Thursday 28th July 2022, 9.50am (day 3,990)
The underbelly of the Mancunian Way isn’t the most glamorous spot in the city, but somehow this combination of graffiti and beer bottles looks relaxing.
Underpass still life
Being 42
Life, one day at a time
Tag Archives: beer
Reggie relaxes
Tuesday 3rd May 2022, 4.35pm (day 3,904)
A very limited day in terms of photographic opportunities. It was some cherry blossom again, or pub dog Reggie being mildly exploited. But he doesn’t mind this kind of thing, it’s his job.
Whitelock’s Ale House, Leeds
Saturday 26th March 2022, 1.15pm (day 3,866)
After ten shots in a row with no people on them, let’s admit I do still occasionally join the social world. And Whitelock’s in Leeds really is a fine place to do it: the blue plaque acknowledging that this is a pub with much history, opened in 1715 and still going very strong. Arguably this place is the best thing about Leeds, and that’s not even to diminish the rest of the city.
Gareth and Jamie bring essential supplies
Monday 15th November 2021, 2.40pm (day 3,735)
The tape marks the legal limit of my world. But I have suppliers who can transfer across it some essential supplies, not least a couple of six-packs of Windhoek beer, from Namibia. Thank you Gareth — who’s also, in the end, the reason I am here in the first place (more on this next week, probably) — and his other half, Jamie. Dear St Helena Government: I didn’t cross the tape.
The remains of lunch
Friday 20th August 2021, 12.40pm (day 3,648)
More food, and more alcohol — note the presence of a bottle of Rochefort 10-year-old, already declared on here as the world’s finest beer. But then, I am on holiday, and food and alcohol is at least part of what being on holiday is all about. Taken in the aptly named ‘Friends of Ham’ bar/restaurant in Leeds, at the start of a trip down South.
Reunited…. slowly
Monday 10th May 2021, 3.15pm (day 3,546)
Tony pays the boss his dues. OK, so it’s early to be in the pub but plenty of people were; starved of true human contact for so long, there is a great deal of lost time to be made up between friends.
Bernard joins us for a drink
Friday 20th November 2020, 5.30pm (day 3,375)
To stop the walls closing in any more than they already are I’ve been making a point of sitting out in a spot by the river in the early evenings, when the weather allows. Just to take some air, watch the ducks (my post of a few days ago was taken from this same point), have a couple of beers. Feel human. Clare joined me for this one and so, for 15 minutes or so, did fellow ex-Railway habitué Bernard, who happened to be passing with a bottle of his own. We talked. As much as anything, we just enjoyed the fact we could see someone else’s face, for real.
Pavement café culture (Yorkshire style)
Sunday 23rd August 2020, 4.15pm (day 3,286)
I have been thinking about this, and have decided to declare this the one and only positive outcome of lockdown –‘this’ being the emergence of a UK pavement café culture. We don’t necessarily have the weather for it, but hey, pubs and restaurants can invest in some umbrellas, as they do elsewhere. On sunny afternoons like this one, it doesn’t matter, and we can give it a shot.
Dog portrait
Sunday 12th July 2020, 3.05pm (day 3,244)
Now the pubs have reopened, dogs are once again obliged to spend their Sundays wondering why their owners are not letting them just clamber over everyone else in the beer garden. This one has given up on it all, and decided just to keep a close eye on the piece of litter: before it dozed off, anyway.
Cheers
Saturday 4th July 2020, 2.30pm (day 3,236)
It has been 105 days (March 21st) since I was last in a pub, and 6 more since the last time one featured on here.
But they’re back open. So a pint was duly raised in the Bay Horse, Oxenhope, Yorkshire, to celebrate this fact. And celebration it was: anyone about to come back with messages of doom and gloom in response, please don’t.
