The Musical Box

Last Saturday Andy J and I made our way 'over the border' to Cardiff to see the legendary Genesis guitarist and song writer Steve Hackett.
We left Tatworth at 1pm and after a two hour drive arrived at the Premier Inn in Barry. We dumped our bags and headed straight out again stopping at the Sir Samuel Romilly a large Wetherspoons pub opposite the station. We both went for a pint of Otleys O1, a very pale golden beer with a hoppy refreshing taste. Having 'wetted our whistle' we caught the next train to Cardiff Central.
First stop here was the Great Western, another Wetherspoons. This was very busy and with loud music playing was not our sort of venue. The selection of real ales was limited as well, but they did have a Kite Brewery ale, Cwrw Gorslas, which was a very good beer.
We didn't stay long though and moved onto a pub from the guide, The Cottage. This is one of the oldest pubs in Cardiff and is a typical town centre pub, long and narrow. Its also a Brain's tied pub and had the full range of their beers. They also had the FA Cup final on so we decided to stay here until the gig started.
I went first for a Dark, a classic mild at 3.5% with a bittersweet, mellow taste. Next up was a 'craft' beer from their craft brewery Dr Rudi at 4.2% and was a really good golden ale with NZ hops and a crisp fruit finish.Last up before we headed round the corner to the St Davids Hall was a Brain's Best at 4.2%, a traditional best bitter.
Then it was off to the gig, we arrived just in time to see Mr Hackett in the foyer signing merchandise.

The gig started at 7.30pm with a support act Anne-Marie Helder, who gave us three or four of her own compositions before the main event got under way at 8pm.

The band launched straight into a great rendition of Watcher of the Skies before giving us a two hour tour of Genesis memory lane greats like Supper's Ready, Dancing with the Moonlight Knight, The Chamber of 32 Doors, The Lamia, Eleventh Earl of Mar amongst others with The Musical Box getting a mid concert standing ovation, before a rousing encore of Firth of Fifth and Los Endos.
I know I say it all the time, but this was one of the best gig's I've ever been to.
The walk back to the Station was an eye-opener, a bit like Beirut with Police, Ambulances and guys with blood running down their faces.
Back home on the Sunday and one of the first things I did was to book to see the show again in Bristol in October. Cant get enough of a good thing.

Hestercombe

Yesterday afternoon Miriam I and I went over to Hestercombe, just outside of Taunton for a walk around the extensive gardens.
It was a lovely spring afternoon and we enjoyed wandering around somewhere we had not visited before. There were quite a few Butterflies on the wing with Orange Tips and Small Blues flitting about the slopes by the pond.

Whilst there I had my first Raven of the year fly over and managed to get some resonable photos of this Grey Wagtail as it collected insects.

Grey Wagtail Monticilla cinerea

Grey Wagtail Monticilla cinerea

Catching Up

Last weekend Miriam and I went with our friends Sheila and Alan to see Think Floyd, a very good tribute band at Seaton Town Hall. We have seen them many times and they were on good form again as they went through a great set of Pink Floyd numbers including all of Dark Side of the Moon,which celebrates its 40th anniversary this year.
On the Sunday we picked up She and Alan after lunch and made our way over to Ham Wall RSPB Reserve. This is a very wheelchair friendly reserve with disabled parking right by the first viewing platform. AS we were driving slowly along the track I noticed our friends Sharon & Steve ahead of us and after a quick chat we went on to park up and let them catch up with us.
I was good to see them again as we had not seen them for a few weeks. After a quick chat we got down to some birding and It wasn't long before Steve had found the Garganey that I was hoping was still around.

Distant View of Male Garganey Anus querquedula

We then walked onto the second viewing platform in the hope that the long staying Pied Billed Grebe would put in an appearance, but it was not to be. We did however see the two Wood Sandpipers and have flyover Marsh Harrier and Bittern and I managed to add some summer migrants to my list with Willow Warbler,Swift,House Martin and Reed Warbler.
I started to get very cold so around 4:30 pm we made our goodbyes and headed for home after what had been a very enjoyable afternoon out.

Tuckers Maltings

My first post for a few weeks as my 24/7 carer duties take up so much time and don't allow me many opportunities to get out much anyway.
I did though manage to get to the 21st Tuckers Maltings Beer Fest on the 20th of April with most of the usual suspects, my brother and sister in law taking on my carers duties for the day.
We arrived in Newton Abbot on a sunny morning at 10:30am and made our way straight for the The Richard Hopkins,a large Wetherspoons in the middle of town for the traditional breakfast start to the day.
I passed on the food as I had eaten a large breakfast before leaving home so went straight for my first beer of the day, Riptide from the Conwy Brewery, a really crisp black IPA at 4.3%.
We then moved onto the 'fest at the Malting and after collecting our glasses( a rather chunky tankard style glass) headed for the beers. As in previous years all attempts to make sure that all the beers were available on the last day had failed and many of the ales were not on offer.
The Champion beer was though and I went straight for Hunters 'Royal Hunt', a strong amber beer at 5.5% but with a smooth taste. The rest of the day was made up of seeing what beers were left and choosing that way. Although the full range was not available I did enjoy all the beers I tried and in particular The Bristol Beer Factory's 'Bitter Kiwi' a fantastic crisp NZ pale ale at 5.0%. How this didn't win any awards escapes me !
We left the 'fest around 4.30pm and made our way back to the station, stopping for a pint of Amy's Ale from Teignworthy on the way before arriving back in Axminster around 7pm and calling into the Axminster Inn for a Palmers 200 to end the day.