Mahinda’s Little World

Stuff. Been busy at work, and my lunchtimes have been used up with other stuff, so no updates for a while.

So, what’s been particularly noteworthy of late? Well, the week before last was pretty exciting, with the Font beer festival on Tuesday night, then the horror night at Howell’s place on Wednesday.

Thursday saw my annual visit to the UMIST beer festival, which featured a shockingly, well, shocking lack of beers - I remember the heady days of the late 90s, when well over a hundred beers were featured. It’s now down to about 50 or 60, unfortunately - with lots of people still partaking, it just means that the beers mostly run out by Friday, and the Saturday session’s a complete non-starter. Oh well.

Before the beer fest, I’d been dragged out for a meal by my boss. It was in Cachumba, in West Dids, with the group comprising Alison (boss), Stuart (her husband) and Ellie (one of their mates). The food was excellent, as usual, and the conversation tended a bit further towards analytical chemistry than most. Fortunately, I wasn’t too out of my depth, although I really have forgotten so much. Found out that Ellie was a real ale drinker, and we shared a fondness for the Little John pub in Hathersage - she’s very jealous of my mates Ed and Andrea, who live all of 100 yards from it.

Back to UMIST on Friday night for more beer. Not that there was that much left. The usual suspects included Pete, Rosy, Linden, Ed, Justin, Alison and Liz. I think. We were later joined by Housemate Helen and Simon (her bloke), who’d been on a works social. I took a bit of time out and moseyed to TriBeCa to say hello to CAMRA Amy, who was over on a works social - she now lives in Liverpool, and was previously in Bury, so I never really got to see much of her anyway.

As fits a girl whom I first met behind the bar at a beer festival, I managed to convince her to come back to UMIST with me, rather than getting the last train back to ScouseLand. The promise of one of the Tenby Towers spare mattresses worked nicely!

So, beer. I might write them all up…once I find my annotated lists…

Went home at the end…don’t think we went anywhere else…and woke up bright and early to take Amy to Piccadilly. Ouch.

The boozer started off highbrow…

Dropped Amy off and headed to Pete’s, via Asda, for the carnage that is a Hattrick Boozer (unfortunately, the website isn’t doing too well these days). For this one, we were going karting, and it was going to be ace!

Rather than write it all out here, I’ll point to Pete’s excellent summaries.

Final results from the karting are here, with a Pete’s-eye-view of the whole day out here

Sunday was spent in recovery. Well, it started with the boozer breakfast, at the rather excellent Olive Tree in Withington village. This is, apparently, a Greek restaurant…but I know it chiefly as an anti-hangover greasy spoon. Except without the grease. Decent breakfasts, at a reasonable price, and excellent service. I can now recommend the hot chocolate, too. Nothing fancy, just exactly what a hung over Mahinda needs. Somerfield being just across the road proves handy for newspaper buying purposes, too.

…but ended up with the usual carnage

After that, well, I’m not too sure what I did, but it involved hanging around the house watching music television, and sleeping. Oh, that’s it - I got back in after breakfast to find Housemate Helen cleaning the house, so I helped by cleaning the kitchen floor, which had gotten very manky indeed.

And that FINALLY brings that week to a close. Only a week and a half behind, now!