I was talking to some friends yesterday about the declining number of pubs in Laxey. We thought there used to be seven but now there are only four. This contrasts with Kirk Michael which only had one thanks to my grandfather, a staunch Methodist, who bought the Railway Hotel to prevent it being turned into a pub and instead ran it as a temperance house.
Quite what he would have thought of one of my 21st birthday presents from my student friends in Stoke-on-Trent which still hangs on my wall a few yards from where I type this I don't know. Still less what he would have thought of me on my 21st birthday when I consumed too much of what Camra was campaigning for. My pace judgement at the Norfolk Inn was equivalent to saying you are going to run a sub three hour marathon and running the first few miles at 5 minute mile pace. There is a lesson there as a quiz night team I represented some years later summed up my performance - Norfolk and Good.
Times change. Whenever my marathon running has fallen to the standards of my 21st drinking levels I start a period without alcohol and some other vices. The 2011 London Marathon was a year ago today and after a few drinks over a meal that evening I entered a alcohol period that has taken me passed another failed marathon in Amsterdam and straight past Camra's festival last weekend just a hundred yards or so from where we live.
I must get that pace judgement right on both counts on Sunday. The Camra never lies - as my football friends told me on Sunday.
Yesterday was a rare day of rest for me and there will be a few more this week. Yesterday was also the day Ben was two years older than when I was given my Camra mirror. More sensible than me? Mmm.
Time to check out the Parish Walk entries. See some of you in Ramsey tonight with my Camera card and not Camra card.
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