Cheryl....

Cheryl is dead..... long live The Henhouse Five plus Too (Also)!

No, Yorkshire Pudding..... remove your head from the cooker..... she's not actually dead.... I simply had to remove her particularly offensive brand of music from my web page and replace it with something more, well.... Foxy!

So, go on people, treat yourself by clicking the little arrow thing.... under the webcam.... over there.... look.... it's right there under where it says "music player".... click it..... with the mouse..... single click..... left mouse button.... no your other "left"!!!

I dedicate this track to John Gray and his collection of Fauna and flora.... if the rain doesn't stop, we'll have to change his name to Noah!

More bar work tonight.... wish me luck with those pesky pumps!

You would imagine, given the number of text messages and emails that I receive on a daily basis offering compensation for the "accident I had" or the "insurance I was sold" that I'd never have to work again!!  Sadly, this is not the case!

Rest assured, I'll be saving up some pennies to put towards some mosquito free fishing membership!

As a complete sidetrack - of which I am a consummate master - And I presume this will only work if you live in the UK..... try this!  It made me giggle.

Well, it's about a gajillion percent humidity today and it's dark enough to be the middle of winter, but with rain, and temperatures reminiscent of summer..... only one thing for it.... coffee and Judge Judy it is then!

Beer

Been a while since I went beer hunting or indeed "ticking" for that matter.

A "ticker" for those that don't know, isthe closest thing the world of beer gets to a train spotter or anorak.  Tickers drink beer for the benefit of having put a tick beside that beer and adding it to their ticked list.  I've seen tickers at beer festivals having a single sip, yes just one sip of a fresh glass of beer and then getting out their rucksack, funnel and plastic bottle and promptly decanting the foamy brew, and labelling the new plastic bottle before stashing it back in their knapsack of destruction for consumption at a later date.

It's a dog drink dog world!

Me?  I like beer.... I LOVE beer.... my only problem is that I HATE being drunk.... it's a real quandry.

So, for a change, today, we visited The Nook in Holmfirth (land of a million Summer Wine tours) for their "Madchester Spring Beer Festival" - and yes, rather obscurely for a Yorkshire pub, their main selection of beers on offer were sourced from Manchester and its surrounding districts.  The exception to the rule being the beers from The Nook's own brewery.

I tried a chilli beer, a chocolate cherry stout, a pale blonde ale, a brace of golden ales, a black stout, and a dark ruby beer.... a really nice variety of flavours, aromas, colours and strengths.  A Saturday afternoon treat.

I didn't tick any beers, I didn't make a single tasting note on the supplied beer information sheet, I didn't decant any beer to bring home with me.... I emptied each glass before venturing on to the next level.

so now you know....  beer is good... there's a lot of variety, you don't NEED to stick with mass produced alcoholic drinks..... and you can take your dog to the pub with you!

I should also mention - I think it's only fair and prudent - that it was ME who put "Remember You're a Womble" on the jukebox!!  Sorry, but, to the woman who sang the song the whole way through, I have to say I knew someone other than just me would appreciate it.

When  you drink beers of this variety and quality, it's fair to say that Britain really HAS got talent!!

It's a yes from me!

Earwig.

Earwig oh again......

Here we go again .... geddit??

It's like a dingbat but more moronic.....

That's what you get when you get a drunken fox blog......

Yesterday's Examiner dingbat was:

O _ e r _ t _ o _

I came up with several ideas but the most serious one I could come up with was "painless operation" and if that's the case, whoever thinks these things up needs sacking!! Is "painless operation" a well known phrase or saying?? If so.... here is my response, in dingbat form:

abracadabra o_er_t_o_ not your posterior!!

Translated - spoiler (highlight it to see it): magic painless operation my arse!

Idiots.

The Old Ship Inn's first beer festival in Brighouse today... I'm glad to say that I made it there to sample their fine array of ales..... not all of them good, but then not all of them ordered by me.... miraculously - most of the ones I ordered were brilliant..... highlights:

Golcar - Dark Mild.
Elland - 1872 Porter.
Marble - Chocolate.
Marble - Ginger.
Brass Monkey - Silverback.
Brass Monkey - Monkey Pooh.

At a paltry two quid a pint on all the festival beers.... g'wan and fill thee boots.

Just a quick note to Emma - I love it when someone enjoys a punchline as much as I do..... magic cock my arse!!



I have lost count of the number of photos I've taken at Cupwith Reservoir, but here it is.... ANOTHER and one unlike any other.... melting snow and ice on some lovely colourful moss at the side of the water. Suck it up.

C C C C Cold......

Apparently, and these are not my words, but apparently last night was the coldest night in Yorkshire.... ever, or at least since the recording of data was established, a trifling forty some years ago. Ironically, I couldn't tell you what that temperature was!!

Crisp day, crunchy, a bit frosty, a bit snowy, very icy.

Went for a walk down the canal from Slawit to Marsden.... Mum's just started walking as a new year resolution, so given the tricky conditions underfoot and inadequate walking equipment we did quite well to make it to the Riverhead public house for a stunning pint of American Pale Ale with its staggeringly good alcohol level - a fitting reward for the journey.

Spent the rest of the afternoon taking care of those twelfth night logistics.... ripping up christmas cards and burning down the christmas decorations..... saves on the loft space!!!



Self portrait at Scapegoat Hill!!

Cold....

It's so cold (by dear old Blighty standards at least). Yesterday, for the first time ever, I witnessed freezing fog. A veil of icing sugar drifted down across the misty slopes of Huddersfield for the entire day. On the local weather last night I heard that the peak temperature during the day had been a chilling minus four degrees (centigrade) which is fairly rare in this place!!

Dry cold is nicer than wet cold, and cold weather is not so bad when your central heating is working and you've just gotten shut of a nasty strain of flu. All this being said, I enjoy the scenery when it's all coated with a deep, hard frost.

As for the rest of it, we went and got a bit pickled at the faithful Barge and Barrel - I was drinking a couple of really excellent beers - Phoenix's Black Bee and Durham's White Amarillo - very nice indeed - Dawn managed to stay off the cider bus for a night and got a bit merry on Leffe (a giant killer of a brew!!). We came home for just after 11 o' clock and I cooked a few snacks and we saw the new year in with a cuppa and a game on the Wii.

White rabbits..... pinch and a punch..... happy new year...... apparently Alaska and Hawaii are the last to experience the turning of the page? correct me if I'm wrong.

Never return.

Never return to a firework that's gone out. Even if the firework never properly ignited, it's not the best solution to go and stick your eye over the top of it to see what happened. We all learn these little rules of life, and they go along just fine until......

Even a broken boiler can burn you.

Having thwarted my usual boiler repair man and having soured our relationship by him having to back away from the deal seriously out of pocket..... I contacted the boiler manufacturer......

Here follows their reply:

As your appliance is now out of warranty, should you wish for our engineer to visit your property, we can do so for a fixed charge of £215 which includes most parts, labour and VAT. The only parts not included in this fixed price are the heat exchangers and expansion vessel, therefore should we find that any of these parts are required, our engineer will quote separately on site for the completion of the repair.

I would advise however that we do reserve the right to charge an abortive call out fee of £82.25, should our engineer be unable to gain access to the appliance, where parking is not available, where the appliance is deemed beyond economical repair or find the fault to be external to the appliance. This may also apply if the visit is cancelled by yourself with less than 24 hours notice.

Ouch..... burned again. What happened to my eyebrows??



My recent trip to Manchester. Not only did Sally Webster from Coronation Street try to buy some amaryllis bulbs from me in the market, but my good friend Shaun Ryder bought me a pint in the Marble Arch. If you look carefully you might just spot the lovely Wally Dawn in this picture.... Sally Webster's phone number goes to the first correct guess.

The boiler man cometh.....

... and invariably he faileth to fixeth my boiler.

The boiler repair man has suffered a severe defeat at the hands of my obsolete Gloworm Fuelsaver F 55F broken down machine. Parts were replaced, earths were restrapped, connections remade, circuits tested, voltages measured..... we even tried turning it off and on again!! For all intents and purpose, the boiler should be working... it goes through its routine and the final step is the spark which ignites it... and that's where it fails.... all other preliminary stages are present and correct.

Upshot, it's still f-f-f-freezing.... my boiler repairman has suffered a devastating cost in spare parts which he can't return or charge for.... I think it's new boiler time..... insert groan here.

We are all very disappointed but only one of us is cold.



Manchester Eye and the Arndale Centre - After a few beers and a trawl around the festive markets in the city centre on Saturday afternoon and evening. Spent some time in the Marble Arch (my first but not last visit there) and the Briton's Protection (where I struggled to get through a very fine pint of "hung, drawn and portered").

Quite amazingly.

No matter how hard I try to keep up with my blog, it just seems to run away from me. I can't believe I didn't make a post since Thursday already!!

What have I been doing that's been so exciting?

Drinking beer mostly.

Took a trip into York yesterday and even managed a trip to the splendid and very friendly York Brewery. Took the tour and drank the splendid beer. Very enjoyable. You can't beat a drop of Yorkshire Terrier or a pint of Guzzler!!



Oystercatchers in Anglesey. Having never seen an oystercatcher up close before, I was pleased to grab a snap of this one, even though I had to squelch out into the mud of a low tide to get near enough to them. Lovely orange beak and I love the seaweed covered rock behind it too.

Foot off....

Foot off the pedal and onto the leaf litter.

I've had a couple of walking days. These starkly contrast with the couple of drinking days/nights that preceded. A sojourn into the boozy boundaries of Brighouse and a lighthearted look at Elland's finest hostelries, complete with the Barge and Barrel's beer festival have left me with a desire to walk some of it off.

Saturday night and for a change we stayed in and had a curry. Having taken Stevie the wonder dog out on a suitably strenuous hike during the day, I was neither in the mood nor were my paws of sound quality to make a hike out to yet another establishment to sample more beery wares.

An indigestion inspiring vegetable madras and a peshwari naan (and potatoes and peas.... pilau rice.... chapattis.... onion bhajis..... you get the idea!!) with Harry Hill's TV Burp and The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, made for a classically Novemberish night in on the sofa.

I love Autumn.



The playground of my childhood - Rocking Stones Quarry - used to be on the left on this picture, but since work resumed and has ceased again, is now on the right of this picture. You can see on the left where they have flattened over their workings and nature is gradually reclaiming the scoured earth. Nice gatepost, and a fine illustration for Maxxo that it was in fact a lovely day here yesterday - sorry buddy!!

Partly to blame.

Well, another month has passed since my last post - I'm really getting rather bad at this "blogging" lark. I once heard that the road to something was paved with good intentions or something or other. Perhaps, in order to catch up with what has been going on, and indeed to provide someone who might stumble upon my blog with something to look at, I'll try, over the next few days, to post some "catch up" pictures.



Friday October 3rd - Irish Centre, Huddersfield - Oktoberfest. The campaign for real ale's annual beer festival. Attended this year by myself and my uncle's brother John, who used to actually be a teacher at the school I went to. Needless to say, I got a bit pissed!!

Wet and windy.

Each and every "bank holiday" weekend in England is typified by weather that generally makes it a hazard to tow a caravan into the Lake District. This, however, does not deter the great British campers and caravanners, and many thousands of people, in true "blitz" spirit, do exactly THAT.

A veritable oasis of summery weather has indeed been punctuated by a colder snap, with some pretty high winds. The flushing of spring has been brought crashing back down to earth in the shape of fresh green foliage, strewn around the highways and byways of our great nation.

And as far as the windy weather goes..... well.....

A couple of days attendance at the Barge and Barrel spring bank beer festival has also had rather windy consequences for a certain blog author too. Coupled with a couple of pints of the Riverhead's finest brews this weekend.... well, as you can imagine.... I've been declared a national emergency and am strictly a no-go zone!!

Baby birds. There's tons of them at the moment. Starlings that nested in my roof are driving myself and my neighbours a bit mad with their constant skriking for worms. Bluetits are buzzing around in the garden and giving my nuts a severe pecking. Dunnocks that seemed to have jumped the gun slightly, and indeed jumped out of the nest too early, are all thriving and starting to grow "real" feathers instead of those fluffy crap ones that don't fly too good. Today I saw the first baby robin in the tree too..... with its stubby little wings and fluffy feathers ruffled in the wind. If they can manage to stay still in this wind then it looks like a good year for the birds.

Slugs. They've started eating my red hot poker. I stuck some slug pellets down, but am praying that the birds (mentioned above) can recognise the difference between juicy worms, tasty table treats, and deadly poison!! Bloody slugs!! The birds should be eating them, but then (and I know we've had this discussion before about slug recipes) would you really want to?

What shall become of me?

Well, it's Friday afternoon.... There's a beer festival that's just started at the Barge and Barrel, and I am sitting at my computer desk drinking pineapple and grapefruit green tea!!

Shame on me.

I haven't even managed to blog this week, and once again, I would put this largely down to the very fact that whilst the sun is shining, you're like to find the fox indulging in some sort of outdoor pursuit.... walking, gardening, dogging..... you know, the usual stuff.

Anyhoo.....

Big big big shout going out to the Pighill Wood volunteers, who, within the last couple of years, have totally turned around the decimated woodland area near Scapegoat Hill. I have been walking across there a couple of times this week, and I'm pleased to say that all their efforts are both appreciated and obvious. Not sure how relevant or up-to-date any of this information is, but if you want to know what I'm on about then it's here anyway. I guess thanks are due to the lottery too.... I must eat my words!!

My pineapple and grapefruit green tea smells very much better than it tastes.

I have bought myself some herbs today (of the legal variety) - some flat leafed parsley, some thyme, some fennel, and some fancy schmancy basil. I also bought myself some Giant Russian sunflower seeds, and a Kniphofia - that's a red-hot poker to anyone else.... a childhood favourite, from which my cousin and I were quite deft at removing the heads with a single swipe of a stick... how my grandma (the legendary Fanny Bush) must have cursed us. She did make up for it by surreptitiously nipping us while our parents' backs were turned.

I've even managed to almost catch up with all the blogs I have to read..... some of you may have received a comment from me, but they've been few and far between because none of your blogs were even worth responding to I've just been so busy. Sorry.

If you expected this post to be done in rhyming couplets, or as a witty sonnet, then I'm sorry to disappoint.

False start.

Bloody heck.

I got myself all geared up to go with Fred to the Barge and Barrel beer festival.... only to discover that it's not until next week.

That'll learn me!!

Other than that, I've done nothing... all day.... and all night too.....

Why did the FoX cross the road?

To get to the chip shop!!

Blinking.

It's the post modern fusion of drinking and blogging.... formerly known simply as pissed-up-blogging, and like pissed-up-texting is usually something to be avoided at all costs.

I fly in the face of convention and bring you a drunken rant.

Attending a beer festival is always a mixture of pleasure and pain. The pleasure is quite transparently the delicious and varied range of ales readily on offer. The pain, probably a bit less obvious to non-frequenters of such events comes in the shape of strange people with plastic bottles and funnels and reams of printed literature, scrutinising the half-pint measure lines for the slightest discrepancy.

I even saw one myopic lady tapping her glass with a pen to make the beer reach that elusive half-pint measure line.

I could swear at this point.

The other side of beer festivals is people like me.... ready to talk to people, ready to enjoy drinking the beer instead of sipping it and bottling it and weighing and measuring its specific gravity..... a beer festival to me is about more than beer, it's a festival too.

And so.... I wanted to give you a simple flavour of my tasting notes from today.... they made me smile.... perhaps they will work on you too....

Beer No. 1: Brewdog's Hop Rocker - Delicate, refreshing, hoppy, almost like lager.

Beer No. 7: Derwent's Local bitter - Like being mashed around the gob by a bag of hazel nuts.

There seemed little point in trying to further analyse beer other than to just drink the bloody stuff.

Suffice to say....

Hooray for Fred.... a good beer festival companion.

Hooray for Folly the Star Inn's resident dog (aged 6 tomorrow).

Hooray for Tizzi, the Star Inn's aloof tabby cat (age unknown).

Hooray for beer.

Hooray for the Star Inn, Huddersfield.

Ahhhhh.

Rarely do I spend a more relaxing weekend than the one that has just elapsed. It's been really busy, but thoroughly relaxing and enjoyable at the same time.

In beer terms, it was a joy!!

Managed a few pints at the Three Pigeons in Halifax, and was pleased to taste my first drop of "Silver Fox" which is the Ossett Brewery's ale for March. Very very nice and a beer that I have been waiting to come round. Can't wait to sup another!!

Beer festival? Brilliant. The success of a beer festival is truly measured by the fact that we had to wait for two people to stagger out before we were allowed to take our turn at selecting our poisons. Me, I jumped straight into the "mild trail" and supped a goodly selection before being rewarded, bang on the end of session bell, with a free glass of the mild of my choice. I chose the Midnight Bell from the Leeds Brewery (sponsors of this particular festival) and I was not disappointed. Top mild!!

My only beery regret is that I didn't have time or the constitution required to sample some of the porters on offer at the festival...... I will make up for that neglect at the Star's beer festival later this week.

Other than drinking beer, I've been....

Riding my bike. I managed to talk the lovely Dawn into getting on the spare bike and coming for a bike ride. Dawn was apprehensive, but once we got going, and we went along at Dawn's pace and chatted as we rode and managed to stay warm, there was no stopping her..... I was really impressed how well we managed do.

Shopping. A Sunday trip to Wilko's!! Hurray, I love the Wilkinsons.

Cooking. Baking bread and food for the most part of the weekend.

Now I'm relaxed.... chilling with my CycloDS.... more on that later!!

Frosty walk.

Happy 500th Blogger posting to me!!

Last week I went for a walk. We had a few really frosty mornings, and I decided to head along the towpath from Slawit to Marsden.... it's a lovely place to be in allsorts of weather or if I am on foot or the bike.... it's still a classy bit of countryside.

Here's a few pics from that walk (20th Feb 2008)


The barge in Slawit.... a good place to stop off for a cuppa. (This was actually at the end of the walk chronologically, but geographically represents where I started, if you know what I mean?)


Dancing on ice. I love ducks, especially when they're tootling about on a frozen canal. This was taken outside the Empire Brewery in Slawit.


Mossy stone in the woods. Between the river Colne and the Huddersfield Narrow Canal, just outside Slawit, lies a fairly rampant wooded scrubland (a good place to dump bodies it seems) that has a few paths and stuff leading through it. I love mossy stones like this one!!


Icy blast. I love it when frost collects on grass and blackberry bushes like this one. You almost get a sense of the direction and temperature of the wind that came last night. A visible reminder of the cloudless twinkling starry night before.


Locks. A FoX on some locks. How much did I enjoy my time doing canal restoration? Immensely, and I never tire of those watery silver veins that brought industry flowing through our local towns and villages.


Marsden. An excellent opportunity to stop off for a couple of pints of Premium Mild at the Riverhead before the walk back to Slawit.

You may or may not have noticed that, contrary to my closing statement yesterday, I haven't actually updated "random shopping" at all!! I am an idiot.... the pictures I had to update were all taken with some stupid settings on my phone camera, and the net result is..... rubbish!!

Let me tell you....

.... about argon. No, I'll leave you in the dark a bit longer.

Last Sunday, at a loss of where to treat my good ladyfriend to some lunch, I managed to coerce her into a trip to Marsden, and to the Riverhead. It doesn't take a genius to know that I worship at the altar of Riverhead's very own beers, and you are not alone in suspecting that my motives were not entirely "lunch" oriented... Honestly, if some beer happened to fall into my mouth whilst eating lunch, then far be it from me to object.....

Anyways.....

I decided to drive, which would of course negate the possibility of me not making it up the flight of stairs into the dining room, and from pulling up a chair at the bar instead. We got there, and decided to get a drink to take upstairs with us......

Everyone who knows me or has looked at any of my photos or knows where I MOST love to walk, will know I am mad about Cupwith Reservoir and Marsden Moor. The Riverhead brewery name their beers after local reservoirs.... I've drunk Deer Hill Porter.... Butterley Bitter..... Sparth Mild....... Black Moss Stout....... and NOW..... (insert drumroll).... Cupwith Special...... Well, if the Cupwith Special isn't one of the nicest beers I have ever drunk. I think I have died and gone to beer heaven.

Anyways......

I gets my pint of Cupwith Special, and we heads on up to the dining room. Neither of us has eaten at the Riverhead before, so it's always a gamble trying something new, but if their beer is anything to go by..... Well, my good lady chose the Sunday lunch option of the beef variety, and I chose fish and chips.

It was excellent!! I can't recommend it highly enough.... small details, like carrots flavoured (and coloured) with black treacle and courgettes with fennel seeds made it a great experience. Service excellent. Food exceptional. Beer heavenly. Price reasonable. You should go there!!

Incidentally for anyone visiting the "Festival of Light" in Huddersfield tonight.... look out for me!! I will be there somewhere. Perhaps you can spot me on this webcam? After it's all over, then head down to the Rat and Ratchet, where their guest beer is (currently) .... Cupwith Special!!! After your beer, pop next door to Lahori Taste and get yourself a fish pakora... delightful.... tell them I sent you!!

Ok, here it is then.... Argon is atomic number 18 (coinciding with day 18 of my chicken related experience) and it's also the gas that is used in your common or garden lightbulbs.... the Festival of Light..... so..... well, you can see how much thought I put into these things can't you. It's oh so deep.... and yesterday I used a "Sound of Music " reference to "Sixteen going on Seventeen" to signify the seventeenth day of penance. Watch this space for more cryptic links. It's a bit shit when you have to explain your own ideas... it's a bit like laughing at your own jokes.