day before, particularly as I also wanted to squeeze a gym session in, which I managed to do. I still managed to hit my full workload target just as he arrived, while we were delighted to finally finish off the cold turkey, becoming quite sick of having the same meal by this point. Douveux came around at about 7:30pm and stayed overnight, with us drinking and chatting for much of the evening before showing him some of our favourite things on YouTube. Stewart Lee was a hit, but the Chin Review certainly wasn't. Good evening!
Friday 28th: We got up about 10am and Wolfie took Douveux around to the supermarket to pick up breakfast things. He also had a package to pick up at the post office, as apparently they had knocked on the front door the day before but I failed to hear them despite being awake at the time they called around. Bacon and black pudding bagels was the plan, and we chatted some more over breakfast before Douveux headed off around midday. We were slated to go around to Stray Jim's house in Manchester that evening so again I had to be quite focused at work, managing to complete this at about 5pm amd even managing to squeeze in another cheeky gym session. We had hoped to do something upstairs, Wolfie and I, but some confusion led to an argument and Wolfie feeling frustrated, so there was no way. Glumly we packed our car at around 7pm, taking the inflatable air mattress and bedding with us for our weekend stay. I was feeling quite down on the way over, but soon perked up as we made our way towards Stray's place. Ottercon was also staying overnight and we spent the rest of the evening drinking a few beers and playing Cards Against Humanity, which I won with 29 black cards. Alas, the target to win was continually rigged so I would never be victorious, with it first being 10, then 15, then 25 and finally 30. Stray wanted to do the double and triple cards so he could have a shout at winning, but alas this plan fell flat as I played a few beauties. Meanwhile, I was in a sudden effervescent mood and spent much of the evening telling jokes and making people laugh, which descended into a few hours of YouTube watching on Stray's bed, not to mention listening to Dick Valentine's excellent porno story 'Fairfax Facial'.
Saturday 29th: We had gone to bed at around 3am having had five beers and a glass of wine. I say glass, but during the evening, Stray gave me my Christmas present - a mug in the shape of a unicorn. I am going through a unicorn phase right now, but it really is a flimsy piece of shit, with a huge lip on it which makes drinking from it somewhat difficult. Still, it does look cute, no matter how difficult it was to transport home. I had forgotten how difficult it was to sleep on an airbed, with me waking up at various times throughout the night in discomfort. There is a small leak in it too as we had to inflate the bed once more in the middle of the night, which for us was actually about 9am. Everyone surfaced at around midday and after a breakfast of gourmet sausages and bacon sandwiches, we headed on the tram into Manchester to show Stray a couple of brewery taprooms we had been meaning to visit for a while. En route, I picked up my 96th geocache at New Islington station, with the hope of nabbing some more as the day proceeded. However, what happened was we got suckered into a number of drinking establishments and what had meant to be a gentle day of intermittently visiting taprooms became something of a full-on drinking session. Part of the issue was that I didn't realise that so many were so close to each other, with me targeting Alphabet Brewing Company only to notice the familiar Toolstation which was next to Cloudwater's Tap Room as we were making our way there. Therefore, we called in at Cloudwater first, where they had dIPA v1 and v2 on tap, high strength beers to start the day. Entei-rah met us in here while Patter was to meet us at Alphabet, a huge warehouse of a place underneath the railway line leading into Piccadilly station. The bearded assistant General Manager here was great to talk to, and I spent about half an hour chatting beer with him, before finding the others perched on a stool in the middle of the warehouse. There are huge drawings of horses on the walls and the retro gaming events in January definitely appealed to some of our number. Our new hirsute friend also told us about Beer Nouveau, another taproom a five minute walk away specialising in the re-brewing of old recipes. This was quite quiet and definitely more of an old man's place, but the beers were amazing, particularly the barley wine based on a 1916 recipe. The barkeep, a bloke from Peterborough, extolled the various keg and cask scenes across the country (he rates Leeds highly for keg, Manchester highest overall) while Wolfie had a good time playing on the Wii and speaking to a few of the regulars. The Track taproom was next, which was on the third floor of a warehouse after you had followed some pink arrows, as their taproom is currently being refurbished. This had something of a Northern Monk feel about it, so I felt quite at home, but Wolfie was flagging due to the lack of food by this point and so we didn't spend too long here, instead deciding to go into the city centre to get food. Solita was the destination, and we got lucky that a party of five had just finished, enabling us to snag a space. Ent had left us by this point, but the remaining quintet grabbed their food, with me having a rather pleasant smoky burger alongside some fries coated in cheese. We tried to find another cache after this but we didn't try too hard as we noticed that there had been five consecutive DNFs while we headed to the final two bars for the night, Beatnix and Northern Monk, which were both pretty much opposite each other. The former was quite loud but had a range of cool beers on draft, while the latter I had visited before, much prefering the Leeds taproom in the actual brewery. The barman here was a little rude, perhaps because we were a little drunk or perhaps because I spent a while searching Untappd for something new, I don't care to speculate. Either way, it was a nice way to end the evening and as we were in a proper city that has public transport running beyond midnight, we made our way back to Stray's having said goodbye to Patter shortly after midnight had struck. The rest of the evening was again YouTube videos, this time with a strong Bob Mortimer flavour.
Sunday 30th: Another erratic night's sleep saw us awake again at noon to some bacon and sausages. We spent a short while chatting with Stray and Ottercon after this before leaving at around 2pm, with me having some work to do this afternoon. On our way home, we called off in Oldham to pick up some more geocaches, finding four of the five we had set out to discover in the grey gloomy drizzle of a December afternoon. This saw me reach 100 and thus hit another target for the week, after which we went to McDonald's for a celebratory cheeseburger and a Coke Zero. We then headed home via the supermarket, before ending up spending the evening catching up on a few bits of admin that needed doing. We also resolved not to have any alcohol today on account of not having a sober day since the 19th, being worried about just how much we have been drinking. And with New Year at the Brew York Brewery tomorrow, one 24-hour period without booze is probably for the best, hence why I have been on tea and cordial all evening.
