2025 - a look back

 So, what did 2025 look like? I always think a review of the year will be a fun thing, but frequently never get around to writing it - or get part way through, having made it too complex, realise it’s going to be crazy-long, and just scrap the post. Will this be a year it actually makes it as a published post?

January -  a chilly, frosty month. Several meetings with pals - our regular January date with Colin & Aileen saw us at our usual haunt of the Pembury Arms for excellent 5 Points Brewery beer and tasty pizzas - and a lot of catching up with the CAMRA gossip. Then a short mid week pub crawl with Adam in the east end visiting favourite pubs from years ago. Ending with the usual marmalade making session. 

February saw mainly beery activities it seems - A pleasant Saturday of tap room visits combined with watching six nations matches on the big screens at the Hackney brewery taprooms and via my iPad at Beerblefish. A trip to Sheffield for the National Winter Ales festival - seemingly the last time for that, although we didn’t know that at the time.  A wander around the fascinating Park Hill Estate in Sheffield…

Part derelict, part restored. Also a fun evening tasting various vintages of Fullers Golden Pride at Adam & Lou’s with a group of pals of theirs. Also first signs of spring in our little garden.

March- final visits to both the Beerblefish and as it turned out the Hackney brewery taprooms in Walthamstow. Beerblefish was a planned closure, and sadly with them gone, and a dispute ongoing with their council landlords, Hackney called it a day and shut up shop soon after. We miss these too - a nice walk there through the reservoirs from Tottenham Hale then good beer, plus the excellent Yard Sale pizzas. There are replacement establishments now it seems, but we haven’t yet visited.

The thriving Pulmonaria we replanted from the flat

April - The garden started to flourish - rhubarb, sorrel, and buds and flower aplenty on the fruit bushes. Then to the Hebrides for our annual fortnight - Kettle Cottage and the windy headland again. 

 The usual two weeks of peace and quiet, catching up with Elisabeth & Alastair for the final time in the islands as they have now moved back to the mainland, a boat trip with Nye & Rosie on the Lady Anne, lots of lovely cafe visits, and my phone tells me a lot of cake! 

May - beginning in the Hebrides, the trip ended with a disrupted journey back and our planned sailing from Lochboisdale being cancelled - thankfully our first experience of the standby queue worked out just fine and we got on the mid morning sailing from Lochmaddy instead. 

Home to a bountiful garden - with masses of growth everywhere and the promise of gooseberries to come! Not for long through as later in the month we were off to another island with Laura’s 50th birthday trip staying in a fort on Alderney in the Channel Islands. What a glorious place - we definitely want to return as do several others in the group who went. So much to explore - including a short railway using old Tube carriages, and many other forts and wartime sites too. 

Glorious sunsets, great walks, lots of beach time, some nice pubs, beers at the fort, games - LOTS of games - blue post boxes, riding round the island on e-bikes, and some wonderful memories made!  The month ended with Adam’s birthday pub crawl round South London.

June - and the start of airshow season for me, with a trip to the lovely Shuttleworth, followed by a weekend st Midlands Air Festival with Tim & Alysha. A cracking show, with the first evenings hot air balloon night glow being something a bit different. 

July - and the “main event” of the airshow season in the shape of the Royal International Air Tattoo - RIAT. Once again it was the full six days sharing a house with Marc, Tim, Alysha & Byron. Great air displays and LOTS of laughs. The garden excitement this month was definitely the fruit forming on our chilli plants, along with some really pretty flowers. We were also now harvesting various bits - cucumbers, courgettes and the first of what turned out to be a very prolific runner bean harvest! 

We marked my birthday with an afternoon at the Epping Ongar  railway beer festival - good beer, trains and vintage buses too, thoroughly enjoyable! 

August - the Great British Beer Festival of course, although sadly the last one ever as it has just proved impossible to reverse the financial slide since Covid affected everything so badly. We tried our best, but nothing has proved effective, and as we feared, the move to the NEC was the final straw. Back at home and we finally got around to rebuilding our log store, before heading down to Devon for Dartmouth Regatta - which included this stunning rainbow! 

September - Ludlow Food Festival and our usual favourite campsite at Monstay Farm. A great weekend even if we did discover in the middle of the second night that our trusty tent had reached its final trip! 

The month was wrapped up with a trip to Lincoln to see Claire and attend the BBMF members day  - and I was lucky enough to get a private visit to the beautiful “On Freedom’s Wings” sculpture - just breathtaking even without the surrounding site being completely finished. 

October saw us replacing the tent thanks to an excellent end of season deal, and we christened it with a chilly but enjoyable weekend in Cambridgeshire. The garden was still producing, including some very fine pointy red peppers…

…and yes, more runner beans! There was another trip to Dartmouth for the food festival, and time catching up with family, before I wrapped the month up with a free Hidden London tour thanks to taking part in a marketing photo shoot - rather excellent getting to explore the tunnels at Euston again.

November opened with another trip into London for me - we were booked for the Hidden London Hangout Live at the LT Museum in the evening, so as we would have travel costs anyway MrEH elected to work in the office and I had a day to myself which I filled with a visit to a fascinating photographic exhibition in Bethnal Green, lunch from the wonderful Sud Italia at Spitalfields, then a visit to the Science Museum, a long while since I had been there! 

The second half of the month featured one sad trip - a visit to the Wirral for the funeral of a dear friend who died way too soon, a CAMRA friend who we had both known for the best part of 30 years. The funeral was slightly odd as it was organised by her family with relatively little input from her partner - thankfully a proper wake has been organised for her in London so she will get the CAMRA send off she deserves. 

It was lovely to visit somewhere which was new to me - Mr EH knew it more as his family originate from that area so he spent time up there as a child with his Gran, aunties and cousins. He had to do some work before we left the hotel the following morning so I went out for a walk along the Mersey towards a Liverpool and was delighted with this distant view of the Liver Building!

Then a happier visit - Wolverhampton this time for a 60th birthday party. Bruce knew the party was happening, but did not know that an invitation had been extended to our entire GBBF bar team - we met up and arrived together and he was utterly delighted! 

Bruce’s wife Deb presenting him with his cake!

December - which of course always starts with Pigs Ear Beer Festival! As always a great chance to catch up with folk - Adam and his extended group of friends, Catherine, Andy and Kirsten who had made the journey down from up north and Adrian and Cherry across from Northern Ireland. Good beer, good chat! 

The local charity tractor run and a chance to look at the lights at the heritage Railway made a great entry into the festive season proper…

Yes, the hearth mat is a hideous lime green, we know!

And then it was Christmas itself of course, with us hosting my Mum here this year. We just managed to get the main part of redecorating the front room done before the big day too, with the rather blousy wallpaper now gone and the heritage green I’ve been envisaging for the fireplace wall in place, and the addition of a fabulous (and bargainous!) mirrored clock and sone framed black & white prints and photographs, it feels like a different room! Straight after Christmas a trip to round off the year - to Norfolk, meeting up with some of our favourite folk for the last couple of days of their Christmas stay in the area. Beach walks, toasting marshmallows round the fire pit, then a couple of days to ourselves which included seeing Firecrests and a Tawny Owl at RSPB Titchwell, and a visit to lovely Sheringham which of course included  fish and chips then ice cream! 

So there we are - another year done. Of course it wasn’t all highlights - MrEH spent nearly a week in hospital just when we should have been heading to start setting up GBBF which was a drama we could both have done without. Several losses of people dear to us as well, including my lovely Auntie Sue at the end of the year. Overall though life is pretty good - we still adore the house, and all the more so as we make it more our own. As much as we love being away and exploring other places, it’s awesome to live somewhere that quite honestly you are just happy to be in, pottering around and enjoying the lovely feel of the place!

Robyn