Despite six months of notice and lots of positive votes for all sorts of activities support for this year’s rendezvous dropped off severely. Was it because of the weather? Not sure really – more likely just a lack of enthusiasm and commitment! π₯
Anyhow, Saturday started dry albeit very grey and overcast. So we took the opportunity to quickly (Huh? Two hours later!) cut the grass and harvest a bumper crop of red currants (another two hours of tedious work).
However, even with all that gardening there was still time to get the mountain bikes out before the Rendezvous-proper kicked off… Ah, the benefit of living in one of Lakeland’s best mountain biking valleys! π Although by now the rain had arrived and we spent the whole journey in the rain. π³
Not much of a rendezvous! :angry: The second blogger’s rendezvous was very poorly attended – only the uber keen Rachel & Richard joined us. π That said, clearly word had got out, even Alan Hinkes had heard it was the event of the year and made an appearance… Oh OK, he was here to enjoy himself like everyone else at the growing Staveley Beer Festival. How much bigger will it get? We wondered if in years to come if it might becomes the South Lakes ‘Glastonbury’!
We enjoyed some Manuka Beer inspired by a recipe from New Zealand, Richard’s homeland…
The Manuka Beer site seems to be offline, so here’s some background:
Manuka Beer was brewed for the first time as long as 200 years ago. The sailors under Captain James Cook, British explorer, seafarer, and cartographer, were the first to taste manuka beer, made from the leaves of the manuka plant or the New Zealand ‘tea tree’. They were introduced to the plant by New Zealand’s indigenous population, the Maori, who for countless generations had used the manuka plant as a medicinal herb both on its own or added to their cooking. Today, manuka honey is known for it’s wholesome, health giving qualities due to its high concentration of natural antioxidants which protect the body from negative outside influences.
The festival was quite lively despite the now drizzly rain…
Sunday’s weather turned out much better than Saturday (as forecast) and Rachel wanted to get out rock climbing – well that’s my favourite activity, so it was game on! π The old reliable Shepherds Crag was selected…
What about the head banging video…? Is there a head banging smilie icon?
Ah yes, sorry, the video was far too poorly lit, but here’s the “all hair” picture…
but no smilie? π