I went to my first social on Wednesday 27^th February to the Rotherham Real Ale and Music Festival as soon as we got in I walked straight  up to one of the stalls and the guy behind it looked so happy to see me and asked if I would like to try some of the ale on offer, my reply was 'Thanks but I just wanted to know, where is the cider?' He pointed me in the right direction and off I went.

As soon as we got in to the South Yorkshire room and I spotted the cider stall. I think my heart skipped a tiny beat looking at the array of ciders on offer. I asked the lady behind the counter if I could try a few, I mean it would be rude not to right?  I end up having three glasses of  ciders that night. The first was a traditional cider and it had a lovely crisp flavour to it, next up was an Elderflower cider which was nice as well but it had a real kick to it and the last one was a Strawberry cider which sounded nice and tasted nice from my taster, but no it was not nice that's all I'm going to say because I do not want to be rude.

It was a busy night and everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves, the music started up a few minutes after we got inside and unfortunately all I can say about the music is that it sounded good because I wasn't really paying attention due to the fact I was in the middle of doing what I do best, talking!

I did have a quick look around the whole event and stuck my head around the doors of a few other sections, mostly on my hunt for food to be honest. Alcohol really does make you peckish. Anyway after looking around the whole place I ended up back where I started and got myself a cheese burger which was extra tasty because of the fact it had cheese that looked like cheese and not a small orange plastic looking square.

All in all I had a really good time and even the strange old man at the cider stall who kept going on about how many different ciders I was tasting and then went on to ask if he could try my strawberry cider and when I said no and started walking away he yelled, 'come on I don't have aids' even that didn't spoil my happy mood because I was drinking cider and have a really good time! 

JCI Barnsley New Member, Jenny Storey