beer festival!

first off, humph is absolutely fine - no ill effects whatsoever. phew.

last night we volunteered at the kent beer festival - what a blast! what a lot of hard work! here's a picture from their website of the barn the festival is held in:

we signed in and were allocated to a section of the "bar". the entire back of the barn and about half of each side make up the bar - it is huge - our section was one length of the barn. we were told to get a glass and encouraged to sample all the ales so we'd have a clue when people asked about them. oh well, if i have to..... you know me, i'm a believer in research :)

the evening session opened, and what looked like a small tsunami of thirsty people streamed across the barn towards the kegs. that bit was a little nerve-wracking. however, we found our stride and were soon pulling pints with verve, "half-pint or pint?" "hogs back hog or a over t?" "a hoppy bitter? how about the surrey hills sheer drop - won beer of the year i believe!"

people came in waves - but there was almost always someone there. sometimes several rows of someones. we just did our best - people were lovely for the most part and pretty patient. the only bad part really was that the beer kegs are on two rows of scaffolding, and you have to bend down to reach the taps on the bottom row. that's fine for the first hour, but by the end my thighs were screaming. this morning they are a muted howl. i didn't realise that 4 hours of squats were involved.

i did get comments on my accent - mostly compliments, but one guy said, only partially joking, "what, an american telling me about beer?" "no," i retorted, "a canadian is telling you about beer" and flashed him my 100-watt you-know-i'm-right grin. his mates gave him a bit of a hard time over that. i received my year's quota of darlings, beautifuls and babes, which increased with the inebriation of our clientèle, and, as an unexpected side benefit, we saw pretty much everyone we know in canterbury.

we staggered out before the bar closed so we could catch the last train home to faversham, feeling guilty about leaving our fellow volunteers to handle the last half hour without us, but with legs all-to-ready to plonk down on the festival bus seat. it was a blast - and we'll do it again - that is if my legs recover by this time next year!