So we went “oop north” this weekend, well up North for us anyway.
We had tickets to see the Alton Towers place, so needed a stop off on the Saturday. As we had never been to Uttoxeter we thought we would try there, and as we pretty much had to go through Stafford to get there I thought I would take the family around the old haunts of mine when I was a student back in 1990.
Great journey up, until we got to Junt 13, and the road into Stafford was shut, so we continued up the M6 and got off on the next one. It was weird coming back into Stafford, the old places were either closed – KFC, or still there – the original Balti house. We parked up and took a waltz in,
Although I didn’t spend much time in Stafford center itself, the place looked vaguely familiar, Bird in the Hand was one place we went, the union seems to be a court now, and the roads and streets looked something like they did before. We only stuck a couple of hours on the car, so we made a b-line for the Bear Inn – which did some great burgers. This was another place I used to go occasionally, but it seemed so much smaller than it was!
Anyway – had a look around, then back in the car for a trip down to Brooke Court in Milton Grove. It wasn’t there – it had been torn down some years back, and on the site a number of new houses. The flat opposite was still there though – it must have been worth saving..
Across town and over to Bodmin Avenue to see the old place, then round to the Linton Tavern which was now closed. Back to Beconside and off to Uttoxeter.
Uttoxeter is shit.
The Premier Inn was hot, and afer a short walk in, we got to the town which was scary. We go to quite a few places, but this was something out of a zombie Apocalypse. Everyone looked off their nuts on heroin, although we saw no trouble, it was not somewhere I was confortable with. We walked around the town, which as far as the shops go isn’t the worst place we have been to, and found the chinese we planned to use later. Then we headed to a pub – and there was not much choice – and we have been in some real dives before. We settled on Wetherspoons, which was the best of a worrying bunch and settled in for a couple of beers. After a Stella, Amstel and a couple of Heinekens we were off to Woo’s.
The Chinese was packed, but we managed to get a tiny table near the entrance, and filled ourselves with rice, beef, port and satay chicken – it was pretty good nosh to be fair, and for us, the location – a little out of the way behind a screen was ideal!!!
Back home and after a couple of beers the place was not quite so scary and back to the hot hot room for zed’s before the Alton mission.