The Beer Is Just Too Strong

I take the dogs on a very frosty park. I would have liked to have taken the footballs but MD’s ball has got wet and has now set into a large frozen lump. Kicking it has become a kin to kicking a cannonball and about as painful.

Then a quick drive to the local farm shop to choose which leg to have for Boxing Day lunch. We weigh up the difference between the sizes of the two largest legs on offer, until the butcher points out that they’re both from the same lamb and as the lamb was not known to have an odd gait, therefore in theory they should be the same size.

As I head off to meet my brother for a probably misguided pre-match beer, hair of the dog I suppose, we still have a house full of teenagers, sleeping last night off. Haven’t they got homes to go to? L charitably does them all bacon and sausage sandwiches to try and rouse them.

The main reason I’m meeting my brother is for the ‘Santa Walk’ although to be honest, it was the beer that tempted me. Santa suits are not compulsory but all the same I bring my freebie Santa hat from last night. As we sit in the pub, in view of the starting place of the walk, we see it set off. We consider going off in pursuit but when we see only about twenty people on the walk, we opt to stay for a 2nd drink instead. It’s also far too early to head off to the match and end up standing in the freezing cold for an hour or so.

At the match, normality is restored. In that, it’s back to the negative, uninteresting football from our lot. Totally out played first half, they are better in the second half but are still deservedly beaten. Suspect tactics again though, in my opinion.

After the match I meet up with L and we head over to Burton, where we’re long overdue a night in the Cooper’s Arms. They have a real fire lit and it looks just as cosy as before but here’s a first. We leave the pub because the beer is too strong. There are a few golden hoppy numbers at the bottom of the alcohol scale but all the dark stuff and the barley wines start at 6.6% and go up to a staggering 10%. So defeated, we retreat next door, to the Devonshire Arms, where the Burton Bridge Porter and Stairway are a more sensible 4.5% and 5.0%.

We are back in Derby a few hours later where I’ve agreed to rendezvous with a couple of friends for a final beer. Modern communication methods though fail us. I don’t hear my phone when he calls me; likewise he doesn’t hear his when I return his call. Mind you, he doesn’t answer my texts either.

When we left Burton it was raining there, meanwhile the weather wasn’t doing much at all in Derby but when we get back to Nottingham there was white stuff everywhere. Snow, at last.