Is that the kind of expression a grandad should have on his face when looking at his grand daughter?

Wife's out at the theatre so before I do the washing up and walk the dog, some quality Me Time.

After 200+ brews with the old big kit, it's been less of a tried and trusted and well oiled process, but the boil is over and pleased at how quickly the temp is coming down. And there will be a lot less to clean!

My first post-commercial brewday. Experimenting with a manual HERMS single vessel BIAB brew, 18L brew length!

I'm setting up my new brew kettle. It is a dinky little thing...

I'm using all the right pieces, but not necessarily in the right order...

Back home from York to find 2x Modular Building System kits have arrived. One has 74 pieces, the other has several thousand. I bet you can't guess what I'm going to build with them....

Now at The Last Drop Inn in York, six cask beers in a historic building.

Me and the missis just upped the average age in Brew York Tap by several years.

York Tap at the railways station is amazing. Great beer choice and pork and black pudding pies, what's not to like?

This National Railway Museum in York is rather splendid.

Seems my wife's phone has defaulted to sepia for photos of me now I'm a state pensioner...

Top floor cellar at The Market Cat, York, is something to behold...

Now at Pivni. The Shambles looking grand tonight. Why the council allow illuminated signs I have no idea.

Now at The Blue Bell, that's more like it. Smallest pub in York they say. Pork pies look nice but not long since we ate.

Our evening jaunt around York got off on the wrong foot when I took us into the Blue Boar and not the Blue Bell. Former is a tv and lager bar. Now in the Fossgate Tap, Blue Bell is next door. A Left Handed Giant dark mild starting the evening off gently.

We're off to York for two nights, eschewing the car for the train. Senior Railcards, got my OAP bus pass now, and in two days my first state pension payment should appear. #livingthelife Travelling via Ipswich and Peterborough, avoiding that London.

This is some kind of sick joke, Labour's Shabana Mahmood cosplaying Priti Patel.

Rather taken with the fact that the Ofcom person charged with enforcing the age verification checks on porn websites is a Mr Lusty.

And coincidentally (or are strange forces at work!) I've just spotted 2001 A Space Odyssey on TV. I'm looking at two model kits of the iconic spaceship, one of which is a full metre long and a few hundred quid, or one which is but only a foot long and far cheaper.

After building a really tiny millennium falcon with lego, I've upscaled a bit for a slightly bigger at-at walker. Nice mindful way to spend an hour whilst listening to r5 radio commentary with the beef and stout casserole I made cooking in the oven.

At the first site gallery in Colchester, a Sue Webster exhibition heavy on the siouxsie sioux iconography.

A couple of pints of Kernel with my mate at The Victoria Inn and then #colu 4 v 1 Barnet. A good afternoon.

Fortunately I remembered in time that #colu were on the tellybox tonight. 1-1 but colchester second best.

Dinner done and washed up so into the front room for the first time today and the tellybox goes on. Defaults to bbc1 so this shows up. What a waste of Lauren Laverne's talent. Anyhoo, bbc sounds on now and it's either radio 2 or radio 6.

For modelling project #3 after a 50yr hiatus I had been eyeing up the £750 Lego Millennium Falcon kit, but saved myself £747 by making this one.

I should have been in the brewhouse dismantling the cold room, but it was too frickin cold and I'm now old enough and ugly enough to do just what I frickin want.* So I finished off the 1/144th scale Millennium Falcon. A lot cheaper than the 1/72nd scale one.

An antiques fair in Epping, home of many Hotel Shouters. In addition to the usual stuff sold at antique fairs, they make a special mention of retro West Ham items. Clearly there's a big demand in Epping from those who migrated from east london for a better life in Essex, and their descendants.

Forest and Spurs looking to avoid the drop and sack their managers. Vitor Pereira is appointed Forest manager. He left his last job after getting just 2 points from the first 10 matches. Igor Tudor is appointed interim Spurs manager. He was sacked from last job following an eight-match winless run.

The East Anglian Daily Times plumbing new depths. Mind you he could have been a vet from Ware. And if he survived his army service by being extra vigilant the mourners could have been remembers a wary Ware vet vet.

Cheezes, I had thought (silly me) that my filling in the bits on the HMRC website to say that I was closing down and no longer producing beer would be a straightforward process. But no, HMRC on the phone and more hoops to jump through. Guy on the phone didn't exude competence tbh.

In the past family visits to the museum didn't take too long as the boys werent as interested as us. Now I'm sitting down for a rest whilst son studies everything in the African collection at the British Museum.

Instead of taking the eldest to White Hart Lane for the NFL today I'm taking the youngest to The British Museum to see the Benin Bronzes. He's been reading some @davidolusoga.bsky.social and other stuff on the history of British colonialism. Dad's nerdiness is passing down through the generations.

Gosh, a blue sky!

British Amber Ale from Bristol Beer Factory. What are these crazy craft beer types like????

We're now in Radio City Social a few arches down from The Alehouse. I'm on a third of a Lervig 13% stout as part of their dark beer festibble.

Chelmsford Museum, Bills for lunch, John Lewis for towels, now The Alehouse for beer....

Day out in Chelmsford with the wife. At the museum now, which no longer hosts the Essex Regiment Museum, but does have two old bottles of local beer.

Dettol TV advert : remember, always read the lable. Wise words indeed.

Now playing : The Imagined Village 'Bending the Dark' feat @elizacarthy.bsky.social and many others

The Times Top UK taxpayers has Sir Tim Martin of Wetherspoons in the Top 10 with £199m tax paid, according to their guesstimates. Christ on a bike! It's behind their paywall so I can't see the long list. Would be interest to see which v rich people *don't* feature due to avoidance/offshoring etc.

#colu visiting Crewe today. We signed a 21yr old on loan on Thu and he's in the starting XI. And yday we signed a 23yr old on loan, and picked him up at a motorway services en route to Crewe yday. And he's in the starting XI!

Back from a very nice afternoon at Colchester CAMRA Winter Beer Festibble. Some very nice comments and plaudits for my final commercial beer. Another trip to the dump tomorrow aft to clear out the dedicated brewhouse, which will now become a multi purpose facility with a Nano Homebrew capacity.

Don't think I've ever had a potato bread before, but this sainsbreeze Bombay Potato Boule is totes amazeballs.

Apropos of last post viz forthcoming break @philmellows.bsky.social and Kate Simon's Beer Breaks in Britain opens with York, which is handy. We've been to Leeds and Sheffield recently so that will be 3 of the 4 entries in The North section ticked off.

Rescue dog Ruby has settled in well, as you can see. Well enough to plan a short city break in early March for my 66th, and leave son #2 in charge . We're off to York, railway museum and some pubs and bars on the menu. 15+ yrs since we've been there.

Last night I finished the latest in my chronological reading of Whitbread Book the Year Award Winners. Started with the first winner in 1971, and Matthew Kneale's 'English Passengers' won in 2000 and was one of the best so far, and that's saying something as they're almost all of them brilliant.

This month for my Brewser box I chose the Bristol Beer Factory. 10x cans for £38 which is a bargain and didn't even need to play the senior citizen card. Good selection of beers.

A disappointing theatrical experience today. Playboy of the Western World at the National Theatre - we left at the interval as too many of the cast weren't speaking clearly enough for us to make out the dialogue. More solid ground tonight as we booked for Matthew Bourne's 'Red Shoes' in Naarwich

I've half dismantled the cold room, lots of OS and celotex to the dump. And the aircon engineers have removified the aircon unit what i jimmied to get the cold store down to cellar temps. More dismantling for me to do now.