Weather: Cold... No... It was colder than that...
So after last week when we completely forgot to select a pub, a hurried mid-week draw left us with "The Old Restoration" in Cheltenham. The evening started with a bus ride for +Iain Stuart , +Martin Hatfield , +Chris Sheppard and +Golfyball into town on the hunt for something to eat, with a longer term plan to meet up with +John Urquhart and +Patrick Chatterton around 9-ish.
We settled on "The Slug and Lettuce" which is always a reliable spot, with reasonably priced food and slightly expensive beer. This is nicely tempered by the fact that they regularly appear on "VoucherCloud" with a 25% discount on food - so a worthwhile stop for that reason alone.
A couple of steak sarnies did the trick, washed down with a couple of pints of non-descript larger. There's always plenty of people in here too - so it makes for a good atmos' generally. Suitably fed and watered, we decided to head out in the general direction of "The Old Restoration" but with a stop off in the gastropub that is "The Swan" on the way. I shouldn't go into too much detail here, because obviously "The Swan" wasn't the selected pub this week, and it's sure to come up again during the summer months - save to say that it's a lovely place and an enjoyable stop-off. Two pints later and +John Urquhart and +Patrick Chatterton appeared and joined us in a beverage or two before we set off for the main event.
One of the more well known faces about Cheltenham and a proper English Eccentric to boot is that of "Dancing Ken Hanks" and of a Thursday evening, when there's a bit of live music on, The Old Restoration is his watering hole of choice. So it was no surprise to see him in here, and a delight to watch him dance - well, jig about a bit. A funny old geezer who has done a lot of "good work for charidee", he adds a certain ambience complete with a few raised eyebrows. God alone knows what our Canadian member must have thought of him.
One of the things "Pat the Chat" has brought to our little group is a favoured drink of the colonial commoner, "Prairie Fire". This consists of a shot of Tequila with a dash of Tabasco to give it some kick. With this in mind and in his honour we strived to get a round in of said beverage, only to be stymied by the complete lack of Tabasco behind the bar. Not to be outdone, or downhearted, and thinking on our feet, in a spark of genius "Cheltenham Fire" was born. Like it's cousin from the village of Stadacona (look it up), it too consists of a Tequila base, but the magic ingredient is a nip of Louisiana Hot Sauce. To be fair, it's pretty disgusting, but it has a similar effect to the Prairie equivalent and is almost certainly, entirely unsuitable for drinking on a school night.
All very entertaining stuff. Stories were told, the world was generally put to rights and as always, a good time was had by all involved. We were all particularly pleased to hear the following day that +Chris Sheppard took an inordinatley long time to recover - which only goes to show that practice makes perfect, and if he showed up more often he'd be able to handle it.
And there we have it. Next week there's a another musical venue - not least because it will feature the keyboard skills of +Alex Stevens
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