The concept is very simple and I'm sure very lucrative. Hire a big hall, bring in 100 different casks of cider and serving staff, and charge people £5 to enter and £1.30 for each half-pint of cider. You can even bring in a live band.
It was called the Bath Cider Festival, which was as good a name as any. Luckily it was indoors because it was (is) bastard cold - below freezing at the moment.
There were well over a dozen of us that went, from various circles, and I'd say it was worth the price of admission. Choosing a cider was tricky because you only had a list of names and alcohol percentages. With some you could guess their taste, like Golden Valley sweet or Thatchers Gold, but others were quite random, like Sheep Dip (drinkable), Black Rat (good enough that I had two glasses), Tricky medium (blurgh), or Raspberry Perry (disgusting).
It was probably a good thing that they weren't serving full pints. It took ages to get a drink too, because there were 12 serving staff between several hundred cider drinking folk.
The band was called the Mangledwurzels, a tribute to the famed Scrumpy and Western band, the Wurzels. Alroight? They kicked off with "Combine Harvester" (30 years old but still going strong) and went onto perform "Drink Up Thy Zider", "Threshing Machine" and "Walkin' 'Cross The Yard" (sung to the Police's "Walking on the Moon") and many, many more.
The crowd was, as you'd expect, mostly west country toiypes, including a football team modelled on the Lord of the Rings. They all had yellow shirts with the names and numbers of the players on the backs: "Gollum 14", "Arwen 17", "The Ring 26", "Boromir 23" etc.
Which reminds me of Bill Bailey being interviewed on and old episode of "Friday Night with Jonathan Ross". Mr Bailey explained that he auditioned for the part of Gimli the dwarf in the LotR movies, but he did it in his native west country accent (he was born in Bath). He was told they didn't want to cast anyone with that accent and instead the part of Gimli went to John Rhys-Davies, who was Welsh.
But when Mr Bailey saw the film he realised all the hobbits had west country accents. "'Alroight Mr Frodo?' It was like being at a bloody cider festival!" quoth Bill.
Weather: dry but bloody cold. -3.2°Ré in the mornings.
Riding: good. I've figured out a TT training loop up around the Kingsdown golf course. Two different 8.8km laps + one big lap of 12.5km. 400m of climbing in 40km, so it's a good primer for the hardriders courses.
Sunday, February 17, 2008
Saturday, February 09, 2008
Disaster!
So seven of us go to Oxalis on Friday for a lunchtime tea/coffee stop. But when ordering coffee, we are informed that the cafetieres are now for one person only, and yet they are the same price. In fact, you now get less than half the coffee as before. The waitress said that she didn't make the rules, but...this is an outrage!
It's gone from being one of the cheapest places in Bath to have coffee to the most expensive by far. If the coffee wasn't so good, I'd boycott it altogether. As it was, I didn't order a cake. And I told them why. It's a false economy to hike the price by more than 100%.
Tea is still shareable between two for the same price, and it's good tea there. Still, I'll have to cut down my visits by more than half.
Fortunately I've found two more places that do half decent stuff. The Epicurean Deli and the Hub Cafe in the alley opposite the Guildhall. They're between £1.40 and 1.50 per coffee, compared to £2.75-2.95 at Oxalis.
I also ventured into McDonald's to try their brew, which is £1.19. I only did this because I was assured by an ex-barista that they have got their machine settings right world over, and they use good beans. This, I'm afraid, is bollocks. It wasn't even Starbucks quality.
On a more positive note, the weather is actually noice:
Drier than Sydney :-)
After an easy week this week, brought on by the two silly-hard rides last weekend, I felt quite good on the club run today. We wound it up at the end and it was nice to open the throttle a bit.
A month to the first TT, which is to be the Chippenham hilly 24. But there are still roadworks on the course, which I did before the club run, so I hope it can be moved. The course that we did the 3-up on last year would be a good substitute.
Sunday I got out with Will and a few other members of the Comedy Super Team for four hours. We went up to Corsham to pick up one guy, then down through Trowbridge, Frome and Wells, coming back a different way to Aquae Sulis.
The real comedy came just after Trowbridge when Simon suggested we get off the main road and take the lanes. It was fine until we hit a section which obviously didn't have much drainage and was covered in black ice and sheet ice.
Simon: "Maybe this wasn't such a good idea..."
Five seconds later, both Stan and Pete slid off, followed by Simon behind me. Only Will and I stayed upright! No-one was hurt, although Stan was covered in manure. We walked through the rest of that section.
Funnily enough, later on in the ride it was warm enough to ride with no gloves. Looks good for most of this week too.
It's gone from being one of the cheapest places in Bath to have coffee to the most expensive by far. If the coffee wasn't so good, I'd boycott it altogether. As it was, I didn't order a cake. And I told them why. It's a false economy to hike the price by more than 100%.
Tea is still shareable between two for the same price, and it's good tea there. Still, I'll have to cut down my visits by more than half.
Fortunately I've found two more places that do half decent stuff. The Epicurean Deli and the Hub Cafe in the alley opposite the Guildhall. They're between £1.40 and 1.50 per coffee, compared to £2.75-2.95 at Oxalis.
I also ventured into McDonald's to try their brew, which is £1.19. I only did this because I was assured by an ex-barista that they have got their machine settings right world over, and they use good beans. This, I'm afraid, is bollocks. It wasn't even Starbucks quality.
On a more positive note, the weather is actually noice:
Drier than Sydney :-)After an easy week this week, brought on by the two silly-hard rides last weekend, I felt quite good on the club run today. We wound it up at the end and it was nice to open the throttle a bit.
A month to the first TT, which is to be the Chippenham hilly 24. But there are still roadworks on the course, which I did before the club run, so I hope it can be moved. The course that we did the 3-up on last year would be a good substitute.
Sunday I got out with Will and a few other members of the Comedy Super Team for four hours. We went up to Corsham to pick up one guy, then down through Trowbridge, Frome and Wells, coming back a different way to Aquae Sulis.
The real comedy came just after Trowbridge when Simon suggested we get off the main road and take the lanes. It was fine until we hit a section which obviously didn't have much drainage and was covered in black ice and sheet ice.
Simon: "Maybe this wasn't such a good idea..."
Five seconds later, both Stan and Pete slid off, followed by Simon behind me. Only Will and I stayed upright! No-one was hurt, although Stan was covered in manure. We walked through the rest of that section.
Funnily enough, later on in the ride it was warm enough to ride with no gloves. Looks good for most of this week too.
Sunday, February 03, 2008
Joyous February
Weather: still stupid. The dryness has given way to less desirous elements although it hasn't snowed darn sarf yet.
Saturday was the best. The temp started at -0.8°Ré but got up to as much as 4°Ré by midday. Thus, the lanes were a bit icy in the morning but at least there wasn't much mud or wind. Robin and I did a slightly longer but less hilly Mendips ride (Cheddar, Burrington, A39 up from Wells) than last week and I finished up with 135km.
Sunday started at 4°Ré and stayed there, although the 5 Beaufort wind (that's 40km/h in real money) made it chillier. I went norf towards the Severn and did a lap of the old Dursley hilly 24 course. 720m of climbing(!) in just under 40km and I thought I did OK to get around in 1hr24. Then I found out that the actual course that'll be used for the race in April this year is a modified version: 47km total, 1010m of climbing/860m of descent(!) That's what I call challenging.
After doing that, I faced a rather sapping 40km ride home into the bloody wind, 140km total. Still, I appear to be gaining some fitness. Another month until me first race. Whee!
In the social drinking stakes, I've finally managed to get to the Old Green Tree, which is a really fine, albeit small pub. It's one that attracts 'characters' rather than just being a pub where the locals are a bit odd. I hasten to add that I am not one of these characters. I'm perfectly sane and I have a certificate to prove it somewhere. I was inveigled to try a few pints of local stout, which was alright until I had a Leffe and realised what beer should taste like. Then I spotted some Chimay...
Reading Writing Home by Alan Bennett. It consists of various observations on his life, a collection of diaries over a number of years. It's quite good once you get into it.
I watched Wales beat England in the rugby, which was unbeloivable. Hasn't been done in 20 years!
Saturday was the best. The temp started at -0.8°Ré but got up to as much as 4°Ré by midday. Thus, the lanes were a bit icy in the morning but at least there wasn't much mud or wind. Robin and I did a slightly longer but less hilly Mendips ride (Cheddar, Burrington, A39 up from Wells) than last week and I finished up with 135km.
Sunday started at 4°Ré and stayed there, although the 5 Beaufort wind (that's 40km/h in real money) made it chillier. I went norf towards the Severn and did a lap of the old Dursley hilly 24 course. 720m of climbing(!) in just under 40km and I thought I did OK to get around in 1hr24. Then I found out that the actual course that'll be used for the race in April this year is a modified version: 47km total, 1010m of climbing/860m of descent(!) That's what I call challenging.
After doing that, I faced a rather sapping 40km ride home into the bloody wind, 140km total. Still, I appear to be gaining some fitness. Another month until me first race. Whee!
In the social drinking stakes, I've finally managed to get to the Old Green Tree, which is a really fine, albeit small pub. It's one that attracts 'characters' rather than just being a pub where the locals are a bit odd. I hasten to add that I am not one of these characters. I'm perfectly sane and I have a certificate to prove it somewhere. I was inveigled to try a few pints of local stout, which was alright until I had a Leffe and realised what beer should taste like. Then I spotted some Chimay...
Reading Writing Home by Alan Bennett. It consists of various observations on his life, a collection of diaries over a number of years. It's quite good once you get into it.
I watched Wales beat England in the rugby, which was unbeloivable. Hasn't been done in 20 years!
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