Old Hall Inn Winter Beer Festival

Jan and I walked over to the Old Hall Inn in Whitehough near Chinley for their winter ale festival on Friday. We met friends Dick and Lawraine from Birch Vale and spent a pleasant few hours catching up on each others news.

Over 80 beers on hand-pump or straight from the barrel. Difficult to know where to start!

I went for the stouts and porters as these are my favourites. Here are the ones I managed to try. Fortunately we walked over Eccles Pike so neither of us had to drive. Happy to report that we returned in the dark and survived!

Titanic Brewery Cappuccino Stout
Titanic Brewery Chocolate and Vanilla Stout
Hopback Brewery Entire Stout
Raw Brewery Dark Peak
Titanic Brewery Last Porter Call
Black Country Ales Pig on the Wall (brown ale)
Tatton Brewery Rock and Maul

They were all good but my least favourite were Last Porter Call (a bit hoppy for me), and Pig on the Wall (a bit bland after so many strong flavoured stouts - I should have started with this!).

I'm a bit late posting this as it ends today, so hurry if you want to go! Web links above if you need help finding it.

City Light Book at Loop Printers

My new book City Light was at the printers in Sheffield, Loop Print, today. They also printed my last book Lake Light.

Here are a few shots. Jan and I went over to check the first 2 sheets of pages as they came off.

Trevor the printer (featured in the shots below) had a bit of work to do to give us the blacks and contrast that we wanted. It was looking good after he worked his magic.

Should be finished tomorrow. Then it goes to binders. We should take delivery Wednesday or Thursday next week.

The launch will be on the Ilford Photo stand C2 Hall 9 at the Focus on Imaging show at the Birmingham NEC, Sunday 3rd to Wednesday 6th March.

Just arrived in Market Deeping near Peterborough to give lecture tonight. Lecture in Bury tomorrow.

City Light - Cities of the World and Buxton, New Book

I have just sent back what I think are the final edits to my new book, City Light - Cities of the World and Buxton.

It should go to the printers later this week and be ready for launch at Focus on Imaging at the Birmingham NEC from 3rd to 6th March.

Ilford Photo / Harman Technology have once again invited Jan and I to join them on their stand at the show, which is open to both trade and retail visitors. The stand number is C2 in Hall 9.

There are 31 cities and 123 images in 80 pages, as well as an article on city and night photography and technical data on every image. The cover price is £15 but there will be an introductory show offer for visitors for the 4 days of the Focus show.

Come to the show if you are able to and say hello and look at my new book. We can take cards and cash!

We will put it on the web site as soon as we can after it is printed and on Amazon Marketplace.

The photographs were taken over 22 years, hope you like them.

More Snow in the Peak District

I walked 6 miles across the local hills so that I could run Gallery in the Gardens in Buxton today. Blizzard conditions at times and a few inches of snow everywhere.

The roads were slippery as I came down into Buxton, seemed to be ice under the fresh snow. Tricky.

Still snowing.

Jan driving us down south tonight ready for the funeral of her aunt in north London tomorrow. Hope the roads are clear.