All Blogs by The Eccles

This weekend I found myself in York with my Tripod.

Enjoy.

I did.

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Where to begin?

I suppose I should begin at the beginning. Well for me the beginning was Wednesday the third of January. This is when I found a post from Martin about a Winter Beer Festival in Derby.

Now for me an event in Derby should not pose a problem it’s a good number of miles down the road but not too many to be out of the question. However a Beer Festival from its very name means Beer is involved, so that means either no drinking or no driving, so I sent a reply as did most to have a good time and remember those fallen comrades who could not attend.

I received a reply from Martin on Thursday suggesting public transport, to my shame I had not thought about it, fearing the cost would be too great as it is a ninety-mile journey.

And so the adventure begins…

Now there are two things I need, to get from home to Derby.
1 I need to know where I am going.
2 I need to be able not to go into work.

The first problem was relatively easy to solve.
As soon as I read Martins reply I started formulating a plan and searched the web for train times, fortunately for me I still had the addresses saved as favourites from my last train journey, (a short quest to find a birthday party in Durham) however this time I hit an irksome problem.

I could get information about train times which proved very helpful, and in the end somewhat reliable, however I could get no information on the cost of the journey. Not to matter I work in Bradford a short distance from the station, and went during my lunch break to get a price on tickets. I had expected to pay anything between £25 and £40 for the trip, and was relieved that the total was closer to my first guess than my last meaning I could afford to go.

Problem two was going to be a sticky situation, where I work has no idea about decent working practices and we find out our shift rotor by asking on a Friday night “Am I working Tomorrow?” Now I had been moved from one department to another at the beginning of last week, and this week I had asked to move back. The new department I was working in doesn’t work Saturdays but my old one does so I had no idea what the answer would be to the question.

By five in the afternoon I had still not been informed of my shift pattern for the next week and was in a quandary, if I should have been in and failed to turn up I would have hell to pay and lose my glowing reference (the only reason I put up working for such a slack set-up firm) so tentatively I had to ask my boss if I was expected in over the weekend. Relieve he advised I could have this one off and I would work next weekend, so everything was set. I knew the cost and the travel times.

I came home, sent a few E-Mail and posts, checked through all the information for the hundredth time, created a play list for my MP3 player, dug out some spare batteries and packed my bag ready for morning.

I now felt like Oliver from one of my favourite books Oliver’s Travels by Alan Plater. In this book Oliver starts an adventure by trying to track down a crossword compiler, who he has spokent to through the post but never met in the real world.

This is the first time I have ever met someone from the Internet in real life, in over ten years of using the Internet.
Well I had not lost my job, nor do I own a set of matching suitcases. (ok well actually I do own two identical suitcases but I didn’t use them for a day trip) I had no jazz music on me, but I had got my MP3 player loaded with blues rock and I was travelling south whilst Oliver travelled North but for all that I still felt Like my hero.

Saturday; I got up later than I had hoped but not to matter as I had planned everything down to the last detail.

I got to the station in Shipley paid for my tickets and checked the departure board for the next available train to Leeds.

I found an earlier train was running a few minutes late and headed at a full run to platform one.

As I ran to the platform I could see the train pulling in, unfortunately I still had to cross the footbridge. I got my hand on the door, and pressed the door release button, nothing happened, I dashed down to the next door hoping it was just a faulty button but no. The train started to pull away with me still pounding on the button. I wont go on to curse and rant about these new trains with their silly electric doors here.

Dejectedly I headed back towards the main building to find which platform the next train to Leeds would arrive at.

I saw on the board that the next train would arrive on platform three so I headed in that direction. Within a few minutes a train pulled in, it was a little early but not much so I climbed on.

Instantly I realised my mistake, I look at the board above the door and see the destination is saying Ilkley and not Leeds. I turn round to get off and see that the door has closed.

Now I will rant about electric doors on trains. On previous occasions of using this line the carriages were hick old dangerous things. The doors would only lock when the train started moving, after a mechanical interlock operated by inertia switches would activate once the wheels started to turn. The upshot was that you could exit and board the train up to the point of it moving off, especially as most of these locks were broken anyway, definitely I could have gotten off the train, before it left the station, without damaging myself or having to jump from a moving train.

But now they have all new rolling stock from Siemens that look very pretty but imprison people against their will. I was forced to continue with the journey heading in completely the wrong direction back to near where I had started from.

I complained to the conductor for locking me on the train, he just shrugged and told me to go a few stops up the line and I could carry on with my journey from there.

So here I am at Guiseley station confronted with another board and the sage advice of a passenger from the wrong train (cross the platform and don’t take the first train).
I followed these instructions to the letter, all the time concerned about missing my connection in Leeds, and having never used this particular station before not knowing the journey time from Guiseley to Leeds didn’t help.

When the first train came into view I made sure to stay away from it but I did speak to the guard who was slightly more helpful than her colleague and indicated that the journey time would be ten minutes. This did little to make me feel better as I was unsure whether this was an exact ten minutes or a rounded ten minutes and in reality fifteen to twenty. For me every minute was crucial, as I had already caused myself to be thirty minutes behind the first train I had missed.

To my relief the train did take an exact ten minutes, leaving me enough time to by my large cup of coffee and ludicrously expensive Danish pastry, before I had to find my next train.

So here I am at Leeds station, again I have another huge board to look through. Quickly I realise that the board is in alphabetical order and I had made sure to know the final destination of my train so finding the info was easy. I was to head to platform 11a to find a Virgin Train going to Bournemouth, I saw the sign to Bournemouth and the board advised that the train was running ten minutes late. I inwardly giggled at this because although I have never used a train run by the Virgin company, I was aware how bad the service is reported to be with trains always running late. This information bleak as it may have been reassured me that I was heading for the right train.

To get from the platform I was on to platform 11 I had to cross the track and here I was wrong footed again. Last time I had, had to use a different track there had been an underpass going under the station, now I was confronted with an escalator and a footbridge above the station. All little things but in my fragile state after nearly missing my connection I did notice it.

I got to platform 11 and once again checked the board this there were two one gave general info about all trains on the platform, another at the stopping point had more info into the destinations of the specific train. This is where I hit a snag, the only train listed was giving a destination of Huddersfield and not Bournemouth, certainly not Derby. Fortunately for me everyone else wanted the Derby train and a station guard had to go up and down the platform to confirm to everyone that yes the correct train would be arriving at this platform.

The train did arrive, it was the one I needed, It was a virgin train and very uncomfortable, although I had a better seat than some people as I had inadvertently sat in a reserved seat as had half the carriage and nobody came to reclaim it, unlike the rest of the poor people.
The person sat next to me had brought her Sudoku book so left me to quietly listen to my MP3 player and plan my next fanfic (a Daria – Breakfast Club crossover.)

I got into Derby took a photo of the station, went outside and called Tom. Tom was waiting in the station coffee shop, I walked in introduced myself, and we waited for Martin. Martin had planned to arrive in stile on a Trent bus, only to have the bus fly past him leaving him with only a Train left to get into Derby. Martin arrived a few minutes behind me and we all headed for the Beer festival.

I have not been to a CAMRA Beer Festival before so was not sure what to expect, I had thought it would be lots of small tables and stalls from different breweries and plastic beakers the type used at outdoor festivals. Oh no, The first thing you had to do was collect a glass beer mug, of 2/3 pint size and a gift voucher redeemable for beer. You could choose between a presentation mug to keep, or a plain mug to return, but no plastic beakers in sight at this venue.

It was also instead of being like a food fare with lots of little stalls just one long bar with thirty pumps in operation, constantly changed when the barrels ran dry so in total throughout the whole three day festival a total of over seventy beers had been on offer. Each beer was a different cost and the beer token was divided into ten pence increments and marked of accordingly with a black marker.



In total we Tasted 17 Beers between us by the official count, and we shared 2 gallons of beer between the three of us.




12:15 we each get our first Beers

Padre started with a winning formula from Durham, of Nine Altars Bitter

Tom chose Burton Bridges, Old Expensive

I settled for a Whim, Special Ale

Round Two 13:00

I ordered a Monster Mash, by Nobby's brewery

Martin wanted a Black Christmas, another Brew from Whim

Tom had Et Tu Brutus, by Derventio

Round Three 13:30

Tom got a Good King Leglass, by Harviestoun

Martin Had some Stilton Porter, by Brewsters

I had a Smiling Assasin, by Falstaff

It was at this point that Martin had to go, leaving me and Tom with a lot of ground to cover.

Round Four at 14:00

Tom chose a Wooden Box, by Tollgate

I ended up with a Buckled Wheel, by Tryst

Round Five at 14:30

Tom got a Phoenix, by Falstaff

I got a Java Jolt, by Darwin

After receiving these the con turned from a Daria-con to a Discworld-con after a drunk tried to enter our conversation.

We made our escape and Tom took me to the Olde Dolphin Inne.

We had a couple in here I found an old favorite of Deuchars IPA Tom was drinking Abbot Ale.

This concludes the list of all 17 beers consumed on Saturday the 6th of January.

All that is left, is for me to thank both Martin and Tom for their hospitality and for making this a very pleasant and memorable trip.

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