“Every year is getting shorter, never seem to find the time” sang Pink Floyd in 1973. They’re sort of right, each year feels shorter than the last. In fact, it does not feel like a year since I was last writing a blog like this one. Contary to what Pink Floyd said, I found time to do quite a lot in 2024! I rode a new personal best 211 rollercoasters! 2024 will remembered as a bit of a rollercoaster (sorry). Great heights and moments balanced by a devastating loss and a rather poor Cambridge United team. This blog is aiming to be a review of my year, with some awards thrown in! Let’s get into it!
January:
January started with an FA Cup tie, away to Blackburn. I decided that Blackburn was sort of near Liverpool, so like all good away days we made it into a pub weekend.
It was an absolute goal fest! Sadly, like most goal fests The U’s are involved with, it ended with United on the losing side. 5-2 Blackburn.
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| Golden bird |
I liked Liverpool, it’s a smart and nice city. The 24 hour Greggs was a real highlight! I was less impressed with Liverpool’s beer offerings. Azvex Taproom was the only real beer highlight!
February:
February kicked off with a trip to Plopsaland in Belgium. A nice plus six to the coaster count and a strong contender for coaster of the year! Ride To Happiness is amazing, but isn’t quite good enough to take the award.
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| Me and Emma had a front row ride on Heidi |
February was also the last time I saw Cambridge win away from home (in the league)! The story starts in Manchester, where I met up with Rach for a pub crawl! We started at Track Brewery, a favourite of ours!
We took this totally not drunk photo, whilst drinking Plum Porter at The City Arms!
The train to Carlisle felt very early, little did we know what was about to happen!
Carlisle 0-4 Cambridge! An empathic win on the road!!
March
March kicked off with another pub weekend, this time Reading was the destination! We finally visited these brewery taps:
Elusive was first on the agenda.
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| Lads on tour! |
Elusive happens to be across the round from a bucket list beer destination for me! Long term readers will know that I believe Siren Craft to be the best brewery in the UK. I was so excited to visit!
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| Three sober blokes |
Drinking your fave beer (Broken Dream) where it’s made and with your mates. There’s few things better than that! Brewery of The Year and Beer Of The Year there!
Back in Cambridge I was sat at home drinking a coffee, after my night shift, when I received a phone call saying that my grandad had most likely died. I abandoned my coffee and headed straight to his house, to confirm the devastating news. He really could have waited for me to finish my coffee. Grandad was always a big fan of my adventures and we shared many adventures together.
A few days later Cambridge hosted Wigan and triumphed 3-1. It was the first football match I didn’t get to talk to my grandad about. In his later years we would talk about the same match several times and he would often ask me who we played and why players who played in the 1950s no longer play. Dementia is cruel.
April
April took me back to my childhood, with a first visit to Chessington in many years.
Sadly, the new B&M was uncharacteristically rough. That was all I can remember about April.
May
A quiet April was followed by a busy May! I decided to have a birthday (May 20th) and elected to visit Bermondsey Beer Mile, an old favourite.
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| Drinking Cloudwater beer! |
A photo was taken, which makes me look intelligent:
June
June was my busiest month of the year! I spent most of the month in The USA, starting in New York and visiting 12 states, before returning to NYC. There’s quite a few awards in this part!
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| Finally saw this in person! |
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| Beautiful at night |
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| Fish Carousal in NYC |
We visited a lot of theme parks and rode enough coasters (155) to gain two milestones!
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| Met someone else getting their 600th too! |
Wild Cat’s Revenge was amazing, a more than worthy 600th!
My Coaster of The Year was also my 700th!
Banshee is brilliant! Pure force, with a plethora of elements. It’s easily one of the best inverts I’ve ridden!
Coaster Moment of The Year came at Fun Spot America (Georgia), where we rode the incredible ArieForce One for hours! This coaster has so much airtime, it made some woman’s wig fly off!
Individual Coaster Moment of The Year has to be Beast at night! Hurtling through woodland at 60mph, in the pitch black, with drops and airtime constantly happening! Incredible.
Wooden Coaster of The Year was Phoenix at Knobels. An absolute airtime machine!
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| Tom’s happy place is row 4! |
We spent a few days in the Great Smokey Mountains:
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| Our house and car |
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| Would be a better view if I wasn’t standing there |
Here we had a BBQ and did some moonshine tasting in Pigeon Forge.
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| Carnivore and vegan unite |
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| Moonshine is proper falling down water! |
We visited my Horror Attraction of The Year, in nearby Gatlinburg.
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| Redneck Slipknot right? |
Mysterious Mansion was genuinely scary and amazing fun!
July
July took me to Italy and Osteria Ai Pioppi, my Theme Park of The Year! This place was hand build by a local restaurant owner! All the rides are free and terrifying.
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| This had an 80kg weight limit, whoops. |
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| Two top coaster geezers |
Italy was also home to the worst pint of Guinness I’ve ever seen:
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| How is this even possible? |
We also visited Venice!
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| I was happy that I didn’t fall into the canal |
August
August featured a quick flight across the Irish Sea, for a night out in Dublin and then a visit to Emerald Park!
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| A lot of Guinness was consumed |
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| That was fun! |
We also drove over the border into Northern Ireland, to see Giant’s Causeway and enjoy the weather:
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| Things are bad if I’m wearing a coat |
August ended with a visit to the London Craft Beer Festival, where a lot of beer was enjoyed!
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| Me and team Pastore |
Another August highlight was visiting Lords for The Hundred Final!
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| Rach is jealous of my bucket hat |
We got to watch two great games of Hundred Cricket!
September
September meant a return to one of my favourite events, Oktoberfest! I spent a lot of time riding my favourite flat ride, which is also my Flat Ride of The Year! Breakdance (s)!
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| “Out of control, I play the ultimate role” |
Being at Oktoberfest, of course some beer was involved!
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| “Look up here, I’m in heaven” |
Ein prosit!
October
My Gig of The Year was in October. It was my third time seeing David Gilmour, once again he was incredible!
Gilmour honestly says more with one note, than most people say in a whole paragraph. Aged 78, this may have been the last time I see David Gilmour perform, a carpe diem attitude for sure.
November
November was quite the month for pub!
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| Riverside beers with the lads |
November was also the month when I realised what My Pub Of The Year was, The Live & Let. My favourite pub of all time, and for good reason!
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| The snug is my fave place to be! |
A pub with great atmosphere and even more importantly, fantastic beer! You must visit, if you haven’t been, you are warned that I may be there!
The annual coaster friends Xmas meet took place in late November. I somehow, managed to dress as my cocktail!
December
December kicked off with the near annual trip to York. I love York! On this visit I even got to meet Simon from pub blog
BRAPA.
Later in the year I got to meet a musical legend!
It’s Kunt from Kunt and The Gang! He put on a hilarious show, genuinely one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen!
That was 2024! A year that will be remembered as the year where much was gained, coasters and experiences especially, but also where much was lost. I’m so lucky to surrounded by so many good people and to them, I say thank for you for 2024!
There’s only so much I can write about or remember, so I can’t wait to publish this and then remember things I wanted to include.
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