Next stop, dunno. Si scoured his GBG, hideously desecrated with green marker, for pubs open now but shutting in the afternoon.
We bypassed the aptly named Blandford Forum, a real ale desert, on the way to Spetisbury.
I had no recollection whatsoever of the Woodpecker, and it hardly mattered as we’d missed it by a week.
Simon put on his best sad face and programmed Sat Nav lady for Stourpaine.
Helpfully, the pub has the village name in the car park, possibly stolen off the A350.
This is a hardworking place, feeling more like the other new breed of community pub that doubles up as village shop and micro pub for canines.
Getting hilly now, though well outside the honeypots of Cranborne Chase.
Grief, this one split opinion.
All the tables were set for dining, so we had to sit at the bar.
Far too many beers, too.
But since I was on the coffee by now it hardly mattered.
We felt quite at home, able to survey the dessert drama unfolding behind us (“Cheesecakegate” said Si), and getting healthy attention at the bar.
“Have you seen the giant spider ?” said our Landlady.
Spooky chimney apart, the White Horse had some good breweriana,
“Instant Cash Prizes”,
and an even better shop.
OK, it only sold one newspaper, but they’d just had a delivery of their famous pork and apple squealers and some home made cakes. I had to buy them, you know how I like to support micro shops.
Back at the bar, Si was talking cheese.
Local cheese, too. At conservative estimates, that slab would have lasted Si till Sixpenny Handley. The giant squealer made it till Child Okeford, our next stop.
retiredmartin 
Lovely looking pub with a sense of humour.I like.
Perilously close to my old stomping ground of Tisbury and the South-Western where I once spied a beautiful young woman across the bar and affected an introduction.
15 minutes later I knew I was going to spend the rest of my life with her.
27 years later Mrs Professor Pie-Tin and I are still going strong.
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Ahhhhh how lovely.
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P P-T,
I was two years ahead of you in finding a wife in a proper pub.
Mrs TSM only ever has a glass of pop so has been driving me to drink since 1990.
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Pork & apple squealer -there has to be a joke in there somewhere !
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No. Definitely not. ;-(
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That display looks a nightmare to keep tidy. No chance of Full Case Fill there. And Heinz cans are non-stackable too.
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It was safer for her in the shop than in the pub with BRAPA.
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Pubs now accepting people wearing gilets? That’s why dress codes are sorely needed,
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Since they often seem to accept people in track suit bottoms, apparently with no underwear, it undermines the case against gilets a tad, I’d say.
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I had heard of Yorkshire Tea and now see Dorset Tea.
Shop customers really do like locally grown produce nowadays !
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It’s global warming, Paul. We’ll be growing bananas in Stoke soon, then we really will have taken back control.
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Yes, that’s what I feared.
Kent’s just not the same now that hop gardens have been replaced by tea plantations.
So much of the Potteries is now covered by plum orchards that I’m not sure they’ll find anywhere to grow the bananas.
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Never mind beer duty, what this country needs is tax breaks for tea plantations.
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I assume that it’s the same company, which is ready, quite rightly, to make a bob or two out of those daft enough to care in what county their tea wasn’t grown.
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Are you implying it was really grown in Hampshire ? (or worse, Wilts)
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Straight up theft that … intention to permanently deprive, etc. etc. unless they had permission from LA to turn their road sign into a bench???
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Looks like a lovely place, especially the exterior; and I do like how the dog’s water is described as “0.0% ABV.”
When you say “this one split opinion,” does that mean you and Simon felt differently about it?
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Dog’s water out of a beer barrel seems a cliché when you’ve seen it for a third time !
I think I should have said “this one will split opinion”. We both took exception to having to sit at the bar, but the place was so chatty and unpretentious we forgave it.
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Must admit the title of this one had me expecting a tale of BRAPA meets a wandering drift of piglets with much hilarity ensuing.
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I still see Simon falling at the 4,999th hurdle, crushed by a drift of piglets (or possibly puppies) in Stenhousemuir.
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