Cheshire Yuletide report (part 1)

When people in That London ask me how long I’m going back to the Shire for Christmas and I tell them two weeks, they look at me with disbelief and ask me “what am I going to do for all that time?” My response is that I’m going back to be a drinking legend and to be hailed as ‘the Messiah of Cheshire’ but the reality is that I spend most of the time cutting up tiny pieces of paper and sticking them onto grainy print outs of C4Lf members. Here’s my recollections and review of the C4Lf Yuletide (It’s what the Anglo-Saxons called Christmas apparently – so says Tuck) season.

Friday – 14.12.2012

Arrive back in the Shire with Tone. For the last two Christmases I’ve come I’ve been back I’ve been greeted by a hearty snowstorm. No such luck this year though as it’s mild and dreek. Much to my surprise the first C4Lf member I meet is Amy ‘Seven Generations of Shire’ Stubbs in Kelsall co-op. There’s a vague feeling of déjà vu to this as when I went back to the Shire in the summer, Amy was the first C4Lf member that I met then, only this time in Jersey Ice Cream Mecca Snugburies. It turns out that she’s embarking on an exciting new career in the co-op., meaning that with El Presidente, Oli Bollington and now Amy installed in the co-op, C4Lf’s hold over Northern England’s favourite ethical retailer grows ever stronger. We gossip about the new uber co-op in Tarvin and I sign-up for  the Foresters quiz on Sunday. Upon arrival back in Utkinton I help myself to a bottle of Old Peculiar from the fridge, only for it be revealed to be a commemorative bottle given to my dad for all his hard work organising the village fete. Still it’s opened now, so I polish it off.

Saturday – 15.12.2012

Tone and I head to the Deva Stadium (not the exacta it’ll always be the Deva to me) to watch Chester City (Not FC it’ll always be City to me) play Bishop Storford for my first of my three Chester games over the Yuletide period. Chester are top of the Conference North (not the blue square it’ll always be Conference to me) and have only drawn one and lost one game all season. The typically cumudgeonly Chester fans are unused to such success and now spend most of their time on Chester fan forum Devachat bemoaning the pies, which they describe as physics-defyingly having no sides. After a cagey first half Chester demolish Bishop’s Stortford 4-1 thanks to a second half hat trick from substitute Craig Curran. Tone and I head out to Tarporley for a spot of pubbing with Ben. Tone is looking forward to a glamorous Desperate Scouse-Wives style Sess in the Cheshire village that everyone agrees most resembles New York, Chicago, Texas and Alberquerque. So naturally we head to the Rising Sun.

Rising Sun

On the bad side there’s no Old Tom on Tap (as Mister Lloyd swears there used to be) but on the plus side I’m not sick all over the entrance like at DT’s curry night. I did rating systems for the Tarporely Sess but I seem to have misplaced them in my ‘filing system’. However, the Rising Sun scores heavily for its tasteful birch-based yuletide decor but it’s Robinson’s barley water does not go down well with the Tone who gets flashbacks to the string of austere Primitive Methodist pubs we encountered on the Smitstone Trail. Apart from Old Tom are there any good Robinson’s beers?

Piste

Tone hankering to fully immerse herself in the WAG lifestyle leads me and a reluctant Ben into Tarporley’s trendy ski-lodge and favourite waterhole of the Tarporley Vics – Piste. The place is heaving and we struggle to get a seat. Tone put off beer for the evening by the watery Robbies moves onto the wine...white wine no less. A gentleman at the bar tells me that he used to have hair as long as mine and as he reminisces fondly reminisces about his days following Zeplin around Europe. He also tells us that he’s one of the owners of Piste. Before I can ask him about getting more Maiden on the Soundtrack, Soul Man and the rest of the Tarporley Vics appear. Tone takes some convincing that Soul Man isn’t a heavily-tanned Ian. Ben and I have a chat about the merits of Piste’s beer. He thinks the Weetwood bitter is pretty good but I’m unconvinced by the Lady Weetwood (Cheshire Cat), fair play to them for having Weetwood though.

The Swan (aka The Jolly Cactus, aka the )

On the way to the Swan I encounter my sis Helen, who tells us disapprovingly that she can hear us coming from the other end of the high street. It’s good to get into the Swan now rather than on Christmas Eve, when for one night a year it transforms into a youth-filled hell hole. We actually get seats in the front stairs area. Ben and I have the traditional pint of TT, it’s pretty good. But not as good as the 2000 Thomas Perry golden age era. Amy joins us and we have a chat about raising Turkeys. I get a pint of Weetwood Eastgate, again, it’s okay but I’m not feeling it.

The Foresters

With the Swan closing at 11 we head on down to the late night den of inequity that is the Foresters. I’m now nicely drunk and have a chat with the landlord about Man’s Brown ale which, as part of a brown over bitter, was the first drink I ever had in a pub when I began my drinking career back in 1999. The Landlord tells me that they no longer stock it because the only guy who used to drink it died back in 2002. I comfort my nostalgia with a packet of scampi fries and then some bacon fries, no cheesey moments though I’m not that drunk. The Foresters was probably the best pub of the night good atmosphere, good clientele and from what I can remember a nice pint of Hobgoblin.

Sunday – 16.12.2013

Tone and I go on a walk up Old Pale and encounter the Tree of Shame. A tree wrapped in red wool with the message ‘Tree of shame, this tree contains all the rubbish that careless individuals have dropped in the forest. SCUM!’ The tree contains a variety of rubbish, including bags of dog faeces. When I return next I imagine they’ll be a person hanging from one of the branches. In the evening I head on down to the Foresters to join Ben’s quiz team, which is largely Ben answering questions and everyone else sitting around quietly. I manage to answer one question which is actually just correcting Ben on the spelling of intercostal muscles. Despite our initial confidence we come about third.  

Monday – 17.12.2013

Chester shopping and shrine crawl. It takes me an age to spot the Chester Imp in the Cathedral. Get some Cheshire Blue from the Cheese shop. They have both Mrs Bourne’s and Appleby’s Cheshire Blue for sale. Two brands of Cheshire Blue, what an age to be alive! I go for the Bourne’s naturally.

Tuesday – 18.12.2013

Spend guilty day researching the lineage of Lord Binning. Is this what a revolutionary zine should be focussing on? Still that Lord Binning the 13^th and his crop circle investigations what a card. Dodgy computer clock means I leave my dad standing at bus stop for 20 minutes and he catches festive Christmas Cold. Pop to Tarvin Church graveyard to search for the grave of the Old Man of Delemere Forest and founder of the Magic Methodists James Crawfoot. Initial search is unsuccessful.

Wednesday – 19.12.2013

Watch Chester beat a well-organised but toothless Harrogate 2-0. Sarcevic scores a spectacular Gascoigne 1996 ball juggling volley. I’m beginning to get a taste for the Crocky Trail’s ‘spitting feathers’ served in the Chester Blues Bar, mhmm grainy. I wonder to myself after my mundane Weetwoods in Tarporley, whether Spitting Feathers will replace Weetwood as my favourite beer, but then I push the thought from my mind as heresy.

Thursday – 20.12.2013

It’s becoming increasingly obvious that I’m not going to finish the C4Lf Zine in time. Not if I keep spending my day’s watching forgotten biblical epics like Lawrence Olivier’s The Robe anyway. All the articles are now in, even the belated ones from Ben, Smit and El Presidente. To be fair to Ben and Smit I had requested specific articles for them that week. The cats are slowing down progress by constantly standing on my cut-out pieces of paper. Ink supplies in the Francis archaic computer are running dangerously low. A communications error with my dad means that I don’t go to Tarporley at the correct time to pick up my dad and his mate Graham and they have to hitch a lift. Am I a bad son?

Friday – 21.12.2013

Pop into Chester again during the day to go to the Lush pick and mix (why pay extra for the box, a used Sainsbury’s carrier bag does the job) to get Mum’s Christmas present. Pop down to the new pub by the racecourse the Architect – it’s a bit pine floors and no knickers for my tastes but is already standing room only and it’s not even race day. Later in the evening Baldwin, hung over from his work Christmas do, picks me up and we head to T’House aka the Farmers Arms.

The T’House is fairly quiet for a Friday night. When I was last in the T’House in November I’d told the Landlords Graham and Jo that if they got in a barrel of Weetwood Ambush then I’d come in to T’House everyday that I was back. They remonstrated with me that I’d have to drink eight pints a day to get through the barrel before it became undrinkable. However, I was adamant that if they got the Ambush in I would do this. A quick scan of the bar reveals that there is no Ambush only Eastgate and Weetwood Bitter. Jo shrugs explains to me that she forgot about my request. My disappointment is mixed with slight relief as God knows what effect that amount of Ambush would have had on me. Although only 4.8%, Ambush can have strange effects on man, rumour has that the Weetwood head brewer Rodger secretly laces it with Thujone – the psychoactive element that’s also used in absinthe. As we all remember, it was an Ambush bender that led to El Presidente being barred from the Olive Trancer back in 2003. Having Eastgate in T’House still seems unnatural to me as everyone knows it’s Eastgate for the bottom of the village and Old Dog for the top but I must try and move with the times.

El Presidente hasn’t arrived yet so rather than go stand in the backroom and sit through endless darts and page 3 spot the difference we go into the lounge bar area. Hardman and Andrea soon join and eventually also El Presidente, who has what he calls ‘the lurgie’ and disapproves of our choice of seating. We discuss the plans for Christmas Eve this year, numbers look good as Baldwin, Hardman and Andrea are all game so we decide we’ll attempt a direct assault on Chester. El Presidente offers us his traditional lift back from Tarporley to Kelsall. He can’t join us for the early day sess as Christmas Eve is the busiest day of the co-op year

Tuck arrives and we do the quiz, it’s Christmas themed and I can remember some of the questions from last year. We manage to list all the reindeer and remember the names of three wise men. We’ve only ever won T’House quiz once before and that was with pub trivia quiz Ben on the team, however, this time on an Eastgate high I’m pretty confident we’ll win. When a controversial answer to the question: ‘Which Island in the Indian Ocean is known for its large totemic head sculptures?’ is announced to be Christmas Island, some of the other teams remonstrate that the answer should be Easter Island. I somewhat obnoxiously shout out that “I think you find Easter Island is in the Pacific Ocean not the Indian Ocean.” This annoys some of the old men in T’House, who audibly refer to me as a ‘long-haired freak’ within my vicinity. “This is why you’re not allowed in the lounge area”, El Presidente tells me. Ahhh Cheshire it’s good to me back.

Despite my know-it-all smugness we get beaten by the Village Idiots by three points...how do those guys at the bar know so much about Christmas? As part of the new regime last orders is 11.30 on a Friday, however, you can buy as many pints at that time as you want. So everyone gets two pints of Eastgate in and then covers their pints to avoid what be a frankly devastating oystering. We manage to hang on in T’House until one, outlasting everyone else until we take pity on a yawning Jo and head on out into the night.

Hardman’s notes for the evening taken from the ratings book:

Being of the rating of Public Houses of the Cheshire Area and perhaps beyond.

Veritable Public Houses and other establishments of historical or popular interest of which we intend to visit as part of our Festive Sojourn into the City of Deva.

In the particular order (except the given below)

1. Plumbers

2. Queens Arms

3. The Boot

4. Horse Shit & Fuck

5. The Eagle

6. Bill Smiths motors

7. New Orleans

8. Albion (early)

9. The Architect

10. Handbridge

11. Ship

***

Shrines

1. St Werburgh

2. Nemesis @ the amphitheatre

3. Roman Garden

4. St Johns

5. Laser quest

6. James Robinson’s Grave

***

Votes for next outed celebrity paedo

Rolf Harris (verified)

Craven

Cyril Sneer

Henry Kelly (going for Gold)

Keith Harris

Daniels (Helen) & (Paul)

Dusty Bin

Bruce Forsyth

Mallet’s Mallet

***

“THIS IS THE WAY WE BO!”Was it Christmas or was it New Year? (Hint: It was Christmas)

TBC

C4Lf 2012 Award Ceremony

On the 27^th of December 2012 C4Lf held their 2012 annual review and awards ceremony at the Harkers Arms in Chester. If you’d like a copy of the 2012 annual review (48 pages of pure Cheshire goodness) then e-mail C4Lf’s minister of information at cheshire4life@gmail.com with your address.  Otherwise here are the big winners and or losers…

Attendees: DH, FS, MW, DT, JT, PF, BB, AS, SM, MM, CW, SB, LR, IR,

C4Lf event of the year 

Lloyd and Ben led C4Lf’s brave boys through the treacherous area of outstanding natural beauty that is the Wye Valley. Highlights included Baldwin’s attempts to defy the contour lines and forge a new path up a hill through a forest as darkness fell and the cracking open of a bottle of tequila to usher out Lloyd’s birthday and welcome in Ben’s. 

1. WINNER: Lloyd and Ben’s birthday expedition to the Wye Valley

2. Smitstain trail/Smashdown Londontown

Other entries: Gwrdu Games, Boxing Day football, Fran (I am an event), Big Mamma Weave’s wake 

C4Lf newcomer of the year 

After two years of new born C4Lf members getting the title of C4Lf newcomer of the year, C4Lf’s declining birth rate means that Leeds’ indie club legend and Vicky Rowley’s former housemate Big Dave claims the title of C4Lf newcomer of the year. Dave’s award owes much to his victory at the Gwrdu over Weaver at downing a can, denying Weaver the illustrious triple crown of downing the pint, boatrace, can. Sadly Big Dave couldn’t make the awards ceremony but he did text to say ominously, “He’ll have to be paying Cheshire a visit...SOON!

1. WINNER: Big Dave

2. Ian (Freeman’s mate)

Other entries: Melisa Mather, Big JT (Captain, Leader, Legend), Poppy Nichols, Maz, Jenny  Thompson

C4Lf celeb

Once again C4Lf couldn’t make a decision on who was their celeb of the year. This time though it was a tie between Jubes-organising, pond-fishing banning Gary Barlow and THE MASTER himself Jimmy Saville. The question remains though, who’ve had sex with more teenage girls?  

1. WINNER: Gary Barlow/Jimmy Saville 

Other entries: Simon Cowell, Jesus, Timpson, Russell Brand, the Queen & her 3D glasses, Beth Tweddle, none of the above 

C4Lf champagne moment  

I forgot to ask people to vote for this...answers on a postcard please. 

C4Lf drinker of the year

Unlike previous awards ceremonies where first El Presidente and then Ian won the biggest drinker award, no clear winner emerged this year. Instead the award was tied between Baldwin, Hardman and Big JT (Captain, Leader, Legend). The best drinking performances by Hardman and Baldwin I can recall were both at the November C4Lf event Smashdown London town. Baldwin for his longevity covering 21 pubs and a bottle of Malibu over 2 days, while Hardman on the last night of the Smashdown downed 2 pints of 7.5% Marcus Aurelius after being oystered by Hipster Chris. 

Immediately after the results were announced Hardman challenged Baldwin to see off his pint. C4Lf aficionados will know that on the previous occasion Baldwin and Hardman had a drink off, on Christmas Eve 2011, Baldwin was left lying unconscious on his own driveway. However, on this occasion Baldwin downed his, admittedly less than full, pint first. With Hardman vanquished Baldwin now goes onto face Big JT (Captain, Leader, Legend) in a drink off at some point in 2013. 

1. WINNER: Hardman/ Baldwin/ Big JT (Captain, Leader, Legend) 

Other entries: Andrea, Mather sisters, Franny’s zebra trousers, Lloyd, Issy 

C4Lfer of the year 

Fran may have organised the Gritstone Trail, came up with the idea for the Gwrdu Games, hosted Smashdown Londontown, edited the C4Lf fanzine and booked the C4Lf annual review but all of this pales into comparison (apparently) compared to Maz’s mighty performance at the Gwrdu this year. With Maz attending a Hootenany or some other such Scotch thing, Comrade Smit (who shares a special bond with Maz) graciously accepted the award on her behalf. Here’s looking forward to Cheshire’s New Tartan-Clad Champion ending London rule and telling Timpson the Llama ‘You Canee Take Our Freedooom’ throughout 2013. 

1. WINNER: Maz

2. Fran

3. Smit 

Other entries: Ben, Issie, Rodeo Weave, Beth Tweddle

News Out of Cheshire: SHOCK HORROR THE T’HOUSE CLOSED

Many of you will have heard Weaver’s crazy stories of the Farmers (aka the T’house) being closed. I like you dismissed such talk as the wild ramblings of a man who’d had one too many shots of homemade humbug vodka. However, upon my return back to the Shire I can confirm that the rumours are true the T’house is closed! Details are sketchy about what actually happened, it seems that after a series of weekends where the T’house ran out of beer, one day the current landlord Big Ste just closed the T’house. He then apparently booby-trapped the place with a series of landmines, which he’d acquired back in his days in the Paras, before he left so it may take some time before it re-opens. In true Golden-eye style the T’house toilets have been particularly heavily mined.  However, according to the official magazine of the gay Cheshire real ale enthusiast ‘Out Inn Cheshire’  ‘Punch Taverns have given full assurance that they intend to restore the Farmers at the heart of the local community’ (p. 45 Autumn 2012).

Discussion within the upper echelons of the Cheshire Liberation Front have led to the following decisions: C4Lf moves to red alert and if the T’house doesn’t reopen within six months, we send in wave after wave of C4Lf foot soldiers and reclaim the drinking hole that is ours by birthright. We then set up the T’house as a Weetwood only freehouse, every C4Lf member abandons their day jobs, sells their homes and moves into the T’house to run it as a collective, sleeping in one big bed in the backroom like the grandparents in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Cheshire needs brave men and women to be part of the first wave to be sent into the T’house. Who loves their county enough to become a key member of C4Lf’s Lemming squadron?

In other news the closure of the T’house meant that Weaver and I had to spend Thursday evening at Kelsall’s other drinking establishments – the Republican Oak and the Lord Binning of Kelso. It was quiz night at the Oak and after Team C4Lf won the T’house quiz (sob sob it’s gone) on a previous trip back to the Shire I was confident that we’d have a good showing. Needless to say we came joint last, stupid Ben for misreading my text and getting the day wrong. However, we were able to witness an epic game of Play Your Cards Right in which some Oak woman won £476 quid – surely that is not a viable business model for a village pub quiz? The restaurant area of the Oak is in the process of being transformed into a deep pan pizza place called Collosomo’s – named after the 1920s Chicago gangster, so the quiz took place in the upstairs room where the snake stripper mum used to perform. Both the Eastgate and the Pendle bitter were fairly rancid unfortunately and I had to drink Cheshire Cat or Lady Weetwood as it is more commonly known. There was no Weetwood up at the Binning, however, the Paraolympics were on and the subject of much discussion. Mainly positive, although one woman was particularly enraged by a 7/7 survivor who’d lost both her arms in the bombings but now was competing in the back stroke: “She’d didn’t even go swimming before the bombings, what an attention seeker, it’s embarrassing.” Ahhh sweet sweet Cheshire, it’s good to be back.

On Friday I went to Tarporley to watch the England game with Ben and finally get a decent pint of Weetwood in the Swan. Walking down to the Foresters I was shocked to see how many boutiques there are now in Tarporley. I remember when it was just Karen Dash and I was all like – ‘stoopid Karen Dash, that’s never gonna work.’ Now I’m like – ‘why didn’t I set up a niche clothing boutique catering to WAGs and wannabe WAGs in Tarporley’ and Karen Dash is laughing in my face. On the plus side, there’s a new deli in Tarporley, which while not as good as the Skemmy Deli or Fresh corpse, does serve real Cheshire Cheese and the elusive Cheshire Blue. It’s satisfactorily pretentiously named Gastronomy and I urge all C4Lf members to go there to buy Cheshire Cheese to make the official dish of Cheshire – cheese on toast. Get there soon though because in six months, judging by the Mayfly-like lifespan of other Tarporley delis, it’ll have probably closed down to be replaced by a new Karen Dash spin-off: Karen Dash 3: Dash of Death.

For those following Weetwood’s steady expansion into the Tarporlian hinterlands, the Foresters was serving Lady Weetwood and the Swan had Cat, Best and Eastgate. The Crown looked eerily deserted as expected, while the Foresters seems to be in the place to drink in Tarporley nowadays (excluding Piste, which we didn’t make it to but I’ve been banned from doing full Tarporley crawls after I projectile vomited in the Rising Sun after DT’s curry night). Exciting news from Ben who is set to be performing in Tarporley Am Dram’s X-rated version of Calendar Girls as the photographer – oh the sights he’ll see. Ben will be performing on 21st to 24th of November (tickets from Swaffs) but will be also selling exclusive saucy pics of your favourite Tarporlian Milfs, Gilfs and GGilfs in the run up to the big show. If you’re interest contact him via facebook. All funds raised will be spent in buying Oscar Pretorius style blades for the survivors of C4Lf’s lemming squadron attempt to take back the T’house.

Gritstone Trail part 4

(Wild Boar Inn - Rose and Crown)

The Wild Boar Inn, Wincle review

Much to my disappointment the Wild Boar Inn in Wincle does not contain any of the 8.5% elixir of inebriation that is Old Tom. Those puritan Methodists have determined that the strongest pint I can get in this neck of the woods is a Unicorn. It does however contain the impressive pelt of a huge wild boar. Is this the last Wild Boar in Britain that was reputedly killed in nearby Wildboarclough (Hardman: Wildean Brian Chuff’s Mild Muff), probably not? In fact, Wikipedia stringently denies that this was where the last wild boar in Britain was killed but I’ll believe what I want to believe.

The pub was pretty quiet when we arrived at around 5.00, outside a sign provocatively advertises ‘Adult only camping’. Sexy times indeed. Inside there’s one couple in the corner and then a lone man at the bar nursing his pint and watching Shrek on the TV intently from his bar stool. There’s a stark, simple beauty to the pub reminiscent of Sean Bean’s face in a gritty police drama set in the 1970s. I keep expecting the Shrek enthusiast at the bar to turn to us and say ‘this is the Peak district and we do what we want.’ The pub wins the best decor category of pubs on our walk with 4.3 and turns out be Smit’s favourite pub. SMIT: ‘controversial, I'm going for the second last one on day1, everything a pub should be and not in gentrified Disney neither.’ I like Smit’s satirical name for Disley there, Rory Bremner would be proud. It does however, suffer from the somewhat funerial atmosphere that seems to be very much on trend with Gritstone Trail pubs. Perhaps it perks up later when the folk night begins.

The Wild Boar Inn, Wincle review

Decor	4.30
Atmos	2.80
Booze	2.60
Clientelle	3.00
Barstaff	3.50
Total	3.24

With Andrea soon to arrive with our vast array of camping implements and most importantly my two cartons of cider, we press on with the final mile and a half to Wild Boar Clough (Hardman: Wide boy Brian’s up the duff) and the no doubt luxurious camping barn that I’ve booked for our accommodation. We head over the top of a hill and descend into a valley. Smit remarks about how he’s liking how the landscape is taking on more of a peak district vibe, with its dry stone walls and gnarled trees bent by the wind. A car drives past us, which turns out to be Andrea heading to the barn. She stops briefly but there’s no room in the car for us to cadge a lift and even if there was we wouldn’t take it as it would invalidate the walk in the eyes of our glorious leader – El Presidente who’s a stickler for such things. We descend into a valley and pass a small converted Methodist church with cows in the adjacent field perplexed by their own reflections in the stain glass windows and then up past the pub where we plan to dine that evening. It’s the Rose and Crown and much to my pleasure has a folk and Irish night on tonight. More importantly it’s doing food until nine and there’s some guest ales on, which will make a change after the uninspiring Robinson’s we’ve had so far.

There’s no time to dawdle as we head down to the Camping Barn to dump our rucksacks. At this late stage of day one the track seems to go on forever but I’m pleasantly surprised when I see a large converted farmhouse in front of me with a glass veranda and satellite dishes. ‘A bargain at 75 quid’, I say to myself and mentally pat myself on the back, ‘the website really doesn’t do it justice’. Andrea however, brings me down to earth. ‘The doors round there’, she says pointing to a much smaller and admittedly more barnlike building in front of the palatial farm house ‘lucky we’re used to sleeping rough at the Gwrdu’. I walk inside the stone barn, which is basic but suitably authentic for taking in the hardiness of East Cheshire Peak District life. I take a brief glance at the electricity metre but head up the wood stairs to bagsy the best bed. Imagine my surprise then when I get to the first floor and find that it’s just that... a floor. There are no bunks at all, just a tiny one foot ledge, which even Smit in his skinniest days couldn’t use for a bed.

A couple of things come to mind. One assuming that ‘no bunks’ on the website meant that there were no BUNK beds and every bed was a single story was not a mistake. And two – this, the lack of beds, is the difference between a camping barn and a youth hostel and this is why you can book a camping barn for £7.50 a person. Still I think to myself this will be a valuable insight for the members of  C4Lf into the life of a ‘primitive Methodist Gritstone miner’ and how cold can it possibly get, it’s Easter for God’s sake? I cheerfully head downstairs and announce to the assembled C4Lfarians that there aren’t  any beds.  Ben initially laughs at this but then like the doubting Thomas he is, he is forced to behold the truth with his own eyes. BEN: ‘The worst moment would have to be the moment that I realised fran was telling the truth and there really weren't any beds in the stone tent.’ Tone reads the literature provided which lists the rules of the barn, intriguingly the text begins: ‘the camping barn is basically a stone tent.’ This strikes me as a novel idea as I’ve never heard of a stone tent before, I will find out why later.

We head up to the Rose and Crown pub to get some food, listen to folk and to drink enough of a beer jacket to allow us to get to sleep on the hard wooden floor.

The Rose and Crown, Allgreave, review

Now how to describe the Rose and Crown, to paraphrase a Tale of Two Cities ‘it was the best of pubs, it was the worst of pubs’. Unlike the other pubs which had been decidedly chilly to us. The rose and crown certainly gave us a warm welcome, particularly the landlady, or as we shall know her ‘the rose’. The pub had already filled up for the folk night so we took a seat in the backroom. The beer looked initially promising with a special beer on brewed by Guy Garvey of Elbow. However, much like the music of Elbow it turn out to be lacking in strength and somewhat bland (Sorry El Presidente I know you’re a big Garvey fan). Tone with her ‘no ales below 5% rule (‘even on a session?’ ‘Especially on a session!’) was particularly disparaging.

Then there was the landlord, or as he shall be known, ‘the Crown’. He was initially full of charming banter, or as it’s known in the trade ‘wicked bants’. He even allowed Smit to charge up his iphone, using his electric socket. A request that is met with frowns, suspicion and ambiguity in the pubs of neighbouring Staffordshire. However, as the evening went on he became somewhat of a divisive figure  asking us to check the Blue Jays score on our iphone so he could casually drop into the conversation that he’d lived in Canada and somewhat (pedantically in my eyes) lecturing us on the difference between porter and stout. Hardman, Smit, Tone and Andrea all found his raconteuring charming, giving the barstaff scores of 4s and 5s. Ben and I however, felt it was all a bit too much like he was playing the big man and so gave him 2 and 2.5 respectively. However, it’s perhaps just a reflection of Ben and my insecurity in the presence of this mighty Alpha Male, the last Wild Boar of Wildboarclough reigning supreme in his Peak District valley. Hardman and Smit are clearly Beta males and so naturally gave him a high score due to their subservient toadying, rolling on their backs, exposing their genitals and whimpering to their master. While Tone and Andrea probably rated him highly because of his raw sexually magnetism, tossing 4s and 5s in his direction as women of a certain age might throw their knickers at Tom Jones . Anyway, some credit has to be given to the hospitality of the Rose who came round and offered us free sandwiches during the interval of the folk. Perhaps rightfully winning the Rose and Crown the title of best ‘Bar staff’ of all the pubs on the trail.

As to the folk itself it won the Rose and Crown best atmosphere with a really high score of 4.42. And yet... and yet there was something slightly disquieting about the experience. Practically, everyone who’d come to the folk night were playing in it and you could imagine the same line-up had been playing here for the last thirty years. Secondly the general atmosphere was somewhat maudlin, lacking in pub folk favourites; there was no ‘whiskey in the jar o’, no ‘Dylan’, no ‘duelling banjos’. There was quite a lot of harp solos and plenty of accordion in the minor key. Unlike other pub folk night I’ve been to and sang along, this night felt like more of a closed affair. As if they were mourning a local Gritmining tragedy and this was no place for outsiders. Still interesting from a sociological perspective and a good insight into what you do for kicks on Saturday night in East Cheshire’s peak district.

The Rose and Crown, Allgreave review

Decor	3.83
Atmos	4.42
Booze	3.33
Clientelle	3.50
Barstaff	3.58
Total	3.73

The atmosphere might also have felt slightly muted as we steeled ourselves mentally for an under-prepared night in a freezing stone tent, while various mutinous members of C4Lf played the role of a belligerent Oliver Hardy muttering ‘this is another fine mess you’ve gotten us into’ to Fran’s increasingly befuddled Stan Laurel. Do all the C4Lf members survive the night? Which C4Lf member soundly snores through the experience despite their grumbling beforehand? And what is the unholy terror known only as the Meep! Which visits the unlockable Camping Barn in the middle of night? Find out in the next instalment of C4LFs: Gritstone Tale. MEEP!

Gritstone Trail part 3 (Bosley Cloud to Croker Hill)

Gritstone Trail part 3

(Bosley Cloud to Croker Hill)

Day 1, 7 April 2012

Bosley Cloud

Our ascent up to the Cloud is immediately interrupted by the arrival of two walkers. One an elderly well-spoken chap and the other his manservant/sherpa who answers to the name of Denali. Denali is dressed in some kind of crazy weighted garb that resembles, I imagine, Walka’s cyber suit. They’ve just got lost but apparently Denali is in training to climbing the highest mountain in North America, Mount McKinley and so is training up by climbing the Cloud. Given McKinley is 6194 metres high and the Cloud is 343 metres, you might not think this is the best preparation but apparently his cyber suit makes things more difficult.

We head in the opposite direction, retrospectively a foolish idea as they said they were climbing the Cloud, why did we do this? And after passing an attractive stream and walking someway up a hill Ben declares that we’re going in the wrong direction. Cue much looking at the map and trying to get GPS on Smit’s phone, I have a sandwich before we troop back down the road. You’d think our second peak of the walk wouldn’t be that hard to find. As we walk down the road we pass the village library, which is located in a phone box, and I pop in to write a quick message from C4Lf in the visitor’s book. We then are back following the footsteps of Denali and his keeper. Despite Ben’s best efforts to take us up some steps through someone’s Garden we find the actual route and power-up the vertical incline through Gosberry wood. The rhododendrons and soil erosion reminds me of little Switzerland in good old West Cheshire (not mid as Hardman would have you believe). We continue up through a straight track up some woods filled with unripened bilberries and out onto the thick heather-clad plateau at the top of the Cloud. It seems slightly incomprehensible to be seeing something that could pass as a moor in Cheshire but here it is. This looks like Yorkshire.

We head up to the trig point and settle down for some food. I search around for my cider but it looks like I’ve left it behind in Andrea’s car…idiot. It’s fairly windy up here, ravens soar around the rock face, and we have a good view across the Cheshire plain and can make out Beeston Castle, Liverpool Cathedral and High Billinge (although Hardman is a bit sceptical about this last one). There’s a couple of legends about the Cloud, one is that a giant standing with one foot on the cloud and one foot on Shuttlingsloe (Hardman – ‘Slutmingeho’) was scared by a small animal (which small animal is not specified but probably some kind of mouse [not a field mouse though because they don’t exist]) and dropped his boot on the mountain. No one can really see how the top of the Cloud looks like any type of footware. Maybe you need to get some distance. 

The other legend associated with Bosley Cloud is of a wee (for he is Scotch) drummer boy for it is he who travelled with Bonnie Prince Charlie down through Cheshire during the Jacobite rebellion of 1745. Alerted to his presence by his drumming an English sniper/tank commander gunned him down, ‘Nelly Jack John DEAD?!?’ The rocky outcrop where the drummer fell is now known as drummer’s knob. A musical interpreation of this story can be found here.

http://soundcloud.com/david-lloyd-mostyn/05-cheshire-phantasies-cloud

Finally, according to Macclesfield author, Doug Pickford’s ‘Earth Mysteries of the three shires’, the Cloud was a central site for the Cornovii or ‘people of the cat’ of Cheshire at the time of the Roman occupation of Britain in AD 43. They worshipped the cat god Catha and their religion was centred around the Cat Stone on the Cloud, a stone with the face of a grinning cat on it (although we didn’t see this).

It is said locally that sacrificial victims were thrown down this sheer rock face to be dashed to pieces on an altar somewhere below at the spring equinox (Easter time). Interestingly the information board still showed that local people up to the 1960s still made the long march, bonneted-up, from Timbersbrook on Good Friday. It’s Easter Saturday today however, and there’s no sacrificial bodies in sight. 

All of these factors contributed to the Cloud being named the top peak by Smit (‘top viewage and a somewhat pretentious name’) and Tone. While Ben grew all misty-eyed from ‘the views back across to good old west Cheshire, oh how I missed it while we were away’. We then began the descent down into Raven’s Clough (Hardman ‘Raven’s chuff’). This involved much slipping around on the muddy descent, this coupled with its ‘innocuous’ nature made it the shittest part of the walk for Smit. And it’s true the fear of an out of control Ben, limbs flailing wildly, tumbling down upon you was quite terrifying.

We walked along a deep rhododendron-filled chasm and then end up in a field which has been heavily scattered with manure. Once again the old Chester City folk song, ‘East Cheshire full of shit, shit and more shit, rings true.’ We’ve made such good time that we decide can afford to stop for a beverage and take the Staffordshire way to the village of Rushton Spencer. We pass the Rushton Inn but the sign has blown over and it basically just looks like someone’s house, so we carry on following the old railway track to the puntastically-named Knott Inn. 

Pub Review: The Knott Inn, Rushton Spencer

From the outside it looks great, a huge stone building that presumably formed part of the old station. However, when we get to the door we read the sign, ‘walkers, please leave muddy boots outside.’ We deshoe, enter and are excited by the prospect of a pint of Timothy Taylors. However, it’s off hmmm. The whole place is filled with yellow Easter Chintz, described by Tone as ‘terrifyingly bland’, with the lighthouse family being pumped in by loud speakers- what is this place? Suddenly I realise that the Knott outside is not only a hilarious pun but also the symbol of Staffordshire, we must have crossed over the border coming down off the Cloud. Smit is still mapping our progress on his iphone and is concerned that he’s running low in battery. 

He asks the Landlady if there are any plug sockets?’ 

She replies, ‘what do you want it for?’ As if Smit might be thinking of powering up his dildo in her family pub. 

Smit replies, ‘To charge up my phone.’

And she replies, ‘Well, there’s one over there but my lamp’s plugged into it.’

We spend the next, slightly awkward 15 minutes debating the ambiguity of her response. Smit is convinced that she’d given permission to unplug her lamp and charge his phone but is reluctant to do so until one of us confirm this is the case. Tone, Hardman and myself here are fairly certain that, despite the fact the room is full of lamps, the unplugging of a single one would bring the landlady’s wrath upon our heads. As a result we don’t stay for long to sample the intriguing pie of the day. As we do our boots up a local’s dog chained up outside, whines and barks at us. Eager for attention it still flinches at our touch.  We bid a hasty goodbye to what will be our worst pub on the walk. In Hardman’s words, ‘worst pub goes to Smit's charger-lamp dissing. I would've thought a rural pub would be appreciative of Conservative clientele.’ 

The Knott Inn scores

Decor	2.10
Atmos	1.30
Booze	2.60
Clientele	1.80
Barstaff	2.40
Total	2.04

Ben’s navigating abilities have been slightly off so far today, so it’s slightly worrying that we are now in Ben’s hands totally as we attempt to rejoin the Gritstone at the river Dane. Although initially we head into someone’s garden, as is Ben’s wont, Ben eventually guides us quite remarkably to the bridge over the river, just as he promised. Well done Ben all is forgiven.  We’re heading towards the final push up and over to Wincle  Minn (Hardman ‘Wincleminge’). We climb up the hill side through woodland and a strange swimming pool and eventually come out of the woods onto a windy hillside, populated by sheep and lonely farms. This is the first time that we actually encounter snow on the walk. 

We carry on along the ridge until it dips down towards the road. We can see the A54 down below us, which will lead us onwards to the camping barn. However, eager to bag as many peaks as possible and keen to get one more done today to make things easier for tomorrow, I suggest we try and bag  Croker Hill (‘Choke her (with my cock) Hill’ Hardman) today. Everyone is in good spirits and so agrees to go for it. We wander up through a field past a rambunctious ram that mock charges us along the wall. We get to the top of Croker, which is lacking a Trigg Point and slightly spoilt by its radio tower.

On the way back down a collie from the nearby farm runs down and follow us until we get to the road. Thankfully it doesn’t bark, ‘Ralph’s wood’ at us as that would mean we’d have to return to  the beginning of the trail. The dog wanders on alongside us for a while until I tell it in an authoritative voice to head back home, remarkably it does so. Although I nearly get run over by traffic in the process.

As we walk along the A54 it’s time for another pub break before we make it to the camping barn at Blaze Farm.  In the distance I spy the Wild Boar, I’m quite excited by the name choice as it’s presumably inspired by the killing of the last wild boar in England in nearby Wildboarclough (Hardman ‘Wild Brian Clough’s Chuff’). It’s also a Robinson’s pub so I hold out some hope that they might have Old Tom on tap.