Swadlincote International Food & Drink Festival

Last weekend (the 13th, 14th & 15th October) was Swadlincotes annual food and drink festival. I’ve been to a few localish food fairs and festivals over the last few months, most notably the monthly Bustler street food market in Derby, and I’ve had some pretty good experiences and enjoyed a really nice variety of decent quality foods and drinks. Barring that, and the fact that this years festival was supposed to be bigger and better than previous years, in mind I had fairly high hopes for the Swadlincote food and drink festival. Unfortunately after visiting the festival and spending an hour or so wandering around taking in the sights, sounds and smells I was left feeling somewhat underwhelmed.

There was a fair number of stalls, I definitely couldn’t argue with the turnout, however rather than there being a huge variety of different foods and drinks available there was just a plethora of same old, same old. There was 4 different stalls literally just offering roast pork cobs, with little to no variation between each stall, and it was the same for cheap frozen “gourmet” burgers, “premium” hot dogs, noodles etc. This is what the bulk of the festival was made up of and it appeared to be what the organisers had given priority to. These stalls seemed to have been given the largest pitches right in the center of the market, where they would get the highest footfall.

That’s not to say that there wasn’t a few good stalls, offering something a little different or of a higher quality, but these had been pushed out onto the fringes of the festival, some situated on smaller side streets with very little space and considerably lower footfall. In my opinion these are stalls that the festival should have been about, they should have been show cased and given pride of place. A food and drink festival should be about celebrating variety and celebrating artisanal food & drink producers, not pushing the same old mass produced thing and branding it as “gourmet” or “premium”.

Why don’t toilets have arm rests?

It’s the one place you’d actually quite like to be comfy, instead you end up giving yourself pins and needles from resting your elbows on your thighs.

That Autumn Mood

It’s getting late in the year and the weather is starting to cool off, the nights are dropping cold and that always puts smile on my face. I love waking up in the morning to the feeling of cool air against my skin, it makes my blankets seem extra cozy. I love nothing more than to wrap myself up in them, with just my head sticking out and enjoy those last few minutes before I know I have to get up. The only problem is that it makes it extra hard to get out of bed and get myself ready for work Monday to Friday.

I Once Killed A Boy...

I once killed a boy with a fender guitar. I don’t remember if… ok, ok it was a fucking cheap assed peavey guitar. I don’t remember if… god damnit, fine it was a fucking MDF board with 3 fucking elastic bands pinned to it. You think I won’t fucking kill you too if you don’t shut the fuck up?

Sometimes All I Want To Do Is Sleep

Ever since I was a teenager I’ve had fairly regular periods of Insomnia, when I get a bout I feel constantly tired, incapable of concentrating for even short amounts of time and just generally low and negative. That said I’m fairly lucky with it because it only happens once every few months and only tends to last for 4 or 5 days at a time. I’ve known people who have suffered for months and even years at a time, to the point where it’s almost completely controlled their lives. It’s hard to explain to someone, who doesn’t get insomnia on a regular basis, just how bad not being able to sleep properly can and does effect your ability to function.

There used to be a time when if I needed to escape the real world I could nearly always rely on a book, I would quite often find myself lying in bed reading until the early hours. I’ve read so many books over the years that I can’t even begin to remember half of them. Books have always given me the best and most meaningful adventures. I’ve touched on hundreds of lives, visited a thousand different places, seen a million wonderful things and all through the pages of books. Books are incredible, magical things and deserve to be revered as such.

Unfortunately a few years ago that all began to change, I’m not sure what caused it, when it happened, whether it happened all at once or if it was a gradual process, but at some point I realised that I could no longer lose myself in a book. It doesn’t matter how well the book is written, how interesting the story is or even how compelling the characters might be, books simply no longer hold my attention and I find this quite upsetting.

One Of Those Days...

So it’s been one of those days today, I feel like I’ve been struggling all day and have absolutely nothing to show for it. Work is really starting to drag me down again, promises of things getting better keep being made, but nothing ever changes. I feel like I’m being completely ignored and I’m not the only one. We lost another member of staff today, that’s the fourth one this week and management don’t seem to want to do a thing to stop it. Management don’t seem to want to do anything but pat each other on the back about how hard they’re working and how well they’re coping, whilst their teams fall apart around them. We’re coming up to our busiest time of year, if we lose anyone else we’ll be absolutely fucked.

I Think I Need A New Life

I need a new phone, new glasses, new shoes, a new comfy chair, a new TV, a new wallet, some new jeans, a new tablet, a new stereo. I need so many new things, but absolutely everything costs money and I’m flat broke… I think I need a new me, can I get this one with some actual skills and talents though please.

Review: The Cricketts Inn, Acresford

The Cricketts Inn
Burton Road, Acresford, Swadlincote DE12 8AP

From the outside this is a nice looking pub, clean, tidy, well kept and set in beautiful rural surroundings. Inside it is a fairly standard looking country pub, rustic and welcoming, if a little bit on the scruffy side.

I arrived early and sat at the bar to have a couple of drinks, despite the pub not being particularly busy, the bar clearly hadn’t been cleaned properly in some time and had become very sticky and was giving off a smell of stale beer. Being a Marston’s affiliated country pub I was expecting a reasonable selection of ales, disappointingly they only had two ales on tap, one of which was Pedigree and the other was Lancaster Bomber. I ordered myself a pint of Pedigree and took a long swig the beer was definitely off, it tasted of nothing but sulphur, I didn’t drink the rest. I mentioned it to one the girls serving, she seemed not to care at all and didn’t do anything to rectify the situation, again this was somewhat disappointing.

After about ten minutes they called us through and we were seated, I ordered a starter of black pudding bhajis. When they were brought out they were nicely presented and looked freshly cooked, I cut into them they were still hot and nicely crisp. They had a very pleasant texture and taste though they didn’t seem to contain an awful lot of black pubbing, which being black pudding bhajis, was a bit of a let down.

Shortly after the starters had been cleared away they started bringing out the mains, I had ordered a 16oz ribeye steak, chips and grilled mushrooms, I asked for the steak to be cooked rare. I was glad to see the chips were not frozen chips and had definitely been hand cut, they were nice but nothing spectacular and the portion size left a lot to be desired. The steak was what really let them down in my eyes, it was nowhere the size or thickness that a 16oz should be, I would put the size somewhere between the 10 and 12oz mark. When I cut into it, it was definitely not rare, it was quite dry and after the first bite I could tell it had not been seasoned at all. Because of how my earlier issue had been dealt with by the staff, I chose not to raise it and continued to eat. Fortunately one of the group I was with had a pot of black peppercorn sauce and was willing to share, this actually improved the meal enough for me to finish the plate.

Some of the group chose to have deserts, I decided not to as nothing on the menu really appealed to me and I had been a little bit put off by how disappointed I was by the rest of the meal.

Unfortunately I had heard good things prior to eating at The Cricketts Inn, coupled with the fact that menu read very well and the prices weren’t particularly cheap, I went in with high hopes and I think this is partially why I was so disappointed with my experience. The food itself wasn’t actually that bad but it also wasn’t particularly good, it was disappointingly average.

Review: Beard Lab Darwin Beard Butter

I've been a regular customer of Beard Lab for a few years now, I've got a fairly decent collection of their products and without exception they're all fresh, interesting and great quality. So when I found out they were re-branding and bringing out a whole new range of products I felt like I needed to get myself at least one of the new range to round out my collection. I already own a good selection of different oils so their Darwin Beard Butter seemed like the obvious choice, something new and completely different from any other product I've used before.

Now this is no cheap and cheerful balm, this is a premium beard care product and that is obvious from the outset. The very first thing that you notice is the quality of the container, there is no cheap plastic tub or a dented little metal tin, this product comes in a sturdy, dark tinted glass jar with a nice screw on lid and it certainly wouldn't look out of place in any man's wash kit.

Opening the jar for the first time and you're immediately hit by the smell of fresh citrus that fades out to a gentle sweetness reminiscent of Opal Fruits (or for those of you under 30, Starburst). The butter itself looks fairly similar to a balm and even has a similar feel and consistency to a balm when you first touch it, but that really is where the similarity starts to end. With a balm you usually have to pre-warm the container and even then you often have to work the balm with your fingers to get it to melt, this stuff starts to melt the moment in comes into contact with your skin and by the time you've spread it over your fingers it's completely melted and ready to apply. As you start to massage the butter into your beard you get occasional wafts of the very pleasing citrus smell, this smell lingers in your beard for the better part of a day. The butter itself is very easy to apply and is quite easily absorbed by the hair, leaving your beard feeling soft but not at all greasy as can sometimes happen with oils. Whilst I've found this definitely gives your beard more hold than an oil, it doesn't give you anywhere near the stiffness of a beard balm and in my eyes that is actually a good thing because balms can often leave your beard feeling fairly coarse and a little unpleasant. For me this product really shines when you wash your beard the following day as it almost feels like you've conditioned it, it really leaves your beard feeling amazing and not all dry.

I have to say overall I am very pleased with this product and I'm more than happy to have a couple of jars of this in my beard product collection.

Review: The Wheel Inn, Ticknall

The Wheel Inn
50 Main St, Ticknall, Derby DE73 7JZ

Having passed through Ticknall many, many times I have often thought what a lovely, inviting looking pub this place looks. As I was planning on spending some time walking locally, I thought it would be an ideal place to stop for lunch and start my walk from. Inside the place is gorgeous, clean, tidy and very nicely decorated, making good use of its many period features.

Despite there being many free tables, none of which were reserved, I had to wait to be seated. Unfortunately there is no real area set aside for waiting so your choices are standing around in the bar area, where people are sitting eating, or standing in front of the main entrance. I opted to stand awkwardly in the bar area, where I could at least get a drink.

Generally in a country pub of this style and supposed level of quality I'd expect to see a reasonable range of beers on offer, besides the usual awful lagers, unfortunately this is not the case, the beers on offer here are so run of the mill they're not even worth mentioning.

After a brief wait of 10 minutes or so I was taken upstairs to a, largely empty but very well decorated, dining room and shown to my seat. Looking over the menu the food choices seemed of a slightly higher end than other places I've visited locally and obviously the prices were higher to match. I ordered battered cod with hand cut chips and minted mushy peas, then sat back looking forward to what should be a very nice meal.

After about 30 minutes my food was bought out and my first reaction was one of disappointment, the fish was absolutely tiny and the portion of chips, though clearly hand cut and fried, was very small. I shrugged it off, opting for the mind set of "if the food is good quality then this could still be a very nice meal." The chips did not disappoint, they were lovely, crisp on the outside, soft and fluffy on the inside and tasted exactly how proper chips should taste. Unfortunately the same could not be said about the fish, not only was it very small, but the batter was quite thick, not at all crispy and didn't have much of a flavour at all. The fish its self had that fishy smell and taste that speaks of it being not particularly fresh, that said it was perfectly cooked. The peas were quite simply forgettable, slightly over cooked and over minted.

Overall not the best experience ever, not entirely great service, a lacklustre beer selection and food that simply did not live up to the price tag. There are better, cheaper places to eat in the local vicinity, though apparently it closes early on a Saturday.

Death On The High Street

I'm a gamer, I've been a gamer for most of my life and I don't expect that to change any time soon. I have a lot of good memories involving video games, a fair number of those take place in local video game stores.

When I was younger local, independent video game stores where quite common place, in fact even small towns would often have at least one, sometimes several. These independent stores would usually only stock a handful of new games, often only ten or so titles for each console. What they were really good for is having large libraries of used games, usually at a considerably cheaper price than they would be to buy new. 

Growing up fairly poor buying used was basically my only option when it came to owning a copy of a video game. For me even getting a used copy of a game was a big thing and I would often spend 30-40 minutes browsing through a shops collection, reading boxes, checking the condition of cartridges and disks and generally making sure I made the best purchase possible with my hard come by coin. This experience was shared by a fair number of other people I knew and over time you'd become familiar with other regulars of the store and the people running them. These stores were often ran by people with a passion for gaming and as such you would frequently find stores holding small tournaments, competitions and open days where customers were encouraged to play the latest releases on the newest consoles. This meant for a lot of gamers shopping for video games became almost a social thing, you knew that in those shops you were amongst other people that shared a common interest with you and that made you feel comfortable.

Unfortunately this period of a market driven by small independent stores didn't last and before long big chain companies like Game, Gamestation and Grainger Games started to push the smaller independents out of the market and over a period of years these stores became more or less none existent. As the larger stores dominated the market the price of used games rose fairly sharply to the point where there was, and there still is, so little saving to be made buying used that it became almost pointless. This turned a lot of people away from high street stores and sent them looking else where in the search for bargains and the internet was more than happy to oblige.

It soon became clear that it wasn't only cheaper to buy used games online, new games were also considerably cheaper too. This was largely due to selling online costing less, everything can be stored and shipped from a warehouse in the middle of nowhere at minimal cost to the company doing the selling. The chains caught on fairly quickly and were soon offering online sales, often to the detriment to their own high street stores.

As the popularity of online shopping increases the high street game store continues to decline, even the chains are now shutting shops and those that don't shut have seen a marked decline in the number of products and titles in stock. Are we on the verge of witnessing the death of the high street video game shop? Something that played such a huge role in the lives of so many, now adult, gamers. Unfortunately I think we might be, I think we've come too far down the path to turn back. The big chains drove the independents out of the market and now it seems they're doing the same to themselves.

Review: Cherry Tree Farm, Willington

Cherry Tree Farm
Etwall Rd, Willington DE65 6DX

From the outside this just looks like a run of the mill chain pub/carvery, a look that definitely caries through to the interior, that said the place is clean, tidy and seems fairly well looked after.

This is my mothers favourite place to eat out so I have visited on several occasions, unfortunately on almost every occasion something has let it down. During in the most recent visit the service was very slow, it took nearly 10 minutes to get served at the bar. It wouldn't have been so bad if I wasn't the only person standing at it, then once I finally got served I had to send one of the drinks back because it tasted foul.

The menu actually has a fairly decent selection available, I chose a chilli burger with chips. After nearly an hour's wait the food finally arrived and the disappointingly frozen chips (how hard is it to hand cut and fry a potato?) had gone cold, the chilli had virtually no meat or beans in it, and the burger was so dry I had to buy another drink to wash it down. I brought my issues up with a staff member who didn't really seem to care and merely offered to take my plate away to replace the cold chips, I declined the offer as cold chips aren't as bad as a cold burger.

Overall a very disappointing experience, had it been a one off I would have been inclined to chalk it up to a bad day, but this was the third consecutive occasion that I've been disappointed by this place.

Review: The Staff of Life, Ticknall

The Staff of Life
7 High St, Ticknall, Derby DE73 7JH

Firstly this is a truly gorgeous pub, set in equally gorgeous surroundings, I loved the place before stepping through the door.

The inside is just as nice as the out, clean, tidy and tastefully decorated. The pub is separated into several cosy rooms, each furnished with chunky, rustic furniture that suits the pubs country ascetic. Only having a fairly small bar the pub has a limited selection of beers, however the ones it does have are good quality and well kept.

We went on a Sunday afternoon so I chose to have the 2 course set menu, I had soup of the day starter followed by a roast beef dinner. The soup was spiced parsnip and it was beautiful, nicely seasoned with a rich creamy flavour and served with warm bread and butter, genuine comfort food. The roast beef was served with roast potatoes, a large homemade Yorkshire pudding and plenty of proper beef gravy. The beef itself was locally sourced and really good quality, the potatoes were crisp but still nice and fluffy inside and the Yorkshire pudding was clearly homemade and just purely epic. The meal comes with a side of seasonal veg, which unfortunately was disappointing as it was overcooked, a bit flavourless and slightly cold.

Whilst the pudding menu looked amazing I was far too full to actually try one. Overall the experience was excellent, the food was good and the atmosphere in the pub was very welcoming. I am looking forward to going back during the week or on a Saturday to enjoy the standard daily menu.

Review: The John Thompson, Ingleby

The John Thompson Inn & Brewery
Ingleby, Derby DE73 7HW

Another gorgeous pub in gorgeous surroundings. I was using this as a starting & finishing point for a country walk and thought it would be rude not to call in and have at least a pint before setting off. From the outside the pub looks like a proper country pub and I'm happy to say the inside is equally as charming and rustic. The pub actually has its own brewery so has a reasonable selection of small batch brewed beer available on tap, I opted for one of the pubs own brews and found it to be very pleasant indeed.

Whilst they do serve food I didn't try any on this occasion so am unable to comment on the quality, however if it's anything like the rest of the pub I'd expect it to be nice, homemade fayre.

Review: The Exeter Arms, Derby

The Exeter Arms
Exeter Pl, Derby DE1 2EU

This place is a diamond in the rough, the surrounding area of this pub is run down and somewhat grotty, please do not let this put you off. Step inside and you're almost in another world, this is an old, well loved and beautiful building with big old oak beams, open fires, cast iron stoves and gorgeous, chunky rustic furniture. Warm, friendly and bustling, yet somehow there's still an air of relaxation about the place.

The bar is small but well stocked with a decent selection of real ales, the staff really know how to keep bar, the beer is excellent. The food is second to none, the prices are ever so slightly higher than some of the other places in town, but trust me the quality of the food you're getting for your money is well worth it.

My friend and I shared 'The Chip Tank' chips topped with cheese, bacon, sausage, chorizo, black pudding and jalapenos, between us and we were both blown away. This is a massive portion of chips, that are clearly home made and are absolutely incredible. The toppings aren't just a small scattering on top of the chips, they're mixed in throughout, every chip is almost guaranteed to have some topping with it.

I am seriously impressed with this place and I really can't wait to go back and try some of their main menu and sample more of their ale, definitely, definitely worth a visit or several.

Review: The Forge, Derby

The Forge Bar & Gourmet Grill
1-6 Blacksmiths Yard, Sadler Gate, Derby DE1 3PD

The restaurant itself is a little hidden away so wasn't overly busy for a Friday night. Inside it's clean, bright and nicely laid out with a good number of tables for a fairly small place. The menu isn't overly priced and has a a fairly wide variety of items, including a couple of vegetarian options. The beer menu is impressive, though don't be surprised if they don't have your first or even second choice of drink.

After ordering, the food was brought out to the table fairly quickly. The food itself was of good quality, the chips were all clearly hand cut and nicely seasoned, the burgers looked to be hand made, had a really nice flavour and a decent texture. I personally prefer my burgers a little pink in the middle and although the burger wasn't pink, it wasn't overcooked either.

I'd personally recommend The Forge as a nice place to get a decent quality, not overly expensive meal and would happily visit again.