Easter Tour 2009 - York, 23rd-26th April
The Easter tour to York started excellently commencing with Thursday evening in the Rook and Gaskill pub where as might be expected a large range of excellent ales were sampled although Dave perhaps regretted enjoying quite so much beer (don’t ask).
The Friday featured 6 towers, evenly split between 8 and 6 bell towers. Another excellent pub was visited for lunch, The New Inn, Crompton with an attached brewery, the food was excellent. Some good ringing occurred at times, in particular three leads of Bristol and at Hovingham, the requested Shaun the Sheep Treble Bob.
The only lock out of the tour occurred at the second tower of the afternoon, St. Mary Strensall, however it must be noted the comment that every Welsh Colleges Tour must involve a lock in and a lock out! Unfortunately the second did not occur although this would have been welcome in the evening at the York Brewery tour that approximately 16 people attended. Although an attempt at sensibility was attempted the move to sampling lead to this being swiftly abandoned and normal service resuming.
The tour was followed by a sampling session which then moved to the Yorkshire Terrier pub where Malcolm was most interested in joining the chess club that was also in there, or he was until he discovered the joys of pheromone wipes (don’t ask).
Saturday was a walking tour of York with five towers starting with St. Olave and as usual there was a mixture of standards of ringing for the population of York to enjoy.
The evening began with the usual meeting followed by a rather potent chilli con carne cooked by Sarah and Pete, the latter was taking a break from the chasing of women (don’t ask). We then, surprisingly, traipsed off to one of the many fantastic pubs that York offers (the Cardiff Wetherspoons are very much lacking in comparison). After the savoring of many pints and the great atmosphere that Welsh Colleges always manage to bring to a pub things took a turn for the worse and not just the last orders bell being rung. Percy decided to ride Paul (don’t ask) and Paul’s wobbly legs gave way resulting in rather dramatic head injuries.
Sunday morning began with a hurried packing and cleaning operation which occurred with remarkable efficiency considering the previous evenings indulgences. A band of us reinforced the Sunday morning ringing at St. Helens, Escrick and surprised ourselves with some good ringing on 12 considering the band!
Thanks must go as usual to the catering officers for providing great sustenance, and thanks in particular to Sarah Tadman for a wonderfully organised tour with, as can be seen throughout the report (!) a particularly fine selection of hostelries.
- Simon Goldrick
