A birthday in Britain - Wednesday, October 7

Wednesday, October 7th was my 44th birthday.  As my birthday celebrations from years 40 to 43 ranged from truly epic to merely outstanding, and this year my birthday fell in the middle of the work week, I was content to let 44 pass by with a whimper.

I had noticed over the past 10 months, though, that people tended to bring treats in to the office on their birthday.  My non-scientific poll of English friends via Facebook confirmed the general cultural norm that on one's birthday, it is the birthday celebrant who treats everyone else to cake, a round at the pub, etc.  "When in Rome, do as the Romans do", or as my old friend Efrain opined, "Al Pueblo que fueres has lo que vieres", so I stopped at Booth's on Tuesday night to pick up a few cakes to bring in to work the next day.  Once they found out it was my birthday, my co-workers surprised me with their ability to whip together some kind birthday cards on short notice, and we all enjoyed a nice afternoon break filled with sugar.  As an added bonus, there were two slices of the chocolate cake left over, and those went home with me to enjoy for the next couple of nights.  :-)

Since this year was mellow and next year, my birthday falls on a Friday, I suppose I'll have to make up for a 'year off' by planning another epic adventure for 45.  And since I don't have any photos to share from 44, instead I'll recap 40-43.

Here's my 40th birthday, celebrated first at the Oktoberfest in Munich and then in Amsterdam.  My actual birthday night proper was spent dancing at Coco's Outback club.  My friend Gerry got me the awesome glasses and boa.



For 41, I had a weekend in Pittsburgh.  My dear friends Dave and Kristin tried to organize a surprise party bus on Saturday, but due to a mechanical failure, the bus was out of commission.  Instead the owner of Bar 11 opened up his bar for us in the afternoon for a private surprise party, with most of my Pittsburgh friends, which then segued into a bar crawl on the Southside.  Sunday my friends Jack and Tom helped organize a big tailgate party on the North Shore, and then some of us went in to the Pittsburgh Steelers versus Philadelphia Eagles football game.  The Steelers won.



For 42, Kristin and I went to Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando for a day of eating and drinking around the world at the Epcot Food and Wine Festival.  We were joined by my brother, Jon, his wife Karen, and another friend, Brian.

  
Finally, 43 was the Great American Beer Festival in Denver, Colorado, with my friends Kristin, Trish and Mo.  As if the GABF wasn't enough, since October 7th actually fell on a Tuesday, I had dinner with friends back in Atlanta at a nice restaurant followed by a free Macallan Scotch tasting.

Stockport Beer Week (Sept 24 - Oct 4)

This year was the inaugural Stockport Beer Week, organized by the Stockport and South Manchester branch of the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) in collaboration with local CAMRA members, brewers, and Stockport's council.  I'm a CAMRA member, and I love beer, so trying to make it out to some of the week's events was a no-brainer for me.

Stockport is only about 7 miles southeast of Manchester.  Nowadays, that means it is all part of the jumbled sprawl that is the Greater Manchester metropolitan area, but back before the invention of cars, that was a far enough distance for Stockport to develop over the centuries as a town in its own right, with its own history and heritage.

It is actually faster for me to get from Altrincham to Stockport by train than it is for me to get to the city centre, but the trains only run once an hour, so it's just not as convenient.  Hence, I hadn't really spent much time in Stockport prior to this.  I bought my car at the Mercedes Benz dealer in Stockport, and I'd been to The Hope Inn once (The Hope is the home of the Fool Hardy Ales microbrewery).  I've passed through the railway station, and I've driven through the town.  Still, beer is always a good reason to explore a new area.

On Wednesday night (September 30), I met up with some beer buddies, and we started with an open house night at Cryptic Ales Brewery.  The brewery is about 1 mile walking from the Stockport train station, so I got in some exercise first.  The weather was exceptionally fine for a brisk walk.  Cryptic has only been in operation for about a year, and this was their first official "open house".  It had a really great space, and they had on some nice ales from their core range as well as a special ale brewed with ginger.  The ginger wasn't overpowering and actually gave it a nice bite.

Beer Buddies

Getting the obligatory "brewery tour" from Cryptic's brewer

The brewery was unfortunately the target of a robbery very early on.  The robbers broke in and stole all the equipment and electronics they could, and they still haven't been caught.  The cheeky bastards took a black marker and wrote on the office wall -- "Thanks for the free stuff!  :-)"  The owners of the brewery have left the graffiti up there.  The gall of it made me angry on their behalf.  At least they were covered by insurance, but still, what an awful way to get your business off the ground.

After the brewery open house wrapped up, we started to walk back towards the centre of Stockport.  We made a quick stop in at The Fairway Freehouse along with way.  It wasn't part of the official Stockport Beer Week agenda, but one of my beer buddies is the brewer at Tatton Brewery, and The Fairway had some of his beer on, so he wanted to check the place out.  Plus, a mile is a long way to walk without a beer.  It was a very nice establishment with a charming, cozy interior and a good selection of fine ales.

We passed by the Stockport Town Hall, a local Edwardian landmark that is affectionately known as "the wedding cake" because of its ornate, tiered, white facade.

The Wedding Cake

At this point, being a Wednesday night, I really should have caught the next train home.  Instead, it was time to make a bad decision and go to the next pub.  We ended the evening at The Spinning Top, a modern bar on the main thoroughfare of Wellington Road South that was going to have live music.  Happily, they had some of Tatton Brewery's special "Ruck and Maul" Porter on, and our group polished off the cask.  Tatton's "Ruck and Maul" was really, really good.  The Spinning Top also had pork pies, and since I hadn't had dinner, I took down a cold pork pie with Branston Pickle and cheese.  Delicious.

After we exhausted the cask ale options we liked, we did a couple of bottles.  They had a Young's Double Chocolate Stout available, which is a wonderful beer.  I'd only had it once before, and I was happy to find it again.  I ended up catching the very last train home at 11:27 PM.  Too much fun!

Friday, October 2 it was back to Stockport for Round 2 of Stockport Beer Week activities.  This time, I headed past the Spinning Top and further northwest along Wellington Road South (the A6).  This gave me my first chance to see the start of the River Mersey.  The Rivers Tame and Goyt flow in from the east, and their confluence is the Mersey.  Stockport is founded on three rivers.  There even used to be a 3 Rivers Brewing (that didn't survive the great recession).  As someone who lived in and loved Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania for 4 years, the confluence of three rivers parallel made me like Stockport even more.

The River Mersey, the Stockport Viaduct and a setting sun to the west.

We started with a quick Happy Hour at the Crown Inn, a lovely heritage boozer with a large beer patio underneath the landmark Stockport viaduct.  Again, the weather was very fine.  Seriously, look at that unbelievable blue sky!

The Crown Inn with the iconic Stockport Viaduct in the background

Next up, we walked over to Stockport Brewing for their brewery open house.  Thank goodness I was with someone who knew where it was, because I never would have found it on my own.  The brewery was tucked away into one of the arches of the viaduct, and you had to walk around the back of a building to get there.  It was a tiny, quirky space, but their beer was good.

After about an hour, we walked over towards the town centre for a guided heritage walk, a History of Market Place Pubs.  This was organized by a volunteer from the Stockport Heritage Trust, and it was really interesting and a lot of fun.  I won't bore everyone with all of the historical bits, but it was cool.

The Market Hall building is really interesting.

The old town centre of Stockport was built up on a hill, where there used to be a castle.  Now there is the Market Hall building, surrounded on all sides by storefronts and pubs.  Sadly, many of the storefronts today are in need of repair, and there are a number of vacant properties.  The entire area has such tremendous potential; I hope they find a way to continue to revitalize it.

Under-utilized.

One of the few lively places on the square and a fascinating history.  Refurbished and upscale interior.

Our walking tour guide.  The walk was free; we just tipped him the cost of a pint.

These old streets were designed for horse-drawn carriages and are called "brows".  The views show how we're up on the top of a hill.

The old Stockport dungeon and Court Leet, used until 1824.  The tiny door is the drunk hole.  If you were drunk and disorderly (or passed out), they would just throw you down into the dungeon through that door.

The last stop of the night was The Magnet Freehouse, a 2015 CAMRA Pub of the Year.  HELL YES.  This place was fantastic.

For those who don't know, a Free House is not owned and controlled by a brewery, so it can serve any beers it wants.  Brewery-owned pubs may have rotating guest taps, but a Free House will almost always have a more diverse and eclectic selection.

The Magnet was packed with people.  Fortunately, it was still nice enough to sit outside, and they had a back patio area with decks.  They also had someone selling fresh, made-to-order pizzas out back, and I had probably the best pizza I have had since moving to the UK.  That pizza was so good I was still thinking about it 3 days later.  I'm drooling just thinking about it now.  I have to go back to the Magnet, not only for the great beer selection and atmosphere, but also for more pizza.

Friday's cask and keg beer list

I was in my happy place.

This year, I only got to do two of the Beer Week nights, but both nights were great, and I really enjoyed getting to know Stockport.  From what I could see and the buzz that I heard, I think Stockport's Beer Week was a big success, and hopefully it will become an annual event for them.

The Mersey Gateway, or why I live in Greater Manchester

We've been having some wonderfully fine autumn weather for the past week or so; so nice, in fact, that one day last week I left the plant to take a walk at lunch.  The plant is located in an industrial estate, and there are no sidewalks or walking paths around our building, but about 1 1/2 miles down the road is the Wigg Island Community Park, so I drove down there.

Wigg Island was created with the building of the Runcorn to Latchford Canal (1804), which left a chunk of land in between the canal and the River Mersey.  The island came to be used for manufacturing, and it was a centre for the production of mustard gas during WWII.  After manufacturing ceased in the 1960s, the contaminated brownfield was cleaned up, remediated and converted into a nature preserve and community park.

Here is a lovely view of the Runcorn Gap and the Silver Jubilee Bridge, taken while standing on Wigg Island.  Downstream to the west from here are where the Mersey estuary drains into the Irish Sea and the city of Liverpool.  The Runcorn Gap is the first big bend in the river with a very narrow gap between what today are Runcorn on the south bank (left side of photo) and Widnes on the north bank (right side).  The Gap has always been a major crossing, and the current Silver Jubilee Bridge has been in place in its current configuration since 1977.

Runcorn is roughly halfway in between Liverpool and Manchester, so I could have lived in either metropolitan area and had an acceptable commute to the plant.  Actually, the commute from Liverpool would have been a little shorter.  I love Liverpool -- it's a really cool city, with amazing history, architecture, arts and culture, etc.  The World Heritage waterfront is incredible.  I think I would have been just as happy there with all the pubs, live music and transport link options.  Also, the rents are less expensive in Liverpool.  Comparable houses in comparable areas would have been £100 to £200 less each month in rent.

The Silver Jubliee Bridge is why I chose to live in Greater Manchester instead.  This four lane, 38 year old bridge -- and the traffic around it -- is a nightmare, and today it is the only way to commute from Liverpool to Runcorn.  Over 80,000 vehicles use the Silver Jubilee Bridge every weekday, only 2 lanes for each direction, and you're going through the communities of Runcorn and Widnes, so cars are changing lanes constantly as they enter and exit the queues of traffic.

The bridge is such a nightmare that they are building a new bridge to supplement it, the Mersey Gateway.  The Gateway will have three lanes in each direction, and the route will bypass the town centres of Runcorn and Widnes.  When it is finished, it will actually have a large viaduct going right over and through the Astmoor Industrial Estate where the plant I work at is located.  All great and very much needed.  This is the Mersey Gateway on Tuesday, September 29, 2015:

As you can see, they have a long way to go.  The three cranes are where they are building the three cable-stayed towers.  That's Fiddlers Ferry coal-fired power station in the background.

Construction started in the spring of 2014, and if the Silver Jubilee Bridge situation was bad enough, having everything in the area torn up and under construction for the new bridge is even worse.  There are all types of lane and road closures, diversions, orange barrels everywhere.  The closures aren't at night or over a weekend.  These are major works, and closures are lasting for a month at a time or even longer.  It will be a traffic nightmare at least until the autumn of 2017, at the earliest.  Autumn 2017 assumes everything goes according to plan.

Once the new bridge opens, both bridges will become tolled, costing a standard rate of £2 to cross, £1.80 if you register and get a sticker or £90 for a monthly unlimited travel pass.  Don't get me wrong -- I am very much in favor of toll roads.  I think people who use the roads should pay for them, and they should pay for them based on actual usage.  However, for myself personally, even after the 3+ years of traffic nightmares are over, that £90 toll per month pretty firmly eliminates any possibility that I might want to switch my living over to Liverpool.  Sorry, Greater Manchester; that means you are stuck with me.  I just renewed my lease on my house, which was expiring on December 2, so Altrincham is stuck with me, too.  For another year at least.  :-)

A few other photos from my lunchtime walk:

The Old Quay swing bridge that connects the mainland to Wigg Island over the canal.  It didn't look like it had swung open in a very long time.

Originally, the Runcorn to Latchford Canal (also known as the Old Quay Canal or locally as "Old Quay Cut"), which was excavated out and incorporated into the later Manchester Ship Canal.  Remnants of old docks remain.

It's Rose Hips season!  Rose trees and bushes are currently covered with their bright red fruits.

Sunday Ramble in Marple: Sunday, September 27, 2015

One of the things that I think is really neat about the UK -- and that is substantially different from the USA -- is the widespread tradition and popularity of what they refer to over here as rambling.

Sure, Americans like to take walks and go on hikes, but we're also a little obsessed with our private property.  Take two steps off public park lands, and chances are high you'll quickly come face-to-face with Posted: No Trespassing signs all over the place.  We have a fine historical tradition of shooting trespassers in the USA.  Now granted, if you were a homesteading pioneer as recently as a hundred years ago, a person coming uninvited onto your property was just as likely to be a mortal threat to you as anything else, so there is a solid basis to that 'shoot first, ask questions later' tradition.  Still, I remember numerous times having people around Atlanta yell at us to get off their private property when I was doing trail walks or runs with the Hash House Harriers.  No reasonable 21st century person could assess a pack of sweaty runners to be a mortal threat, and it's not like we were stomping through anyone's flower beds.  The property owners were just being assholes.  Americans are boxed in by jealously guarded private property on all sides, and we have to escape to public parks or pay a fee to someone (and sometimes both) to be able to get outdoors.

Around the UK, on the other hand, there are literally hundreds of years worth of 'common law' public footpaths and bridleways all over the place.  Right of access based on local tradition is also recognized.  Additionally, the right to roam applies to all open access land including mountains, moors, heaths, downs, common land and some land along designated coastal paths.  What a national treasure. (and no bears, wolves or cougars to worry about!  just ornery farm animals.)

Rambling through a farmer's field with a clear view over the Cheshire Plain towards Manchester.

In the 18th and 19th centuries, there was a large push by wealthy landowners and aristocrats to close off formerly common lands and rights of way with walls, fences and hedges, and this was called the Enclosures Movement.  The movement was supported with two Enclosure Acts passed in the 1800s by the central government, which in my opinion, pretty much constituted government-backed theft.  It reminds me of the Claimers from season 4 of The Walking Dead.  See something you want?  Yell "Claimed!" first and the loudest, and then beat the living daylights out of anyone who disagrees.  The above is a perhaps gross over-simplification of an extremely long, complicated, convoluted history of and highly-politically-charged subject of enclosures, but the point is that during that time in history, right of ways, right of access and rambling were under serious threat.

(To clarify, as a libertarian, I am a firm believer in an individual right to property, and I am opposed to all government interference with private property.  However, that right applies to justly acquired property.  You cannot reasonably say that property acquired through force, fraud, confiscation or theft is your private property.  How that principle applies to property that was unjustly acquired two hundred years ago, well now, that gets complicated.)

A counter-movement to protect walker's rights grew, culminating in the formation of the National Council of Ramblers Federations in 1931, which then evolved into the Ramblers Association.  Ramblers and other advocates for rights of way have continued to push to protect and to expand walkers' rights for the past 80 years.  Today, Ramblers are a huge charity organization with local affiliates all over the country, filled with volunteers that help monitor rights of way and trails while leading all types of group walks.  I joined the Ramblers, because I think they have a great mission, and I figured walking with groups would be a fantastic and safe way to explore and see the countryside, whilst also getting much-needed exercise and fresh air.

This past Sunday was my first ramble.  I met up with the Stockport group, and we walked about 8 miles around the Marple area, which is just southeast of the center of Stockport.  The weather was absolutely perfect and stunning -- sunny, dry, low humidity, totally clear skies, and temperatures around 17º C.  They were a really nice, friendly group of people, too.  We walked along an old railroad bed that had been converted to a trail, then along parts of canal towpaths, through fields (watch out for piles of sheep dung) and farms, across a golf course or two (head's up when the golfer yells fore) and cutting through neighborhoods along footpaths in between homeowners' backyard fences.  I saw a few signs asking ramblers to stick to the posted right of way, which is fair enough.

I wouldn't have known where I was without tracking the route on my phone's GPS.

There were two points along the walk I recognized.  One was when we popped out by the Royal Oak pub on the A6.  I'd stopped there with my beer buddies after a day out in the Peak District.  I looked around, recognized where I was, and exclaimed, "I drank there!"  I also recognized when we crossed the A6 again just a few yards away from the entrance to the Lyme Park estate (now a National Trust property that I've visited).

An interesting point on our trek was crossing over a canal bridge with an old WWII pillbox on the corner.  Pillboxes were built in the Cheshire countryside as lines of defense in the event of a German invasion.  During WWII, anti-aircraft guns would have been mounted on top.  One of the canal boat owners had incorporated the abandoned pillbox into his permanent canal boat mooring.  These canal boaters live on their barges full time and even have mail delivered.  I'm not sure how they deal with fresh water and sewage, though.

WWII Pillbox, now part of someone's canal boat home

I also spotted some more traditional narrowboat decorative art (which I had just learned about on Saturday at the Anderton Boat Lift museum) -- horse brasses.  Horse brasses are brass plaques that were used for the decoration of horse harness gear.  Canal barges were towed by horses, so the horse was an incredibly important member of the family.  It became a tradition to collect harness brass to use it as decoration, hanging it on walls.  Here, the barge owner has decorated his door with them.

Narrowboat decorated with horse brass.

At one point, we exited a field right through a homeowner's driveway while she was in her yard gardening.  I felt weird about it, but one of the ramblers pointed out to me that the public right of way was more than likely older than her house.  The footpaths and rights of way are all documented on Ordnance Survey maps, which are public records.  If a landowner tries to block a path, you can report them to the local Council for action.

A system like this only works well if everyone tries to be polite and respectful to each other.  The UK government publishes The Countryside Code, with an admonishment to Respect. Protect. Enjoy.  We were courteous to everyone we saw.  We closed any gates after going through them, and no one left trash on the ground from our tea and lunch stops.

I did learn that I need to procure a folding sitting mat for future walks.  I never knew that such a product existed, but it seems everyone else in the group had one, and it definitely would have been nicer to sit on than grass during our two rest stops.  I called it a 'butt pad' and got some mildly appalled looks, as Brits do not generally use the word 'butt', preferring 'bum' instead.  Need to remember to call it a 'sit mat' for future reference...

One of the other things I really enjoy about the UK -- most activities end up at the local pub for a pint.  :-)  The Railway at Rose Hill Marple station is just a Robinson's pub, so not the best beer or selection, but just about any pint will do after a good hike.

I thoroughly enjoyed everything about the walk and the people, and I will definitely be doing more rambling in the future.  If you want to see all of the photos I took, follow the link to the Google photo story posted here (it's a storybook, so click on the little arrows on the right to advance to the next page, and click on any photo to enlarge it).