Nott’s Notes Friday 2nd May 2008
The band of Merry Men in tights were Yup, Mid-week Tone, Pedro (Groucho??), Granpop Bill, Keithee’s up for it, JayCee, Dasher, DCeen, McCeen, and Twiglett
The train to Nottingham, home of Robin Hood, was bang on time. JayCee and Granpop Bill eagerly jumped on board to take advantage of the free seats with the extra leg room. A brief change at Derby and we soon alighted at Nottingham Station to be greeted by Squire Twiglett, whose darling wife Linda had dropped him off.
Mid week Tone, the real ale bard, had got the ale itinery sussed and led us to the first ale house, ‘CanalHouse’. ‘We’ll just barge in’, cracked Twiglett, as we strode over the wharf bridge below which a canal barge was housed. Things could only improve?
Decisions, decisions, as we poured over the ales available. Bateman’s Valiant and brewer of the year, Castle Rock’s ales were chalked up. It was a warm sunny day, and advantage of the outside seating was taken. An ale house next door was also very tempting, and displayed a good selection of ales; but the outside seating wasn’t so appealing. The ‘crack’ was good, as noted by Dasher who had found somewhere he’d have loved to have parked his bike. But then you had to be facing the right way to take full advantage. Keithee, also had his eye on the crack, and forgot whose beer he was tasting, before Pedro made him aware he’d drank his pint.
Next to us, a young wench in tight denim jeans, a white tee shirt and long black hair, who we hadn’t noticed, approached Yup to look after her notes whilst she popped back to the bar for another pint. Well she would feel safe with them in Yup’s hands.
Shame we had to move on, but today’s outing was to give us a taster of the area for future visits when we could perhaps spend longer at our favourite haunts. The ‘trip to Jerusalem’ wasn’t too long, surprisingly, and room was available between the ladies and the gents in the back yard. McManagerCeen rang to say he’d arrived at the station in his car, straight off a management course. A chorus of where’s yer glasses gone erupted as DCeen answered and managed to lose his specs.
‘Little John’ and ‘Ye Olde Trip’ ales were available, which weren’t at their best. A discussion about whisky began as we waited for McCeen, culminating in a promised malt whisky trip to be organised by DCeen. McCeen finally managed to arrive and duly finished off JayCee’s pint for him before we moved on to meet Robin Hood himself. Keithee tried to wrestle the bow and arrow off him for JayCee to take home as a present for Andrew.
We passed the ‘Castle’ pub which JayCee thought was nice, but as they didn’t have any decent ales on show we shot off in search of the next on the list, The Bell.
The Bell Inn was a cosy little city centre pub, selling ales black country ale including ‘Fireside’. The toilet was also cosy evidently, and was built for pygmies according to JayCee. Granpop Bill was particularly interested in the poster which declared that in 1812, William Clarke was the landlord of The Bell, renowned for opening the Trent Bridge cricket ground. Its boring youth.
Still reeling from his failure to finish his pint at the ‘Trip’ and being unable to get Robin’s bow and arrow, JayCee threw his pint over DCeen. Of course he blamed Mid-week Tone for the spillage, who was standing 4 feet away. DCeen though, was incredibly chilled, being more stressed out over the impending final Stoke match due to take place the following Sunday against Leicester.
Pedro, or should it be the hairy new look Gringo, was intrigued how Mid week Tone had found the pubs, to which Tone replied that he simply typed in CAMRA and Nottingham in his pc. JayCee said he’d tried that before but he just got Jessops.
Finally, a quick visit to Ye Olde Salutation Inn, the last before the Indian, where Triglett could thankfully make a dash to the designer toilettes. As we approached, a pigeon descended and dropped a present on DCeen’s jacket to match his damp shirt. An omen perhaps for the Sunday game.
We crossed the road to be ‘4550 miles from Delhi’. A democratic decision was made to try the banquet at a special discounted rate of £17 fought triumphantly by Pedro. The food was good and plentiful with endless supplies being available. Several bottles of house wine were ordered and luckily nobody saw Yup spill his wine over the table before we left to catch the train, except for Dasher who apologised for the bill being slightly damp.
In Derby we had just under an hour to lose at The Brunswick before the minibus was due to collect us from outside the railway station. Groucho tagged on to a couple of folk out for a quiet drink, before Keithee joined him and lost his memory.
Sadly we lost drinking time as the minibus had got lost somewhere in Derby. The driver and his minibus were new to the firm and when he finally arrived, three quarters of an hour later, he proceeded to circle a couple of roundabouts before finally taking the right route back to Stoke.
Night night
Yuppers
(enjoy yer baltis)