Excursions

 So, here we are - back in Eastbourne (we've been back a couple of weeks now).

The weather has been quite challenging but having a garden to sit in and a 90-year old house makes the heat more manageable than Bristol Glass Box.

We arranged a lunch with BBB's sisters and, it has to be said, Food+Beer is quite a challenge here.  So we plumped for The Ship up in Meads.  The last time we went the beer was uninteresting but perfectly good, the food likewise.

It's a bit of a trek from home and nothing resembling a bus route direct from home to Meads so a hot day could make it a bit gruelling.  Instead, I suggested getting a bus up onto the Downs (the South Downs, not the Durdham ones) and then it would be a couple of miles of downhill strolling, with the benefit of a sea breeze to make the walk a pleasant one.

Alas, I was wrong.  The first mile and a bit were fine.  Cool breeze, great view and a really nice stroll.  However as we neared the outskirts of Meads the wind dropped and the terrain got more precipitous.  I did know the slope would happen but by the time we got to the pub I was knackered and as red as a red thing.  Still, we were early so we could sit quietly on our own to cool down with a nice pint, no?  No.

Family were in attendance already so we bought some beer and joined them.  Still, at least I'd have a nice enough pint, eh?  No.

The beer was tired and stale, if not exactly "off", and Harveys doesn't do too well when stale.  The food?  Well at least they can't ruin scampi and chips (which is more than can be said for my peas and his ploughmans).  We then had a couple of miles to walk home whereupon we sat in our garden and drank fridge beer musing that we'd just walked home from Beachy Head, via a lunch break,  which is quite enough walking for one day, thank you.

On a related subject, mad-walking-type-friends were walking the last bit of the Southdowns Way in order to tick their list of routes walked (we do films and games ticking...they do that).  They're also very keen beer drinkers so finding a place to go isn't always easy - especially on a Monday.  As it was they were staying close to what we all refer to as "The Buccaneer" (the pub's name of the men's youth) - we were pretty pleased when we last went so we thought it would be a safe place to drink.  Buring Sky Plateau was in brilliant condition and some Gun beer that was a little stronger was in good condition but a little bit odd.  On the whole though, a perfectly good beer venue for the purposes.

And then, yesterday I had to go to Newhaven for a long work meeting so I suggested to the boy that we convene in Steamworks in Seaford station.  It's a little bit hit and miss and, it has to be said, when the I saw the casks beers were Dark Star/Fullers (Asahi) I was a bit disappointed but I thought I'd try the APA (previously my favourite beer EVAR).  I didn't expect much but it was really nice - almost as good I remember it.  They also had a DS Special (Polar something...) at 5% which pretty good, too.  We also tried 360-deg Hazy Pale (keg) which we agreed was probably the best of them all but, hey, to have that much good beer (and a Lakedown Keg and a cask of ESB we didn't try) in such a tiny place is damned good.  Eastbourne - take note!

(S)talking...

The thing is about people with a sprinkling of neurodiversity knocking around, and with time on their hands, is that we do tend to have slightly quirky urges:

The urge to list things

The urge to link things

The urge to analyse things

...and for at least one of us in this household...the urge to make use of an API (application programming interface...or something).

We like a bit of code, in our household...BBB is now a nimble, if not 100% efficient, Pythonista.

 A few years ago we did it with our film collection because we always found it impossible to choose a film to watch and we embarked on "The Film Chain" where we listed all our films and determined to watch each one but with the proviso that each film we watched had to be linked in some way back to the last one.

It started on the day Neil Innes died and we watched "The Rutles - All You Need is Cash", we followed it a couple of days later with "Monty Python and the Holy Grail".  You get the gist.

Obviously, because we are who we are, we meticulously recorded each link in the chain.

We found links by looking at IMDB, of course, but it got increasingly harder to do manually.  At this point I think I uttered the words "I wonder if IMDB has an API?" and that, as they say, was most definitely that.

 Right, so you're wondering how this links to beer.

It does so via the medium of games...and the magnificent "Boardgame Geek"website.

In Bristol, we almost always repair to Martha's on a Sunday afternoon because they have be-tabled booths that are the perfect space for playing board games and it's often quietish which means we don't feel bad about taking up a booth.

It turns out we'd seen Ed and Pelin (and Junior) of Little Martha around in pubs pretty much everyday for the last few days and Pelin had stopped for a chat about games they might like to put in the taproom.  Turns out they like playing games too.

So we took a few extra with us to the taproom on Sunday, on the offchance. It was interesting talking to them about the games they like vs the games we do.  We also got chatting about who we buy our games from, etc, etc. 

We all bemoaned games which don't play well with just two as that's clearly our main playing environment.

All in all a jolly Sunday afternoon and now there's a certain determination in this household to catalogue all our games and to make ourselves play them all again.  Of course, someone has already checked whether there's a Boardgame Geek API (of COURSE there is).

Busy, busy, busy: Hot, hot, hot

 We've been in Bristol for a couple of weeks, now and the intensity of my work has prevented me doing more than generally going to well-known locals...well, mostly.

 My trip up was very straightforward, even though it was via the "Long Route" (Brighton, Fareham, Bristol) and I arrived a little earlier than I had anticipated (would have been just about time to leg it for the last Super Off Peak train from Paddington but I didn't fancy the stress, to be honest).  The BBB offered to meet me off the train and take my bag but I was travelling pretty light so we met in Martha's (closest to station).  It was lovely to just collapse into a booth and be presented with a Petite Boulba to neck to recover from the heat (actually, compared to the temperature at the moment, it was nothing...but y'know).

We wanted to play hooky for the day and pop down to Devon, but our planned trip was thrice thwarted so we eventually gave it up as a bad job - it was a shame since it looked like our destination had two or three good places to go.  We've decided to try again in the autumn.

 Last weekend we (I) decided a little amble was in order but I get extremely bored of the same old routes.  Instead I suggested a bus to the farside of Ashley Down and thence to walk back via "Concorde Way" cycle/walking route which would land us in St Paul/Monpellier and allow us to avail ourselves of Licata in Picton street and then Basement Beer and New Bristol (I mean, seriously, you know we don't let these routes happen by accident, right?).  As it happens, the northern end of Concorde Way was closed because they're developing a new "Ashley Down Station".  It meant quite a detour and back onto a route we've walked before but it was nice to be out (if a little warm) and Basement Beer has taken over a bit more space and reconfigured itself so it's starting to feel quite spacious and charming.  We had a couple there but we wanted to drop into NBB too, so after two we toddled down the road and settled into their taproom.

We've also made a visit to the Cider Box which is such an intrguing place.  It was fun spending time there because the local building work means you're really sitting between two building sites and at knock-off time you get a completely different set of customers.  We also ended up in conversation with a chap who had never been to the Orchard or Middle Farm - so we sent him to both.

 Yesterday, I had a conference to attend in Reading.  From Eastbourne it would be a real drag of a rail journey but from Bristol, it's simple and pleasant.  Because the conference ended within the "YU ticket restrictions" period, I had to plan carefully to minimise the ticket cost.  Thankfully I managed to time it so that I had about 40 minutes in which to enjoy the Siren Taproom.  It was equidistant between conference venue and station so it really would have been rude not to.  It also had the benefit of good aircon which made the break very pleasant.  Really nice place, friendly staff and somewhere I'd happily go again.

By the time I was back in Bristol, the BBB was in Marthas so I joined him there and sweltered for a bit - although a railway arch is much cooler than a glass-box apartment.  I'm hoping it'll be a bit cooler today - but I'm not betting the house on it.