RIP George (the cat)

Adventures 

February started with LFF, it was an odd one as Charlotte had a bad call at work in the morning and wasn't initially in the mood to join me.

But she did thankfully seem to start feeling better in the afternoon and drove into Leeds to join me.

We tried pizza at the newish bar 'Brewery Wharf Tavern' near the Leonardo - It seemed nice enough at the time, but Charlotte felt ill later on - can't be 100% sure but it put us off eating there again.

Did manage to try a new bar 'Crown Street Tap' which was great, very LGBTQ+ friendly, not much for GF drinkersm, but some options at least.  

Saturday I went straight home as was looking after the kids that night. 

Sunday we met back up for swimming at Bramley baths - neither of us had been for ages, it was really nice to go back. Didn't break an PB's in terms of lengths , took it easy.

Weekend of 21st : 

We were meant to go to Newcastle to explore the gay quarter but neither of us was feeling great, so we cancelled. 

Charlotte did do an amazign job cooking nice steaks with stilton sauce on the Saturday, was delicious. 

On Sunday we had a lovely trip out to Burnby Hall gardens near Pocklington on the Sunday. https://www.burnbyhallgardens.com/the-gardens/

There were loads of snowdrops in the gardens, the water lilies it is more famous for were not doing much, we might have to go back in the summer.

The aviary was  off limits due to a bird flu outbreak nearby, they mainly had budgies it seems.

Cafe was pretty good and had GF which was lovely, I had a bacon sarnie.

 

27th Feb: 

I had been at Charlotte's for a few days, and upon returning I was concerned to hear that nobody had seen much of George my cat.  I did find him hiding in his house, but he didn't look so good.  Brought him in, but he didn't seem hungry.  I popped to Asda for some posh food, as that had worked in the past. Decided to see if he would eat that.

He still hadn't touched anything by the morning, so I took him to the vets.  Unfortunately the prognosis wasn't great and it was decided better to put him down than prolong the suffering. 

I was quite upset by this of course. 

I had agreed to meet up with some old school friends later that day for a drink in Leeds, and given we don't see each other much didn't want to cancel - so I decided to drive in and just go on soft drinks. 

It was a good distraction for me and lovely to catch up with them, Leeds was very busy due to a football match, be we did just about manage to get seats everywhere we went eventually. 

 

March LFF : 

We were staying at the Discovery Inn as found a really cheap deal for it.  We had a lovely time at Pints and Straws.  The Crown Street Tap was on the rota for the 1st time - we nearly totally filled the place !  

There was a small group of older cis men stuck in the corner, but we had all the other tables - the manager was very pleased to see so many customers - if only for an hour and a half. 

For evening meal we went with Alice to Miller and Carter for some steak.  I had lamb which was fab, but not so filling, Alice and Charlotte had steak. Possibly a bad idea as there wasn't much carbs in anyones meals.

We headed back to the hotel to change, then onwards to  Bridge End Social for the main LFF event. 

We were in there a while - beat Ella and Sally at table football 9 - Nill 🤣

Unfortunately Charlotte came over a bit funny, and we had an early night - but neither of us slept well. Not sure on cause, almost seemed like she had been spiked ! 

 

7th of March 

I was very tired as had a really bad sleep, but neither of us was really hungover in the morning, so decided to make use of the day, and pop into a donkey sanctuary just off the M62 on the way back to Hull.


It was a fab little place, you only got to see about 50% of the animals if you didn't do the tour - so we had a look around at what you could see, then were recommended to go visit the cafe by a really friendly staff member.

I had a 'small' breakfast which was very filling, and made me feel a lot better.  

The tour was great, we were able to get in the pens with a number of them and pet and stroke them.  The more traumatized rescue ones we had to stay outside their stables.  

Some of them had been badly mistreated and quite a few were on the verge of being put down before being rescued, I think there were 35 in total.   One of them was off an east coast beach, just too old to work anymore, probably had thousands of kids on it over the years.

 https://www.wonkey-donkey.co.uk/

 In the afternoon Charlotte cooked us some fantatic GF pork pie - best pork pie pastry we've ever had - both agree.  The filling was lovely too,  a bit posher than the ones you get in the shops. 

On the sunday we decided to explore Grimsby - neither of us had ever been ! - I wasn't the nicest of days, but was fun to explore. We need to go back on a weekday to visit the fish smokers and look around the docks.

We did have a quick look at the maritime museum but didn't go in as we didn't have a lot of time. 
 

March 12th - Jordan Gray

Wouldn't normally go out on a school night, but the famous trans musician/comedian was in York and Charlotte is a big fan.

There was a bad storm, and the journey there was not fun at all, lots of standing water on the roads, but we did get there safe and sound.  Fortunately there was a gap in the rain so our walk to the Theatre was not bad.

A guy was outside who we briefly chatted to - turns out he was the warmup act.  He was OK but not our cup of tea really.

It was a really small place, really friendly staff.  I suggested the 2nd row as figured less chance of being part of the act and thankfully she mainly only interacted with those on the front.

Her show does have a significant mention of her unmentionables, but was very funny. At one point she shrew a big bag of tampons into the audience - we we later had an opportunity to throw back as part of an unexpected punchline.  

She did also play the keyboard and guitar, and was very animated, jumping around the place. Some very clever lyrics 😊

We had tiny ice creams at the interval.  

The drive back wasn't as bad, partly due to lack of traffic, still very wet though.

 

Car news

Still working on the Morris cylinder, had a bit of a disaster partly caused by using a bodgy home made improvised press, so invested in a proper one:

Been using my lathe a fair bit as well, which is good as spent a fair bit on it.

Hoping the rest of the rebuild will go well, and she will be ready for test drives prior to a longish trip to Gaydon next month for the 1st car show of the year.