INSIDE THE WORLD OF MEETUP

Back to the Queen of Bradgate pub for the third time. The official attendance for this meet was 48 but in practice it was 30 which was still a lot more than usual. It was good to meet a lot more new faces and of course catch up with a few old ones. The main issue with the night was the heavy rain, nobody wanted to move on to anywhere else. Eventually we headed to O'Neil's for a couple before heading back to the  Queen of Bradgate of all places. This was the first meetup where I wasn't going into somewhere new for the first time. Admittedly this meetup is starting to feel a bit repetitive, I don't see why we can't try different places each week as the city center has dozens of pubs.

Change of plan, walking instead of drinking this weekend. This was the closest meetup to date from my house and was still 11 miles and 2 bus rides away. About a dozen of us went which we all agreed was a good number. It was a good day to walk, clear, sunny and not too hot. We headed around Staunton Harold reservoir and had a short food stop. Then headed on to Calke abbey where it was very busy but managed to get a table for another food and drink stop. After the walk I had 50 minutes to kill before the bus home so half the group went to the Wheel Inn at Ticknall, overall it was a good half day out and I was very tired by the time I got home.

It was a choice between Nottingham and Leicester so I picked Leicester due to the smaller group size. It was the same starting place as 2 weeks ago, the Queen of Bradgate pub. A couple of faces I knew made for an ok start to the evening. It wasn't as busy as 2 weeks before which was probably a good thing as it was packed. Second stop was the Gadabout , nice place but had the atmosphere of a restaurant. In fact some of us thought it was a restaurant but we didn't see any food being eaten. Revolution was the second place of the evening that I'd never set foot in before. We walked straight into a fight that was kicking off in a corner. Strangely only one bouncer came to intervene but it was over in 10 minutes. Despite that I liked the place and would have been happy to stay there the rest of the night. I was recognised by someone I met with another meetup group 5 months earlier. Unfortunately someone made the decision to move on elsewhere, being from a village I ten

I had 2 choices, a big night out drinking in Nottingham or a more low key pool and darts night in Derby. After a sleepless Friday I didn't have a 2am drinking session in me so I opted for the more low key pool night. We met at the Waterfall near the train station, nice building and layout (the pint of carling I had was a bit flat). There was about a dozen of us with 2 faces I recognized from previous meets. Spent nearly 2 hours having random games on the aged tables in the back room. I won 4 lost 3 which was not bad for saying I'd not been on a pool table in years. After that we went to a nearby pub called the Brunswick an old school real ale pub. We all played a big game of darts between us (I won on double 2).  Overall a steady night...………..