Round Trips

It was a sunny day last Saturday and we decided to do the Windsor "Long Walk", so we parked the car in the Great Park and walked into town. At around 10 km (round trip) it's a decent walk, especially in the hot sun so while in town we popped into the Two Flints taproom under the railway arches and had a couple of cold beers to give us a rest and the fuel to walk back to the car. This is an up and coming brewer that I've mentioned several times before but they're really knocking out some good brews this year, the pale ale above was a crisp and fruity delight, only 3.4% ABV but full of flavour and nice and cold, perfect for the setting and the weather!

Liquid time warp

Spent a pleasant evening with an old mate last night, chewing the fat and drinking excellent brews at one of my favourite pubs, the Fox & Hounds in Caversham, it was nice weather for a change and so we sat in the beer garden (see above). We got so engrossed in conversation that we completely lost track of the time, I just managed to catch the last train home and didn't get in until gone midnight!

Friday Smirk

The lads discussing how our religious brothers and sisters often bend and twist the stories in their holy books to suit the zeitgeist of the day, turning absurdities into "allegory" and contradictions into "interpretations", while others just stick their fingers in their ears and shout la la la!

Trains, a good idea?

This was the rail network in the UK around 1920 (probably it's peak), pretty much every major town and quite a few villages had stations, over a third of it was shut down and mothballed in the 1960s (and more since) as cars became the preeminent way of getting from A to B. I think it's pretty much accepted by people now that that was short sighted, what with climate change and congestion on the roads, trains offer a mode of transport for both freight and people that (with sufficient investment and maintenance) is superior for medium to long distance journeys as well as travel into large urban centres where parking is limited. 

I've used the train twice already this week and will again at the weekend, it's convenient but suffers from a couple of important limitations, it's too expensive and is relatively unreliable. I saw a couple of posters at the station today for "Great British Railways", a renationalisation of our train network, I wonder if that will improve things? I fear that trains will be too low down in the pecking order for cash from the government, the system is already creaking and desperately needs investment, I wonder if it will get it ahead of healthcare, social services and defence, I somehow doubt it.

So, wha'd we gonna do?

 

While on my lunchtime walk I spotted these three crows sitting at the top of a tree, it reminded me of that scene at the end of the Jungle Book movie (the original one) where the three vultures are debating what they're going to do and going around in circles, much like Trump and his cronies, at least the vultures were useful in the end but somehow I doubt Trump will ever be..

Shelter

I was walking through Belsize Park at the weekend on my way to meet my Son and I noticed this rather strange looking building. It looked very 30s/40s in style and although now a data-storage facility I did wonder what it was originally built for. A bit of googling revealed that it was originally a WW2 deep bomb shelter, connected to the Northern Line which runs parallel to Haverstock Hill it also goes much deeper than the underground. Amazingly it was designed in 1942 and could accommodate 9600 people and extends to 140ft below ground. There are a couple of these in London, built in residential areas and consisting of sleeping quarters, medical facilities, kitchens and self contained power units, hopefully consigned to history such shelters will only now ever be used to store things like computer data archives etc., but the way the world seems to be headed at the moment who knows!

Beak People

Tried one of these at the weekend, it's from  my favourite Sussex brewer Beak and is their table beer. Excellent flavour and mouthfeel for the low ABV, not quite as good as PMST from Verdant but not that far off! Good work Beak people!