Tuesday, August 30, 2005

Sam Boo Kar!

Bank holiday weekends eh? What to say. Well for one thing. Port is good. It is even better after 6 pints, half a bottle of wine, whiskey and sambuka. At least until the next morning at which point it repays you for your foolishness.

So Friday night - up the M1 to Nottingham, arrive, drink port, sleep.

Saturday, time to celebrate Karen's arrival into old age by getting drunk. But since pubs aren't open yet, head into town instead with Stephan, making some poor lass in McDonalds quite upset by revising the queueing system for entirely selfish reasons resulting in us obtaining our double sausage n egg mcmuffins before her. You have much to learn young padawench. Head to clothing shops, purchase 2 new pairs of jeans from a shop called Bank which is new since last time I went shopping in Nottingham. Dumped car back at home, and waited for Tim to arrive, before we all headed into town. The rest of the lazy London lot were probably just about getting out of bed by this point to commence their journeys up to Nottm. Took Tim and Stephan to the Salutation (quiz machine - relied on Tim's music knowledge to get partial refund of investment), The Royal Children (currently serving Timothy Taylors Landlord - excellent) and Ride (previously known as the Czech bar). By this point the others had declared their arrival and readiness to get started drinking, and we grabbed a bus back to Sherwood Manor to meet them. This was followed by a meal in a French Bistro 'Le Mistral' in Sherwood, where I partook of the meatballs (quite tasty). The wine list alas did not serve any Alsace Rieslings, indeed the only riesling available was Australian. In its favour it did have Pol Roger champagne available (good choice) but at £44.95 (*cough* excessive markup) I passed. After the meal we headed back into town and drank the night out in Ride (Stephan's round of Sambuka caused some people (mainly Stephan to be honest) some problems. But then prior to the Sambuka he'd been trying to drunkenly lecture Mandy on both clothing and on how to approach her relationship with me, so possibly his Sambuka triggered projectile vomiting was a welcome break! Got home, drank Port et c'est ca.

Sunday morning - up well early raring to go. Well I was anyway.. I felt good.. up until about 1pm when we got to Steve's for the pre-pub crawl BBQ. At which point my hangover started to kick in quite evilly. Hair of the dog didn't seem to be working on the headache, and nor did dunking my head in a sink full of cold water. We proceed to initiate the pub crawl, going to one place in Hucknall, then tram to Bulwell (pronounced Boool or Buwull or Buh) for a pint of Tetley and to watch the start of England's second innings. We left the pub with England at 27-0.. it was looking peachy. We arrive at the Fox and Hounds in Basford... things suddenly not so peachy - England have some how lost 4 wickets and are hovering around the 50 mark - all of a sudden the guarantee of victory begins to look less assured. But what do I care - I feel bad.. and now I can't even stick my head in the sink because there are no plugs. Then we head on to Rik's local 'The White Swan' for a pint or 3. Unbeknownst to me, most of the pub seemed to have been told a few too many stories from my past by Rik, so I received an enthusiastic welcome. My hangover still present I started trying the nurofen and water technique. The cricket reached a tense conclusion - but England finally win after losing 7 wickets. My hangover has started to clear finally, and we head on to the next pub (The Horse and Groom) where my sister used to work. Tim Taylors on draft - result. On to the next pub 'The Lion' - passing the old Shipstone's Brewery en route.. The Lion has a beer festival on - so more real ale - and then back to the Tram, to head to the Orange Tree nr Nottingham Trent Uni. Phil and Gav procure 59p cans of super strength cider and proceed to drink them on the tram to the bemusement of onlookers. The Orange Tree has some Australians drinking in.. so a bit of friendly ribbing ensues. We then head to Saltwater for the last pub of the day - and a jug of some jamaican rum punch cocktail. Capping off with a delightful Antalya's burger and an amicable taxi ride home with a cricket fan cabbie.

Monday morning - woohoo. no hangover. Get up. Wash the car to remove the sap and birdmuck from the treelined boulevards of Chiswick. Take Mandy to see the Major Oak.. narrowly evade being bought a Robin Hood hat apparently - tho' Mandy does buy a naff pottery thimble for herself as a souvenir. I hope it brings her much happiness ;-) Mummsy cooks us a rather fine casserole for the evening meal -and then we head back down Sarth on the A1 listening to a fine collection of songs on one of Mandy's CDs. Roxette was prominent.. Nuff said! Good weekend though.

4 comments:

Stephan said...

Okay, now I really appreciate Bryce's more diplomatic retelling of my misadventures. I think I well and truly paid for all the stupidity I embarked upon.

Good dodge on the Robin Hood hat.

DeathOwl said...

Diplomacy. Deriv: "Di Plum Achy" Pain in the bollocks or what.

Stephan said...

Been there, had that...

Wreckferret said...

Just think- you could have continued on the Sunday- but what happened to Steve's "No Pints" rule?
Now I'm quite happy to have partaken of a jar of Landlord here or there, but I thought the idea of Pints was to slow the crawl down to a... well, a crawl.
Something Steve et al didn't want.

Oh well.
but yeah, ales, cider, coctails & I assume some lager as well- nice mix going on there on the Sunday as well then.

Still- no port nor Sambuka tho. =P

Heh- didn't know about Stephan's Lectures to Mandy tho!
They gonna become Christmas Lectures?