Staffordshire 5 Burton on Trent - a trip to the brewery/Hogshead barrels/another trip down the A38

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Christmas seems a lifetime away. Hwyl - a welsh goodbye to Christmas and helo a chroeswch - welcome to a new year . 2017 and the start of other great and small adventures. January feels listless and I am reminded of the Pilot song which went something like "January sick and tired you've been hanging on me". The corner looks empty now the Christmas tree has been taken down. The days are grey and dull and have that November feel of dampness upon them. . The Derbyshire sky lifeless. The sun obscured by the thick clouds . The wind holds a chill which touches with its icy fingers. Towards the end of the week snow is predicted. Any rain is likely to fall as snow or sleet. Winter perhaps is on the verge of arriving. There are almost two months until we reach official Spring and a lot can happen before that. . Underneath the coldness thought there are the early signs of life . The bright yellow flowers of the Winter Jasmine look as if someone sneaked in overnight and stuck on tiny brilliant rays of sunshine on the branches. The pale pink of the winter almonds are just starting to peek through and the spikes of the daffodils are just beginning to push through .

Suzy sadly is still beached in her parking spot. She looks like a lifeless whale as she sits there waiting for us to take her for her new tyres and to hit the road on a shake down trip. Her habitation check has been booked for February. The fitter will come out again and do the work. Hopefully she will pass with flying colours. She is booked in for service and MOT a week later. An expensive couple of months but jobs that will bring us closer to our holidays. She may need her antifreeze taking out and refilling and the same goes for her brake fluid but luckily her cam belt should not need changing this year. We are still planning Greece and there are now only 100 days before we set off on our Greek odyssey. What a strange feeling, a new country and a different holiday. We are looking forward to the land of democracy, of mythical tales and creatures and the stuff of history. Passport ordered and now returned . Odd the feeling when I had no passport - I felt hunkered down and unable to travel. It felt wonderful to open the envelope and to see the little red book dropping out. With its holograms of all the native flowers of Britain and its terrible picture of me it feels safe, warming and welcoming.

Just as a short break we decided to book a week in the West Country at the end of February. An area I have visited times many but for Glenn it will be a first . We just need the National Trust cards to arrive on time and we will be good to visit a range of properties in Cornwall. We will not be taking Suzy but staying in a cottage. Plans need to be made for a week in a lovely county. There are so many small coves and fishing villages along both the north and south coast of the country we will not have time to see them all. There are a goodly number of National Trust properties just opening so we know our week will be packed and filled with so many good things. The thought of Cornish Cider and Cornish pasties have us drooling already. This though is a few weeks away and we are still plagued with the problems of finding things to do within that 50 mile radius of home. We have whittled them away bit by bit and now we are just on the edges playing about with what is left . So what did we decide to do this cold and grey January day. We had made our mind up last week to try the National Museum of Brewing in the Staffordshire town of Burton upon Trent. Just down the A38 we found ourselves travelling a road well travelled over the past few weeks. Burton sits on the River Trent in the county of Stafford. It is so close to the Derbyshire border it might as well be in that county. Derbyshire County Cricket team even played their matches in the town some years ago . It is known for brewing and Pirelli tyres. In the past the town was full to brimming with breweries but currently there are only eight. Coors Brewery producing Carling and Worthington Bitter; Marstons and some smaller breweries. When I was a child I grew up in a town famous for two smelly things - tanning and brewing. As a child and into my teenage years I understood why the town smelled strongly on a Monday. Monday was the day the tanners must have done most of their work by way of cleaning the leather skins. Monday was also brew day and with two breweries in town there was always the heady smell of hops and yeast . Border Breweries with their distinctive blue liveried lorries emblazoned with a welsh dragon plied the pubs in town with their brown ales and soft drinks. The brewery like many others fell to the big boys Marstons in 1984. The other company was the Wrexham Lager Company - a company founded in 1881 by German immigrants who made a fantastic job of producing a pilsner lager. Sadly as with Border Breweries the company merged with Ind Coope, later with Carlsberg and finally closed its doors ending Wrexhams love affair with brewing and smelly Mondays. Burton has fared somewhat better .

After parking in the large empty car park next to a statue of an old man making a hogshead barrel we found our way into the warm reception and shop. We paid our £8.95 consessionary entry fee and had the choice of an hour and a half guided tour or self guided take as long as you like visit . Of course we declined the tour and made our way into the building which we had entirely to ourselves. The first rooms we entered had all the machinery required to make beer, from hop warming ovens to large machinery that moved the hops around the factory. Because we chose to go unguided we had to read all the notices which told what each machine did and I am sure a guide would make a better job of understanding and explaining it to us than we did reading it. For me what was missing was the smell of brewing. I expected hops drying on the floor, men shovelling hops and lifting them around. I guess I expected the story of Kentish hops , how they grow, why they grow where they do and stories of Londoners going down to Kent to hop pick for the season. It all seemed a little clinical but what a wealth of machinery all saved from the scrap heap. Some could be turned on and they clanked and whirred as the leather belts moved around cogs. There as an office where the foreman would have sat with his ledgers, large books larger than any I have ever seen filled in with facts and figures about the process. Clocking in machines to ensure the workmen turned up for work. Dray wagons and shire horses Gandalf and Jed . We walked into the stables which smelled of horse . The walls were full of leather bits and pieces and brass. There was a museum of steam and in the yard old cars and tractors . Wagons that moved beer about from brewery to pub.

Inside some of the many rooms were Lancashire boilers all black and gleaming staring back at us - their open doors like eyes watching our every move. There were cases of wooden models, cars and vans made from huge copies of beer bottles - the sort you see in a parade. There were medals, the Carling Cup , an old Liverpool football shirt. Inside the last building a recreation of an Edwardian spit and sawdust pub complete with spittoon, a phonograph , tables full of old fashioned games and an old fashioned hand pump. Not the place an Edwardian lady would frequent . Further around pub signs - The Lamb, the Duke of York, the Blue Bell hanging from the ceiling. Next an area dedicated to old Burton , stone age implements found locally, the bits and pieces found in the Anglo Saxon cemetery nearby, brooches and pins, amber beads and other grave goods.

Outside an old pissoir and a steam train built by the factory engineer. I wondered how many engineers these days could build such a thing. Not many I imagine would have the skill.

Back into the museum more signs - a social history in pub signs and to finish it off the pub of the 1960's. Completely different to the earlier one, no phonograph but a pin ball machine, a lady with a beehive hair style sitting with her Babycham type drink. The type of pub I can remember . Still smoke filled, mainly male domain and thick with smoke from a thousand cigarettes.

Perhaps the museum did not have the authentic smells I wanted but that last pub scene brought back that feeling and memory of queuing outside the off licence window trying to buy illicit Cider. Not old enough to legally buy it we sneaked to the "offy" to part with our shilling and sat outside in the summer sun putting the world to rights and hoping we wouldn't get caught .

As a last thought my calendar has informed me today that there is a Japanese proverb which is quite apt for this cold old January day " A few kind words can warm three winter months" Now that together with a nice pint gives you a warm glowing feeling doesn't it? .

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