So lovely to be hanging out with these awesome people again.
It’s been a horrible few weeks in the Worfolk household. We had food poisoning, then Venla got a cold, then we got her cold, then Venla got another cold, then we got that cold, then I had to have some dentistry work, the list goes on.
But, as we adapt to our new lifestyle: Venla in daycare, Elina back at work, me studying, we have finally seen some benefit.
For example, if we line up Elina’s holidays with my study days, we can do things without a baby. Like a romantic cycle ride. On two bicycles each made for one.
We made it as far as the Abbey Inn.
Our aim was to have a quiet lunch outside as we enjoyed some autumn sun. This what somewhat foiled by the delivery lorry turning up, and the family that turned up and decided to sit right next to us, but was much brightened by running it to our friend Robin.
The food was poor, but the pub was nice. Given that decided to skip dessert and get a piece of cake from The Stables on the way back, instead.
While in Anglesey, we had lunch at the Ship Inn. It is located in Red Wharf Bay, and we had lunch right on the waterfront.
The food was pretty good. It was not anything to shout about, but good for a pub. Elina’s dish was served with steamed vegetables rather than salad, which was lucky as lettuce would have blown away! The gulls were soon in there after we had gone.
It is a beautiful location and worth a visit if you are in the area.
A few years ago, while I was working up in Harrogate, my friend Alan and I refined the art of pub lunch. At Buzz, Jason and I achieved pub week, which was no mean feet. However, we could only dream of the system Alan and I put in place. Sometimes with other colleagues, sometimes not, we got it down to a schedule.
| Day | Pub | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Monday | Smiths Arms | Nice way to start the week. Food was okay. Mostly, it was close. |
| Tuesday | Squinting Cat | Quiet, plenty of tables, big range of food and the barman was a character. |
| Wednesday | Black Swan, Fat Badger | Usally Black Swan, but occasionally we would drive into the centre for the Fat Badger. |
| Thursday | Old Spring Well, Pine Martin | Good specials, though roadworks severely hampered our journey times, in which case we would fall back to the Pine Martin. |
| Friday | Square & Compass | Bit of a drive to North Rigton, but worth it for the food. |
This went on for months. We managed two team lunches in my current team this week. That was great, but I can only dream of the glory days…
If you run far enough up the Leeds Liverpool Canal, you eventually reach the Rodley Barge pub. How you actually get over the canal to have a pint is less clear. However, it does make a convenient place to stop and turn around. This could well be the furthest I ever run up the canal as I don’t have any plans to do longer distances.
We saw another good turnout for the January meeting of West Yorkshire Humanists. We initially put out only a dozen or so chairs in a circle. However, we soon had to add more, making for a large and very misshapen circle. Always a good thing of course!
This month was debate night and we discussed a number of issues. The headline debate was ‘can terrorism ever be justified?’ The arguments are complex and myriad once you get into it.
After the meeting we went to The George for a few drinks.
They had alcohol-free cocktails for £2.95. I am not sure anyone had ever ordered them before was there was a lot of confusion about how to make them. However, they tasted good, and we ended up getting a second round.
For this year’s Humanist winter social, we had a meal at the Lawnswood Arms.
Those of you who did computing with me at Leeds will no doubt remember Jack Kelly, also known as Aussie Jack. He spent August doing a world tour to catch up with friends and dropped my Leeds for some food or conversation.
Having had my wallet battered by a week of Finland we ended up having lunch at the Cuthbert Brodrick. A place where you can buy a meal cheaper than you can buy a pint in Helsinki. We ended up having lunch at Wetherspoon’s again the next day – this time at the train station – to meet up with Sarann and Chris. Some might worry this would give off the impression that we’re just alcohols that spend all our time at ‘Spoons. However, Jack was here for a year, so probably had us down that way anyway.
In the evening we held a small gathering. I managed to cook a reasonable amount of food (as opposed to way, way too much) and a good time was had by all. I even went out of my way to not be a grumpy bastard and joined in the card game, Love Letters, which turned out to be a lot of fun.
While not having a well though through name, The Pour House does offer quite a nice location by the canal. As such, it made a promising location for an A-Soc Tuesday night social.
Last week, the Atheist Society organised a dinner at Veritas. We gave them fair warning, booking out their back room so we would have the place to ourselves.
We’ve eaten there before, and it’s been reasonable.
Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case on Tuesday. We arrived at 7pm, and after a bit of a delay in just taking the orders – the food didn’t turn up until 9:30pm! We got some snacks and a round of drinks to say sorry, but two and a half hours is just incredible.
Worse, when the food did turn up, a lot of it was burned and badly cooked – Elina’s pie seemingly the only meal that came out of the kitchen as intended. By the time our main courses had arrived and we had eaten, it was going on until 11pm, so we skipped dessert and gave it up as a bad job.