Essex Days Out

It wasn’t the greatest Easter weekend, weather-wise, and we spent a lot of it on the allotment, getting it ready for the year. We’ve now got some strawberry plants in, some sprout seedlings, sown some carrots and parsnips, and have the beds ready for a lot of stuff currently in the greenhouse.

We did brave the windy weather on Sunday to go to the 5th East Mersea Beer Festival. It’s held at the Mersea Vineyard (link), and is only 15mins by car from us. The turnout was quite reasonable, considering the weather, but there was plenty of space out the back of the marquee where you could imagine yourself spending a lot of time sitting on the grass in the sunshine. Maybe next year!

There was quite a reasonable selection of beers available, mostly local. I had a nice half of Shalford’s Levelly Black, and of Hotel Porter from Farmer’s Ales, a new brewery to me, which is based in Maldon. The ‘Crab and Winkle’ mild from the Famous Railway Tavern Brewing Company in Brighlingsea was also evidently on top form.

There was a nice mix of visitors, with plenty of space for the youngsters to run around, so quite family friendly.

There was live music. Not sure who the band was, but they did excellent covers of a variety of classics from the likes of Dylan, Tom Petty, Bruce Springsteen, The Who, and Thin Lizzy, enabling the knowledgeable music fan to date the age of the band and their intended demographic. Mind you, a couple of under-fives bopping about in front of them was probably a generation or two younger than they were used to.

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