So I’ve been away, not only from posting (although there have been tweets) but also on holiday. This year Sarah and I decided to stay in England and headed to Cornwall for a week. It came straight after having Al over for hanging out and the Great British Beer Festival.
The beer festival was great as usual, same basic setup as every other year, great beer, great food and some games of chance (and skill but didn’t bother with them). I tried nine different beers at the fest as can be seen here and we found a great "game" where you paid £5 got 5 tickets and definitely won 5 things (I got 3 copies of the Good Beer Guide but the guy gave me 2 other books instead). Emily from back home is now living over here so she joined us too (and for dinner on the Saturday after).
Holiday was brilliant craic. We traveled down to St Austell on the train and stayed over for two nights and squeezed in the St Austell Brewery tour and a trip to the Eden Project. The brewery tour was very comprehensive, almost and hour long and two halves for tasting afterwards as well as a bit if their new Weiss beer (Clouded Yellow, bit weird to be honest). Of course we had one or two before we went on the tour (well we had an hour to kill before our tour started) as well. The Eden Project was cool, it is basically a large organic / "sustainable" garden, got some great photos and there was even some real ales to be tasted. It was a definitely a great day out and well worth a visit. We also walked over to Charlestown for dinner on the last night and found a great little pub called The Pierhouse Hotel. Half decent food, good beers (Skinner’s and Sharp’s) and better than its "sister" The Harbourside Inn next door. Also to say the B&B Allen’s in St Austell was brilliant.
After St Austell we moved on to Truro in the light rain (but we did get a lift to the bus stop from the other guests in the B&B). By the time we got to Truro however the rain had ceased and the sun was out. We eventually made it to our B&B there (we got a little confused as to where it was/which one we’d booked). Once settled in we headed into town to find out how to get to Healey’s Cornish Cyder Farm. We thought we might have to get a taxi but the tourist office gave us details of the correct bus to get and off we went. It was a bit of craic the tour was good. The tastings are free and you get a sample of almost 10 different cyders/fruit wines. We did miss the bus home by about 2 minutes so had to hang around for an hour but at least it was sunny.
We were only staying one night in Truro so the next day was pretty busy, we got up early and got on the free Truro cathedral tour (after I picked up some Tom Petty 7inches and a Beatles single) and then onto (we just made it too) the brewery tour at Skinner’s.What a tour! OK the tour was OK, not as comprehensive as the St Austell one but we got a half before the tour and then afterwards I had another 2 halves and then 2 more full pints (and would have gotten more if we didn’t have to leave). Note this was all before half 2 in the day. We needed to get lunch before we moved on though so onto another great pub The Old Alehouse and two more pints and some animal beef cooked on skillets.
Eventually we got on the bus to Newquay where we were to spend 2 nights. We got in with enough time to check in, have a good wander around, grab dinner and yet more pints and slept like the dead. We didn’t have much planned for Newquay so in the end went to the Blue Reef Aquarium and caught a load of their talks and feedings (seeing them feed a large octopus was worth the entrance fee alone). As the weather brightened up we did one of the boat trips where they take you around the bay and go mackerel fishing for an hour. I’ve never done it before but pickings were lean and only caught 2 (as did most people). Sarah was a bit freaked out by the fish flapping around dying in the buckets and in the end wouldn’t throw some of the excess (some people took some to cook) for the seals in the harbour.
The next day was time to go home and for the rain to start. The holiday wasn’t rain-free but it wasn’t till this day we got anyway really wet (and not too much actually). Our train was early enough so no time for anything other than breakfast. Train journey was uneventful except for the really annoying kids in our carriage. Once home we headed out to see Kerbdog that night which topped off the holiday extremely well.
We loved this we’ve done short trips to Devon before (to see Sarah’s aunt and uncle) but this was our first really English full holiday and it was great craic. The brewery’s helped though 🙂 I’ll definitely be looking at doing more at weekends and including more in our holidays.
Well that was a long post which almost makes up for my silence. I still have loads of gigs to write up (some from as far back as April :-/) I’ll get on to that this week, I swear.
Later days,
Halo.