Saturday night saw Tracy & I venture into Derby for a rare & much needed night out. And after much deliberating & stroking of beards we decided to give the newly refurbed Greyhound on Friargate a try.We’d grab a bite to eat, have a few beers & listen to the live music on offer. Well, that was the plan. As we made our way through Derby we spotted the blue flashing lights up ahead and from then on it all turned a little surreal…
The lights were too far away to work out exactly what kind of ‘incident’ there’d been, but we did think it rather odd to see the torrent of water cascading down the road towards us. We guessed at perhaps a fire and the water was simply a result of putting the fire out. As we approached Friargate Bridge and noticed the lake below, we began to think again. The road dipped as it went under the old bridge and the traffic had slowed to a crawl. Met with the lake in front of them, the drivers had a tough call to make. 1. How deep was the water? And 2. Would my car get through it? The answers were, 1. Very deep, and 2. Yes, thankfully all cars (and the poor guy on his motorbike 😯 ) did make it through the lake. It was touch & go at times and a few cars came perilously close to disappearing below the water!!! Beyond the bridge the cascading water intensified and pretty soon the police would close the road to all traffic. It would simply be too deep & dangerous.
Safely on the pavement we battled on. We had a pub to reach and it would take more than a bit of water to get in the way of our food & beer, which unfortunately is more than can be said for the poor people on the other side of the road. Friargate now resembled a fast flowing river, with a few islands of tarmac popping up above the water. And if you wanted to get to the Greyhound you had to ‘attempt’ to cross the road/river. As we reached the pub we watched as a few brave/stupid/drunk people attempted the perilous crossing. They came close, but whichever route they opted for they simply couldn’t reach the other pavement. It was insane!!! In the end, one man, who was clearly desperate for a beer, made a run for it. His friends watched in horror as he leaped, crashed into the water, fell over and then smashed onto the pavement 😯 He was ok, apparently!!! Was the newly refurbed Greyhound really that good? Thankfully other people took one look at the guy stumbling to his feet and decided not to risk crossing the river. A wise move I feel.
On the way into the sanctuary of the Greyhound and we eventually discovered the cause of the flooding…
Well maybe not 😉 No apparently a water-main had burst somewhere just up the road, which explained why Friagate was fast resembling the river Derwent!!! So with the mystery solved we disappeared into the Greyhound for our long overdue grub…
Alas, the newly refurbed Greyhound was heaving with people, all no doubt sheltering from the tidal waves outside. The only way we’d get any food in the Greyhound was if we were prepared to stand at the bar to eat it. Yes we were hungry, but we decided our food tonight would benefit from a table & a few chairs. So we decided to nip down the road to Pietro’s and then return to the Greyhound for beers & live music. It was only as we stepped out of the pub that we remembered about the river; Pietro’s was on the other side 😯 We could either risk the crossing or walk right back into Derby for food elsewhere. It was a tough call, but to be honest it didn’t really take us long to decide; we were starving. So in the hope that the river crossing would be slightly easier back near the bridge, we made our way back down Friargate towards Pietro’s, until we came to a ‘potential’ crossing point. The current still looked worryingly fast, but it did look jumpable (well it did for my spidery long legs!!!). Tracy’s legs are a good few inches shorter than mine, which is precisely why her foot sank right into the river 😯
With a soggy foot we paddled into Pietro’s for some much needed & way overdue food. ‘We’re fully booked, sorry…‘ A few minutes later and with an even soggier foot after yet another river crossing, we paddled into Limes, now desperate for any kind of food!!! And thankfully we were in luck. We were given a table with a bird’s eye view of the bizarre scene outside and some really great food (which Tracy ate with her socks off!!!). It wasn’t quite the simple, beer & cheap grub we’d planned at the Greyhound, but we really didn’t care. We sat back with our Rosé and ate rather posh food instead, while Tracy’s shoes & socks dried!!!
We did eventually get back to the Gryehound, just as the live music had reached it’s one song encore 🙁 Outside on Friargate and a few insane revellers we’re now attempting to wade & splash their way through the river. And after a few beers we decided to venture up the road to witness the scene of the now infamous burst water-main… The road had literally split apart with the sheer force of the water 😯 What the hell was going on? It was like some low budget Bruce Willis disaster movie!!!
I know it’s been a while since my last night out in Derby, but surely it’s not always this entertaining???
