On Friday morning I was up at a reasonable time and spend some time working on my puzzle in the morning. At about 10:30 I headed off to Wapping, where I had a hair appointment. After some confusion about my appointment time (they’d called me to reschedule but hadn’t done it in the computer properly), I had my haircut - albeit a bit rushed, and probably not as thinner out as I’d like it. I’ve become fairly used to my thick hair as it’s grown out though, so just the shorter length made a difference.

When I got home, I got a call from Apple, saying they had my laptop and were opening it up, but had found liquid damage (probably not surprising...) and corrosion to the battery, display, audio board and audio cables. As a result the keyboard repair program was void, as was my AppleCare, and the repairs were going to cost £800. My jaw absolutely dropped – but this is why I bought gadget insurance last year! After finishing speaking to Apple and asking them to hold off before I could speak to insurance, I called the insurance company and put through a claim on their system. I couldn’t do anything about it at that stage, other than try to get in contact with Apple Australia to get a receipt as I couldn’t find my original digital receipt for proof of purchase. I tried to put it out of my head and finished some more puzzle time before Peter got up and we got ready to head to Huddersfield.

At around 3:30 we left and made our way to Kings Cross to catch the train to Huddersfield, via Brighouse. We had some sandwiches and a poke bowl for dinner on the train and watched some tv on the iPad but generally it was an uneventful journey. It was a horrible rainy evening and we had a very wet walk to the pub when we arrived in Huddersfield at 7pm. We met Paul and Aurelia there and after a pint, we headed back to their place. Peter had another stash of nice beers in Paul’s garage so after rummaging through those we shared a stout to finish the night before heading to bed.

We were up at around 8 and had a quiet start to the morning, just having some toast and coffee for breakfast before Aurelia drove us to the train station at just before 10. Annoyingly, the trains were all delayed – the rain in the last few weeks has caused a lot of flooding up north and that was clearly affecting the train line between Leeds and Manchester. We eventually got our 10:08 train at about 10:20 and as a result were running a little behind when we got to Manchester. By the time we’d walked to the venue of the Friends & Family & Beer festival at around 11:05, there was a big line, but it moved quickly and we got into the venue at 11:20. We grabbed our glasses and headed in to a huge hall ringed by breweries with taps.

We spent the afternoon tasting lots of different and interesting beers from smoked porters, to pastry stouts, to fruited gose, to a range of sours. Some of the Canadian breweries that we’d visited over Christmas were there and a couple of US breweries, so it was nice to try things that we usually can’t get in London. We were looking for a table so we could stop and eat lunch when we bumped into a bunch of people from the Mikkeller Run Club who were happy for us to sit with them, so we had a nice catch up and chat about all the different beers we’d tried. For lunch I had an enormous serving of loaded shawarma fries, which was just the right food for the occasion. At 3:20 they turned off the taps, turned the lights on and began to usher everyone out of the building. At this point we had the annoying realisation that our return train had been cancelled and had to walk back to another train station, where the trains were all similarly delayed or cancelled due to flooding and problems on the line. After plenty of waiting and stuffing around, we eventually got onto a train at 5 which took us directly back to Huddersfield. Aurelia picked us up at the train station and we went back to their place for a bit of a rest.

At about 7:30 we headed back out to a Thai and Japanese restaurant – strange combination, but very good food in the end, when we finally got it after extremely delayed service. I had a delicious rice bowl with pork and egg and some green tea. Then we headed back to Paul and Aurelia’s and pretty much went straight to bed.

On Sunday morning, Paul had been keen to go out for breakfast, so he drove us to a cute little farm shop just outside of the main part of Huddersfield. We were sitting at a table that had a very nice view over the surrounding hills and town, despite the misty and rainy morning. The food was unbelievably cheap – just £7 for a huge English breakfast of bacon, eggs, sausages, toast, baked beans, mushrooms and tomatoes. Funny what happens to prices when you leave London. We enjoyed a really relaxing breakfast before jumping back in the car and heading back to the train station. Luckily this time there were no delays and after thanking Paul and Aurelia we said goodbye and got on our train back to London. We’d booked a midday train on purpose so we’d arrive back around 3:15 and have time to do the food shopping and food prep for the week. I was pretty keen to be organised for the first week back because I’m aware that this week is going to be pretty mental – as is the whole term, between SATS preparation, writing moderation preparation and visa applications. We ended up having a very relaxed evening of cooking, making some homemade sushi and watching some Brooklyn 99 to finish the half term break.