Arrived at Hook Norton around 6pm with none of the travel dramas associated with last years flooding. Well apart from BA losing, finding, losing and then finding a bag not associated with any passenger.
Steve and Pete arrived by bus after Inglis promised to give them a lift and then reneged on the deal. Wheeldon and Dave arrived in a massive MPV that evoked memories of Keenan's 37 footer RV. Wheeldon then proceeded to erect a minuscule 'two man tent' that could probably hold two action men figures (on top of each other) but not two adults - particularly one who is 6'7" tall ! Welcome to Goat Hurling and Hook Norton, Dave !
Inevitably, news of our arrival had hit the Interweb and members of our party received text messages inquiring about our timetable and an anonymous, mysterious voicemail: 'Welcome to Banbury' from known and unknown acquaintances. Net curtains in tens of quaint terraced cottages nervously started to twitch throughout the village.
We greeted old friends (Mym and co.) while we watched Leo set up all the tents in the shadow of the Hook Hotel; a luxury camper van with awning, standalone gazebo, equipped with all mod-cons, hot food, unlimited supplies of food and drink, hot and cold running water, showers, hot tub, sauna and chemical toilets (only to be used in emergencies). But can you really call it 'camping' ?
Went to celebrate the four firm, taut, erections in the Pear Tree by sampling a few pints of Hooky Best, Double Barrelled and Gold in the Pear Tree.
Adjourned to The Bell for out first sporting activity of a fun packed weekend.
We were pleasantly surprised and delighted to discover that The Bell had undergone significant and costly refurbishment especially for our annual visit. The Aunt Sally venue was now equipped with the following:
- new, shiny backdrop. Apparently, the landlord said the previous one had been wrecked by the inaccurate throwing of a Mr R. Gibson from Essex (who now owes him £27.50 towards the replacement costs.)
- new sticks - controversy raged over whether tired, battered, wizzened, old sticks flew better than new, smooth sticks.
- thin metal bar to delineate the foot fault line The bar was electrifed with 800 volts to ensure no participant foot-faulted and instantly ended years of endless arguments and raging controversies.
- ...and best of all, particularly, given the quality of the fading light at 21:47- Floodlights !
Returned via The Sun where we enjoyed a solitary pint and admired the expensive fish menu and some ladies playing lounge skittles. The group then hatched a cunning plan to pool our loose change and purchase a house up for sale opposite the Pear Tree. We would rent the house out during the year and evict our tenants, at very short notice, for the weekend of the beer festival. The tenants would however be able to rent out our tents and camp in the field though.
Back to the Pear Tree for lengthy, rambling discussions on the merits or otherwise of Jonathan Ross, Mark Lamar and 'Mock The Week'.
Saturday
No snoring was heard overnight and everyone enjoyed a restful night's sleep. The highlight of Steve's festival happens slightly earlier than everyone else's with the arrival and commissioning of the portaloos.
To the village shop for oily mackerel (Andy), fresh home-made Cornish pasty (Pete - tut, tut), out of date Smoothies (Leo, Steve) and baguettes warm from the baker's oven. Breakfast was consumed on benches thoughtfully provided outside The Sun, in hot sun, funnily enough.
In keeping with tradition, we then paid the customary visit to the Church coffee morning where we were immediately jumped on by the very friendly, welcoming ladies who plied us with high quality, strong FairTrade coffee coupled with seemingly endless supplies of deluxe chocolate chip biscuits. 'Come on now boys, you do need to line your stomachs, after all'.
Arrived back at 11:50 just in time to reserve the last wooden bench in our favoured position at the heart of things outside the Pear Tree. The Hog Roast was now underway and a welcome return after last year's absence although the pigs may not have shared this feeling.
In an exciting development, our immediate neighbours were a brass band who were setting up and Morris dancers. For foreign readers, a beer festival is a quintessentially English affair.
At 12 noon, the Hook Norton Festival of Fine Ales (2008) got underway. After months of expectation that start with email threads in January, the moment was finally here. We purchased the Welcome pack with 8 additional vouchers and we all carefully selected our beers, annotating our festival guide with comments and marks out of 5. As always, this lasted for precisely one drink.
A short, sharp shower forced us to the sidelines but we still managed to retain the bench.
Tim rolled up on his bike having completed the tricky 4th mountain stage from Cheltenham to Hook. He tried and failed to use the shower facilities from the Hook Hotel.
Darce rolled down the hill, ecstatic to see the bench populated with so many people and nearly trampled right through the brass band, in his excitement to reach the hallowed wooden, beer sodden bench (thanks Pete).
As this wasn't enough excitement, Andy Hibbitt rolled in from sunny Stratford upon Avon for what was, unbelievably, his first ever festival. Unfortunately, his stay was short-lived as he was resisting the call of the music tent and attending a Queen tribute concert later that night.
Inevitably, the pulling power of having Andy H in our ranks soon paid dividends as a beautiful lady approached the bench.
'A young lady called Emma,Seriously, a delightful lady called Emma who maintains the Hook Norton Web site, had Googled for 'Hook Norton old lady village shop argument' and somehow happened across this site.
Nervously came over all of a quiver,
Are you the famous Goat Hurlers ? she asked.
Yes ? Well I think you're all a pain in the a**e.'
She had two quick questions:
- Q: Will you be doing the pyramid ? A: Yes.
- Q: Why do you only ever post one solitary article very year ? A: because we are deeply boring individuals with no life.
With the welcome arrival of Katie, Georgina and Edward (Tim was too knackered and drunk to cycle another 20 miles home), we now had enough small, medium, large and XXL individuals for the 'Human Pyramid'. More importantly, we now also had a decent football kindly provided by Edward as, inevitably Darcy had forgotten and failed to deliver. Still, at least, he had brought the stove for the Sunday morning fry-up.
The pyramid was duly erected at the prescribed hour of 16:00. We enlisted the help of 'Lee' (donned in a Foo Fighters T-shirt) as a Gibbo replacement. This worked out incredibly well and the 4-3-2-1 structure was rock solid.
Indeed, instead of the pyramid collapsing in a heap with people laughing helplessly, falling onto concrete and badly injuring themselves, the pyramid was dismantled in a controlled fashion. A handful of people looked on perplexed, took photos and gave us some half-hearted, generous applause.
To the play park for some football, where we replaced the Championship skills of Gibbo with an audacious £80 million bid for Kaka. Andy scored a delightful left footer and, once again, featured on the winning side after a close fought 6-5 triumph.
We now entered that late afternoon, twilight zone but the break for football seemed to re-energise everyone as we joined the queues (or in Steve's case walked up the exit lane to skip the irritating 10 minute wait) for more beer.
We had pledged to a lady from the coffee morning to watch her son play in The Heatseekers who were just circa 14 years old but did a decent cover of 'Purple Haze' which was very apt for our state of minds in the dark recesses of the twilight zone.
Steve broke his pledge, ignored the bands and devoured 7 mushy pea fitters in 12 minutes flat and also managed to dissuade Pete from doing the same by claiming they were 'minted'.
Curiously enough, Leo had been singing (well sort of) 'Bryan Adams/Melanie C's 'When you're gone' all morning until Pete finally lost control and hit him with a non-existent frying pan.
So Leo was delighted when a young girl joined the band to cover that very song. We had to hold him back from gate crashing the stage to join in the high-pitched harmonies, screaming 'No, no - you're out of tune - you need to be higher - it goes like this "BABY WHEN YOU'RE GONE, FEELS LIKE I'M IN LURVE"
The Heatseekers had lost their drummer (he preferred middle distance running apparently) and replaced him with a baby faced, fair haired boy who was so young and diminutive, you could barely see him peeping up about his high-hat.
To my astonishment, the drummer came out from behind his drums to play lead guitar and front the next band - a threesome featuring an 8 year on drums and a toddler on bass.
Next up were my favourite band of the festival - The Scholars. Classic, indie, guitar rock supplemented by keyboards with due hat-tip to Interpol and Editors.
Indeed, the front man (who must have been at least 17) introduced 'This is the only cover in the set' and played a very impressive version of 'The Racing Rats' and also covered 'An End Has a Start' as an encore.
With decent weather, the festival was very well attended and tents had actually overflowed and pitched in the car park although oddly the same people had left their cars in the camping field.
Consequently, towels were thrown over various barrels and soon there was only Everard's Dazy Hazy (#39) left and all beer, and quite a few attendees, were completely exhausted by 7pm.
Steve and I were kindly bought a drink by Rubin and his stag party from a neighbouring village. We treated them to a few Mancunian phrases and Oasis impressions which they lapped up and we quickly ran off, never to reciprocate.
Unfortunately, the Pear Tree also ran out of beer (circa 10pm) which was a horrendous event and some individuals were reduced to buying Carlsberg.
One young lady had the temerity to ask for a Vodka and tonic, to be told by an incredulous landlord: 'Vodka - don't you realise this is a beer festival, love ?' She relented and asked for a beer: 'Sorry - love we're completely out of all beer'. 'Oh OK then - so I'll have that Vodka and tonic then' 'Sorry - love but we're out of Vodka too'. It was like a Fawlty Towers sketch.
Alcohol is a curious thing - after drinking all day - someone had the intelligence and foresight to ask Darce whether, in addition to the well remembered stove and fuel, he had actually remembered to bring a frying pan. Somehow, we didn't need to wait for his answer - we already knew we'd be eating pasties and oily fish (again) for Sunday lunch.
Attendees: (decreasing attendance time order): Andy C, Leo, Steve, Pedz, Darce, Wheeldon, Dave (both Friday night only), Tim ( 5 hours on Saturday) Hibbo (Saturday for 2 hours - EFFORT !)
Absent but fondly remembered: Bill (fair weather Hurler), Mez (Perth is a long trip), Ben (ditto for Sydney), Gibbo.