Tuesday 15 May 2007

Red face

Ali and I had some 'quality' time together on Saturday, consisting of a bit of shopping in Oxford for stuff for our holiday, followed by a lovely organic lunch in the Vaults and Garden cafe in St. Mary's Church. We'd got the bus in earlier so we didn't need to drive (Ali's suggestion) and consequently felt able to partake of a few cleansing ales in the afternoon. Starting off in the Turf, I declined the offer of a pint of Old Rosie Scrumpy on the basis that I wouldn't have lasted long before falling over; so bog standard Strongbow it was. Ali went on the Dr. Hexters Healer followed by a pint of Goff's Jouster which I chose for him, which he pronounced 'alright'. I think the phrase is 'damning with faint praise'.

It was the White Horse on Broad Street where things started to go a little bendy - Addlestones cider is lovely but potent - and Ali had the joint temptations of Timothy Taylor's Landlord and Deuchar's IPA. By the time we left at 5ish we had had quite enough, so got the bus back to Abingdon. I had the notion that I wanted to buy a book, and I also fancied some nice snacks from the deli on Stert Street. Having tried to get into the closed Mostly Books at 5.31pm while they were cashing up, we abandoned the attempt far too early (I think they were going to let us in eventually) and then nipped to Added Ingredients and proceeded to amiably (drunkenly giggling) bicker over which posh crisps to get. I think they were glad to take our money and get rid of us in the end. It's a good job there weren't more shops open at that time of the evening.

This episode follows the recent bank holiday weekend where we went to the Reading Beer Festival (see the photo for an example of a typical beer/pie dilemma from the day) so I think maybe we should give our livers a rest for a bit...

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