Sheffield – 21st August

There was some excitement on Friday 21st August as our friend, Clare, was coming to Sheffield for the weekend. I’d already been in touch with our other mutual friends, Kerrie and Louisa, who were also keen to meet up.
After cramming in lots of work and I also managed to do the hoovering and clean up a bit, I walked to the train station to meet Clare. I’d not seen her since we went for drinks and steak in London so it was great to catch up again. Clare had just a small backpack and it was a lovely day so we decided to walk it back to Kelham Island from the train station. According to Captain Caveman it should take 15 minutes but I’d say it was more like 20.
Back home, Clare was shown around the flat and she was allocated the spare room/office which I turfed Captain Caveman out of. He was able to finish work a little earlier on a Friday and was able to nip to the shops for provisions. He also bought me some Lactase enzyme supplements because he was convinced I was intolerant to lactose. I’d not realised that both Kerrie and Louisa had been ready to meet up earlier in the day than we could be ready for. We rushed to get ready and I messaged them to say we were heading to the pub. As it turned out, they were both running late now so we had time to show Clare the area, have a quick pint in the Alder, then another drink in the Neepsend Social Club, where I went on to wine. We waited in the Gardener’s Rest for our friends to join us with a third drink while sharing the last of the pork pies and food as none of us had eaten. I was very impressed with the pork to pastry ratio in the pork pie too.

At 5pm Louisa, Kerrie and her son, Jack, arrived at the Gardener’s Rest and more drinks were ordered – I was already quite merry by this point!
Kerrie and Jack made me laugh, especially Jack who was telling us all about his football and they couldn’t stay long as they had to get up early for football tomorrow.

After the Gardener’s Rest, Louisa, Clare, Captain Caveman and I walked to the next pub, The Workshop. Here the girls went on to cocktails, I stuck to wine and Captain Caveman beer but I had already overdone it and was hungry. We ended up having chips and gravy which I knew I was drunk by this time as I’m not fond of gravy but I ate it and enjoyed it!

We really should have gone home after that as I had definitely had too much wine but we went for a last drink at the Church, where, apparently, I had a margarita and Captain Caveman fell asleep. Louisa’s husband came to pick her up and I think we kept him waiting a bit too long while she drank up and said her farewells. We organised to see her again tomorrow for something new that Clare and I were really looking forward to.

Gratitude List
1. Clare coming to stay with us for the weekend in Sheffield
2. Drinks at Kelham Island with our friends
3. That pork pie in the Gardener’s Rest.