BRAPA in .... MOONLIGHT FLIT TO BRISTOL CIT. (PT 1 of 8)

Approaching 10pm, Friday night in Bristol, 29th August and I'm wondering if I can squeeze three ticks in before closing time.

I'd travelled down by DrossCountry after work, so of course we got delayed despite them giving themselves what we call in the trade 'generous timetabling' (you know, where you sit at Derby for 20 mins just for shits and giggles).

All you need

I couldn't move my neck from side to side properly so was going into this BRAP holiday with an injury. I'd made two giant playlists on my phone the previous two evenings and I think it stemmed from some optic nerve damage if my Dr Google research was accurate.

Martin 'Maltmeister' Alsop, an avid Brizzle City fan, phoned me out of the blue on the final stretch into Temple Meads volunteering to drive me around both before and after tomorrow's game - what a gent!

Once in Bristol, I hop in a taxi to maximise my drinking time later. My Air B & B is situated approximately a twenty minute walk away, perilously close to the ring road at Cabot Circus shopping centre. Not the most salubrious location, but decent enough accommodation.

Once I'd figured out the lock box, I hastily unpacked, re-packed a smaller BRAPA friendly bag, and headed out into the cruel night.

First corner I turn, a guy is bent double over a park bench, rocking, gacked out of his mind on god knows what. Cake or something. Second corner I turn, three boho student lasses are saying goodnight. I have to cross the road so I'm not following the one who gets separated! These two incidents would prove a microcosm of my week in Bristol.

So where was I? Yes, once more for good luck .... I'm approaching pub one.

I'm very much a Bristol newbie despite having done 73-74% of the GBG at the time of visit. Five pub ticks to my name only. All before BRAPA became official in 2014. So many away Hull City days missed, some purposefully (Dad's never keen), most not.

But this year, when the fixture list was published and the match perfectly coincided with a week off work ... especially following my epic Chelt/Gloucester/Stroud/Cotswold/Forest of Dean epic earlier this summer, well it just seemed fated that the time for Bristol was NOW!

Volunteer Tavern, Bristol (3305 / 5791) was a morale boosting way to kick off the pubbing in the backstreets close to my digs. A colourful wooden box of a pub. Traditional, yet with an unmistakably 21st century Bristolian twist. A format I'd become familiar with. The staff are buzzing when I order the 3.2% Volly Pale. Brewed on site. "From the bathwater the owner sits in ...." "Tenderised skin cos he's been sitting in it for quite a while" chirp this young m/f Cannon & Ball style double act. Yummy. I hope they appreciate just how grateful I was for such a quirky opening interaction. Really lit the blue touch paper on what'd prove a mostly enjoyable pub city. The shape of the bar area, Friday night, and the inexperience of yoof are the reasons why an annoying queue forms. Come on gang, show a bit of fortitude, get thar elbows in! How do I just know they spend half their lives in CeX? But I wasn't letting it drag my mood down. As the Black Eyed Peas once sang after a night in Stalybridge Buffet Bar, tonight's gonna be a good good night.

Two bottles of Wentworth Detention Centre boiler room homebrew and Lizzie Birdsworth. Now that's leg tattooing I can appreciate

Pub two was not unlike pub one, or at least it didn't appear so on this feverish febrile Friday flit .....

An older school clientele in the Barley Mow, St Philips, Bristol (3306 / 5792), by which I mean some of them were born in the 20th century. In fact, one bar blocker's beard is older than the Volly pub queue. Positivity and a good heart (which I've been told is hard to find) really resonates through the building. Tiley's, brewing heroes of my Cheltenham et al trip in June are back with a bruising dark mild, 3.4%, handled jug, health giving. "I've got a brand new combine harvester" is on when I arrive, fading supremely into "White Wedding" and you have to wonder has that ever happened before. I was only planning on three pubs tonight, but this was a bonus fourth. For once in my sad little BRAPA life, I was looking up pub CLOSING times rather than pub opening times, and I was loving the change of pace. This was an 11pm closer, so had to sneak it in 'early'. Bristol sure brims with life. My hometown of York would be dead by now, everyone already fucked off to L**ds for the clubs or their Teesside slums for a sneaky Isaac Wilson 'Spoons pint before bedtime. Wonderful.

Time for a tonal shift for my third tick of the night ......

It was in focus when I took it, honest

Despite setting my expectations accordingly, I didn't think much of Wiper & True Old Market Taproom, St Judes, Bristol (3307 / 5793). I'd go to better equivalent Bristol taps in the coming week. The bouncers were pleasant ('hi Siiii'), as were the DJs ('ey up bab'). Jungle music plays. Outside my comfort zone. Not a genre I've been aware of since the 90's. "Can you play 'Swamp Thing' by the Grid?" I ask, but thankfully it gets drowned out in the noise as I doubt its true jungularity. The barmaid is dire - unhelpful and miserable and I have to work very hard to ascertain whether they have cask on and what it is called. They did, but just the one. Tasted avg. The loos are a disgrace. A multi-sex shambles, and proof that the cleaning ladies at my work were right when they'd tell me "you'll be surprised Simon, but it's the wimmin who leave the loos in a worse state than men, oh aye luv". A group of people opposite are wearing funny hats, themed night out I think, so I keep mine on, and they keep smiling at me like I'm a kindred spirit. But I just want to focus on drinking up and leaving this hole.

Time for another post-midnight closer to end my moonlight flit on, and I arrive about 00:20 so technically my spreadsheet should have this down as a Saturday 30th August tick, but doesn't.

Oh yes, this is more like it. We end on a high at the Swan with Two Necks, St Judes (3308 / 5794). Another of those pubs which beautifully balances the archetypal backstreet boozer with a 21st century Bristolian twist. The barmaid's fierce make up and fashion sense, and positive demeanour, was a world away from Wiper and Poo. Rik Mayall meets Su Pollard, to quote Sir Quinno. Excellent. A highbrow bar blocking tin of corned beef is drawing still life at the bar - a Smith's album cover and a pair of old boots perhaps, I couldn't quite follow his eyeline / see his sketchpad. In the low lit gloom, most folk are dotted around the perimeter in a dream like state .... the strange Scouse spoken word 'soundtrack' is weirdly atmospheric / trippy. I don't have a table to rest my pint, but weirdly it doesn't seem to matter. The beer is from Edinburgh, but actually tastes good cos no one in here is drinking that glorious big red T shite. It ends on a sour note (pub not beer) when I reach my digs and realise I've left my hat behind. Emailed them, as requested when contacting them. But never got a reply. Luckily I'd brought a like for like replacement in different colour.

I didn't sleep well, too restless being my first night in a new place, too much traffic noise, not properly unpacked, no food in, and a busy football / pub Saturday coming up!

The shower is good (always one of my biggest worries in Air B n B's), but I can't get the TV working (more on that in part 3 probably) and my neck is worse than ever. Never do I feel it more when I have to cross Bristol's busy roads! Ow. I need painkillers but I hate swallowing tablets so I want those Nurofen Meltets, which taste like the yellow fondant fancies.

I'm up and out early to finish my unpacking and dash to Sainsbury's in Cabot Circus for a weekly food shop / failed Nurofen mission! After the smallest brekkie of a mini banana malt loaf bar and an instant coffee, I dash back into town for my bus to pub one, where I'm meeting Maltmeister at an early opener.

#BusLife

Two more failed Meltet efforts (Boots and Superdrug) just before this, as my bus whizzes up to Henleaze. "You can't miss it" texts Maltmeister "look for the giant Waitrose opposite". Oooh, Waitrose, another Nurofen Meltet opportunity? And this time I'm in luck. FINAL packet on the shelf. It seems Bristol people hate swallowing tablets too / love yellow fondant fancies. Pub time.

Used in the Young Ones as the Kebab and Calculator, linking nicely into our last Rik tick, nowadays a grim charcoal black dining pub of few redeeming features. More than any pub all week, I wonder quite why Westbury Park, Henleze, Bristol (3309 /5795) . has been included. But in fairness, it has an 8/10 rug and more pertinently a really well kept TT Landlord so I've answered my own question. I'm first customer in. Staff seem lacking get up and go, bored, as if even pulling my pint is a huge effort, like they'd rather conserve their energy for a mad dining rush which may or may not happen an hour or so from now. Time to chug down some Nurofen. On a near empty stomach, with 7.5 pints and abysmal Hull City to come, what could possibly go wrong? I was already looking forward to getting back to my digs tonight, properly settling in and relaxing. I'd barely stopped! But I couldn't afford to think about that now. Maltmeister (Martin) is soon on the scene. Almost unrecognisable from the chap I hugged from behind at the Chesterfield Pub Tickers convention two Christmas's back. He's lost loads of weight! Doctor's advice. "I had one meal last week which was just a carrot on a plate, a big carrot!" he told me later on, and it seemed a very Gloucestershire thing to do. Anyway, best news of all, he's got a car, says he'll take me "anywhere I want both pre and post match". "High Offley, Hungerford Newton and Abergorlech please". Only kidding, sort of.

Seven components of a great ticking day (vitamin drink, good pint, Nurofen, Malt, Colin, GBG, highlighter pen)

During the pre-Malt calm

It was time to hop into the Malt-mobile and get ourselves in a Trashton Gate direction .... which meant Bedminster, where happily, I had two very walkable ticks.

See you for those, a dire football match, a brief Somerset foray and a Hotwells evening in part two. Coming soon!

Si