Long weekend
I didn't do much over the Easter weekend, so I was determined to make more of this bank holiday weekend. And I did!
The weekend started at Thursday lunchtime with an epic work pub crawl along Sheffield's "golden mile". Starting off in The Blake Hotel, we then had lunch at the Hillsborough Hotel before moving on to The Gardener's Rest, The Wellington, Shakespeare's, The Kelham Island Tavern, The Fat Cat and The Riverside, before eventually finishing off at The Harlequin. That's almost all of my favourite pubs :o)
Sensibly I'd booked Friday off, mostly as a day to recover. But there was also another extremely well attended FFS at the Walkley Cottage in the evening.
On Saturday, as the weather was decent(ish) and I was feeling adventurous, I decided to take a trip to Castle Howard. This has been on my "places to visit" list for years. A train to York and a bus ride from there meant I got a fair amount of Dresden read. Once there I ambled around the grounds in the morning then the house, shops and tea rooms in the afternoon. Mostly the weather stayed fine, and I saved various indoor bits for when it wasn't. I wasn't aware that a third of the house was seriously damaged by fire in 1940, and still shows the scars. It's an amazing place, full of sculptures and other art, and the grounds (including Ray Wood) took several hours to explore fully.
On Sunday I met up with Ju and Jamie for lunch at Istanbul (not Constantinople) on West Street, before we all headed to the Lego Shop to check out the Star Wars Day offers. I wasn't actually all that taken with most of the Star Wars sets, although I did still manage to spend over 80 quid. *Ahem*... Then it was roleplaying as usual in the evening.
Monday was quite busy to begin with. I went swimming in the morning, then did food shopping and headed to the Botanical Gardens for the goth picnic. Star Wars Day itself was commemorated by several lightsaber duels :o)
The weekend started at Thursday lunchtime with an epic work pub crawl along Sheffield's "golden mile". Starting off in The Blake Hotel, we then had lunch at the Hillsborough Hotel before moving on to The Gardener's Rest, The Wellington, Shakespeare's, The Kelham Island Tavern, The Fat Cat and The Riverside, before eventually finishing off at The Harlequin. That's almost all of my favourite pubs :o)
Sensibly I'd booked Friday off, mostly as a day to recover. But there was also another extremely well attended FFS at the Walkley Cottage in the evening.
On Saturday, as the weather was decent(ish) and I was feeling adventurous, I decided to take a trip to Castle Howard. This has been on my "places to visit" list for years. A train to York and a bus ride from there meant I got a fair amount of Dresden read. Once there I ambled around the grounds in the morning then the house, shops and tea rooms in the afternoon. Mostly the weather stayed fine, and I saved various indoor bits for when it wasn't. I wasn't aware that a third of the house was seriously damaged by fire in 1940, and still shows the scars. It's an amazing place, full of sculptures and other art, and the grounds (including Ray Wood) took several hours to explore fully.
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On Sunday I met up with Ju and Jamie for lunch at Istanbul (not Constantinople) on West Street, before we all headed to the Lego Shop to check out the Star Wars Day offers. I wasn't actually all that taken with most of the Star Wars sets, although I did still manage to spend over 80 quid. *Ahem*... Then it was roleplaying as usual in the evening.
Monday was quite busy to begin with. I went swimming in the morning, then did food shopping and headed to the Botanical Gardens for the goth picnic. Star Wars Day itself was commemorated by several lightsaber duels :o)