retiredmartin

Following the freak discovery of my lost notes on parchments preserved in the reed beds of Rutland Water last week, I’m able to bring you “jottings from Belvoir“.  They’re so old, some record banners on pub walls saying “Leycester Cittie – ye Premyr Champione“.

Belvoir doesn’t help the photographer much, but it is a pleasant place to explore, as long as you don’t take Mrs RM through a field of cows (Hathern, 2007).

My main memory of the village is meeting a major local land owner on our trek through the Annapurna Massif in 1997, a lady who’d been berating ramblers who had just been given the Right to Roam through her farm.  On the other hand, she made nice cheese.

This gorgeous church may have preceded her though.

As the saying about Long Clawson goes,

“There are more whores in Hose than honest women in Long Clawson“;

Certainly the opening times for the Crown & Plough in the GBG and on WhatPub are a minor fiction, while the pub website “About Us” section gives the following info,

“Aliquam dapibus tincidunt metusraes
justo dolor, lobortis quis, lobortis dignis
pulvinar ac, lorem”

Prompted by his failure to visit the pub, Duncan responded to the  trauma here.  He was lucky. From an admittedly closer starting point, I’d failed on two lunchtime occasions since September (no opening times posted), before deciding Sunday was a safe bet.  I still phoned the pub twice to confirm they’d be open.  “Of course we’re open” they said, to a backdrop of condiment drama and clattering pans.

The inability of pubs to convey their opening times astonishes me.

I was expecting a gastropub horror show. All the reviews on the pub are about the food, and all good apart from the odd troublemaker (always fun to read).

Nothing about the beers from Belvoir and Poachers though.

It’s a proper village pub with a good food trade that didn’t interfere with the drinkers. Or the dogs.

The main bar could almost have come straight from a simple Staffordshire Bass pub,  though it was so busy I was pushed out to the posh seats.

The banter was high class.

“Check that £20 note, Joe”  to the barman.

“You’re the Muhammed Ali of not buying yer ale, mate”  – Mate 1   “You’re the Lewis Hamilton” – Mate 2

And much discussion of the merits of pie crusts, which is fine with me.

I was glad the Crown & Plough was OK, once they’d let me in. I’d go again just to see if Mate 3 was the Joe Root of not buying yer ale or not.