Sunday 26th November, 2006

I must begin by saying what a great day was had by one and all and that it was especially nice to see a new face amongst us, so a very warm welcome goes out to Graham.

The day began at a moderate 10.00am where we all meet up at North Station in Colchester, ready for departure on the 1025 train bound for our destination of Norwich, which I must add is a real ale paradise. On boarding the train we were pleasantly surprised by a young gentleman asking whether we the Camra lot heading for Norwich as he was here for the trip. It was fantastic to get a new face on our excursion and how he recognised us, I'll never know as we did not have beards or sandals, so well done Graham.

On arriving at Norwich after our journey of map reading and discussion, we headed for our day’s first watering hole and we decided on the one and only FAT CAT. We stayed there for a fantastic pint while chatting and discussing the days other haunts. Whilst there one of our ever faithful members Keith (see Pictures) decided on entertaining us with his newly bought cycling clothing, giving us a great impersonation of Ali G, which we all found highly amusing.

After Keith’s impersonations we headed to our next destination which we decided would be our lunch stop, so off we went to the Reindeer. Once there we all ordered a fantastic pint of Elgoods beer with the stout being the most popular from the range and then we all had the difficult choice of which meat to have from the Sunday carvery which was reasonably priced. I decided on the Norfolk Turkey as we were nearing the festive season and what a great choice that was. As per usual I filled my plate and ended up leaving some, so the saying your eyes are bigger than your belly are very true in my case. After this delightful meal and yet another fantastic pint we headed out into the cold, rainy weather to our next venue, the Duke of Wellington.

After a pleasant stroll we neared our venue but we all started to panic as it looked closed, due to a regular PVC house door making it look shut. But one member of the group who needed more beer fast (JT if I remember) strolled casually to the door and opened it as if they had been here many a time. In we went to a pleasant friendly welcome and had the tiring task (Yeah Right) of picking a beer from the 14 available. Isn’t life hard? After picking a fantastic pint of Archers we all sat and discussed what a fantastic time we are having and discussing future trip such as my tour de Guernsey (canoes optional). Our main man JT was getting so excited at the opportunity at adding new scratches (ticks) to his good beer guide and was therefore drinking in gulps. Once we had all caught up with JT we decided on heading towards another Fat Cat franchise the Cider Shed.

All I can say is Wow! I love this place. I had been here once before after a little pub crawl the day after the Col Utd V Norwich match and again the cider shed was great. It had a band playing blues music, it was full of locals and yet again, a fantastic beer range and I nearly forgot some fantastic kettles crisps that were sage, onion and thyme. In here I asked the guys various questions relating to the range of memorabilia that was surrounding us which allowed my fantastic pint last that little longer but there was no rest for the wicked as we had more venues to visit before our train home. On leaving the shed JT decided to play a trick on Dave 'the webmaster' Inskip by hiding his rucksack, so poor Dave was in and out of the shed looking for his lost bag, when he eventually twigged (poor Dave, not).

From here we headed towards the Kings Head, with the weather improving but the daylight fading. We ended up walking through the grounds of the cathedral and what a fantastic sight that was. But the route through to our destination was blocked by the small problem of a river! Fortunately, there was a riverside walk through a gap in a fence which we all could fit through, so again we marched on, until again we were confronted by a locked gate that was 6ft high and with spikes on top. But as we needed a new scratch, one by one we climbed over this gate with no trouble and even our little Georgie girl who is just over 5ft had no problems until Keith/Ali G. Keith climbed to the top put one leg either side of the gate then froze, saying I can’t move, don’t touch me. This just sent us all into fits of laughter with the majority of us crying at the sight of poor old Keith (see pictures). After some 'gentle' persuasion, Keith decided to take the plunge and we headed off to the next pub.

The last pub of the trip was Rosary Tavern as this was close to the train station and a new scratch for me. It was a nice pub but disappointing compared to the rest as it had only two beers available but it was still a quality tasting pint. We played billiards where this time I lost to the mighty Georgie, which she still reminds me of from time to time. Unfortunately our trip to Norwich had to come to an end and we all set off back to the station for our trip home.

Well, thanks to all those who came along, especially to Graham and I am sorry for those who could not make it but keep your eyes peeled to emails and events posted on our website.

Cheers
Jon Boy
(Young Person Committee Contact)