Real Ale, Real Music

It has not been a happy few weeks with the country under another lockdown, but I continue to search for those little things that make life more bearable.... This latest lockdown has been a miserable time, really. The sun that seemed to shine through Lockdown #1 has been replaced by almost incessant gloomy weather which means the picture I took above on a local walk the other week is the brightest I have been able to take in the last few weeks! So yes it's been gloom and very much a sense of doom as in the dash to Save Christmas the move out of lockdown from December 3rd has given most of us no positive change to look forward to. Well, you can get your hair cut and, should you want to shop in a non-essential shop, you can fill your boots. For those of us allocated to Tier 3 though you can't even get a substantial meal to pick through with your pint as you could have done in the old days of the tier's previous pre-lockdown incarnation. Many people are unhappy and indeed, ...

We are now a week into our second lockdown of the year in England, with some of the routines of the first one starting to re-emerge. And here are some thoughts from over the past couple of weeks.... The final few days before lockdown had had an end of term feel to them, the end of the season, almost a sense of  fin de siècle. The announcement had said 4 weeks, but I don't think anyone really believed it as the figures continued, and have continued, to rise. Save Christmas they had said, more with hope than conviction. So a final weekend, which had begun with the anticipation of a move from Tier 2 to Tier 3 the following Monday. All pubs, unless they served food, due to close anyway, so it was a time of farewells and wish-you-wells, as far as was possible under the restrictions of Tier 2. A draughty afternoon with some of the lads from football outside in Halifax's Westgate Arcade, with the bonus that Kobenhavn was serving Arbor Zero Zero. Over a period of 4 and a half hours, a ...