gloucester – Steve's Blog

Flooding

It wasn’t fun getting home on Friday – although the middle of the trip was OK the start of it (from Hanley Swan to Upton) was pretty bad due to serious flooding on the Hanley Road near Hanley Castle and the end of it (from Pitville Gates to Imjin Road) was extremely nasty. Wyman’s Brook had overflowed and was running down the road:

The back garden was also a river with the grid overwhelmed by the water.

It all died down by about 8pm but I have to admit that I didn’t sleep well. Saturday dawned and apart from some mud everything was fine and we did some tidying up and various things. It was on Sunday that things started going down hill. Severn Trent announcing on the BBC that the water had gone off – and the only way to find out any information was to use their website which promptly died. What ever happened to driving round in a van using a tannoy (apart from the fact that it costs money and that would mean less money in the rather deep pockets of the Board of Directors and the share holders).

BBC news has been covering the ongoing disaster as it unfolds round Tewkesbury and Gloucester but it all seems oddly distant. The water is still on here (for the time being) as is the power and apart from being sensible with our water usage life is pretty much as normal – the ADSL line is behaving itself after being a bit flaky this morning and I’m working from home (which is something I really grateful that the company I work for allows).

Severn Trent have said that it could be 14 days before our water is back on. I cordially invite the Directors to come to my house and live with us for the next couple of weeks – of course they’ve probably all buggered off to the sun and just don’t give a damn about their customers.

The Day after the

Well it has to be said that yesterday was a good day… Due to a slight miscalculation on timings Nick and I nearly missed the train but after a mad dash we made it to the station… just to find that the train was late. Richard turned up as did Mike and Paul and, after some problems with tickets, got on the train to Gloucester.

We had planned to start at “The Fountain” but we actually decided that as we were walking past the “New Inn” we might as well start there. They had 8 Real Ales on and the Theakstons Mild was extremely quaffable and enjoyable. The “New Inn” of course is a complete misnomer in that it dates from the 15th Century. Unlike a lot of buildings in Gloucester a lot of the structure of the New Inn retains, if not its original form, a close approximation to it.

After that we took a gentle walk down to “The Linden Tree” – a Wadworth Pub that has 4 Wadworth’s Ales and 4 guest Ales. We decided to have lunch here and it was extremely good value. Its a bit of a hike from town but more than worth it.

After lunch we were going to head back into town via “The Nelson”, but it was closed, so we stuck our head in at “The Whitesmiths” which is an Arkells pub and has some very impressive 17th Century wood work visible inside their “new” extension.

After a refreshing pint of Moonlight we continued the walk back into town and called in at Cafe Rene. Sitting outside in the shade in the Marleone the name “Cafe Rene” almost seems to fit as there was a distinctly European feel to the setting, as the following photo hopefully shows:

Outside Cafe Rene

From Cafe Rene it was an easy walk back to the Cross where the four “Gate” streets meet and down Westgate street to “The Pig In The City“. Obviously the PITC was refurbished a few years ago to make it “trendy”. Its now aged and slightly worn which makes it actually feel more pub like and less “showroom”. After a quick pint there it was a short dash across the road to the Dick Whittington,

The Front of The Dick Whittington

which despite its rather Georgian front is, like so many other buildings, a Georgian front on an older Tudor Building. We sat in the beer garden which is tucked away down the side of the pub behind the church. As the sign indicates the pub was serving Hook Norton Ales.

The final call of the day was The Fountain where we had a couple before heading back to the railway station and Cheltenham.

All of these pubs (but especially The Whitesmiths) are within easy reach of Gloucester Docks

Pubnight Pub Crawl

Today Pub Night Council are off on a pub crawl round Gloucester. We are only planning to do a handful of pubs, but those we have picked have a wide range of ales – which is more important than the number of pubs as far as we are concerned.