Mahinda’s Little World

Part II took us up to Saturday afternoon. Not far to go now!

Crawl

Towards the end of the afternoon shift, I got stuck with cleaning out lots of barrel jackets – these are for the cooling system, and it’s a particularly boring task – before we headed out on a pub crawl with Young CAMRA. “We” being Dave, Andrew and me. In addition to the usual Manchester U30 bunch, we were joined by Verity, Rob, Gus and many many others.

First off, the Beer House with its plethora of pumps…then the Marble Arch with its terrific tiling…followed by the Smithfield with its own min-festival…and the recently restored Crown and Kettle with its fire-damaged frescoes. Well, maybe not exactly frescoes. Last up was Bar Fringe, which was a pretty tight squeeze, and there we were joined by Lynda’s lot, who decided on the dodgy café next door for a curry. I had my doubts, but it wasn’t all that bad in the end. Took bloody ages though.

Suddenly, we realised that we’d lost Andrew! He’d ordered, and was nowhere to be found. Now, he does have a habit of disappearing when drunk…and he was deep in the Northern Quarter, i.e. a slightly dodgy area that he really doesn’t know. I managed to reach him on the phone, and stepped outside to try to find him. It turns out that he’d walked across the road towards the Smithfield and its selection of fine ales. I coerced him back to the curry joint.

It was then back to the beer fest for me, leaving the rest of them in Bar Fringe.

I’d asked Dave to keep an eye on Andrew…sure enough, he disappeared again. In the direction of the Smithfield, again. Fortunately Dave found him, and they hopped in a taxi back home.

Staff Drinking Sesh

Back at the festival, I served until last orders, then helped with the evening clean-up job, including yet more cooling jackets. Grrrr. But it was all worth it!

Unfortunately, we had loads and loads of ale left. Which we tried to drink. We tried, honest!

It was nice to drink with the other staffers, and I got introduced to a few festival traditions. Like the garlic curry that one of the guys brought in. Quite simply, a spicy curry with whole cloves of garlic as the main ingredient. Something like 7lb of garlic went into the pot. It was………probably the most garlicky thing I’ve ever tasted. I’m not so sure I’d try it again, to be honest.

The other tradition was Ruth’s foot massages. Now, I’ve got firm views on my feet, i.e. people shouldn’t go anywhere near them, but Ruth and Emma convinced me, so out came the bucket of warm water. Ruth on one foot, and Emma on the other…I was pleasantly surprised, really – it was quite enjoyable…until they started to tickle me!

Other memories of that evening are somewhat hazy, but I think we got in at something like 4am. Maybe later. Maybe Emma left before I did, as she had to get to Sale at silly o’clock for her lift back down to the south coast.

Actually, no…I think I remember us getting a cab back, having first walked to Piccadilly in search of a bus. It must have been closer to 5am.

Sunday

The day started scandalously early, with Emma having to leave and catch an early 41 (8am? 9am?) towards Sale. After the previous night, I was nowhere near safe enough to drive her over. I saw her off at the bus stop, blearily-eyed and shambling, then crashed straight back to bed.

Emma had been an absolutely fabulous houseguest over the last week. I think my place is a bit too far out of town to be ideal, though.

I awoke a bit later, and eventually find Dave in the living room, quite awake. We found Lynda and Hans in the living room, and I drove the four of us into town, where we went to my favourite curry café of them all, the inestimable This ‘n’ That. After the feed, Lynda and Hans headed into town for some shopping (I think), Dave pootled off to Piccadilly to catch his train back to Lincolnshire, and I meandered towards New Century Hall to help clear up the beer festival.

It was the first time I’d helped out in a take down session, and it was hard physical work. It made a nice change though, and was probably worth about five gym sessions! It was absolutely heartbreaking seeing so much fine ale being thrown away – it took quite some time to drain all the unspent casks, with several-gallon buckets constantly on the move between cask rack and the sink.

Heartbreaking, I tell you. Some was supped, but not much.

Once the bulk of the work was done, i.e. all the barrels taken down and the scaffolding, trestles, etc. all loaded on to a great big lorry, it was close to 7pm, possibly even later, so those of us still standing headed to the Marble Arch for a well-deserved pint.

And then home.

And then a whole week of work…which was nice.

All in all, it was an absolutely fantastic week, if a little intense. If only I had more days off work, I’d happily do the same for Stockport and, of course, the daddy of them all - the GBBF. Ho hum. I shall have to make do with sampling as a mere punter.