I may have missed out on the Beer & Pubs Forum Trip to Uttoxeter, but a week on I was in that other weirdly named racing town that only seems to exist in sports bulletins.
Quite why there’s a cow on their sign, rather than a horsey, is beyond me.
Mind, at 54, I’ve still yet to go to a racing “meet” , though I’ve also avoided baseball and cosplay without serious harm.
This is a modest little town (pop. 5,272),where I spent 3 nights out of 8 in mid June, and still failed to (re) visit any of the pubs.
The Travelodge is next to one of those 2-for-1 Marston diners (Wainwight on) that you can expect to drop cask as soon as our Wolves accountants realise the West Country is as discerning as the Scots.
The little leisure complex (Lodge, pub, KFC) looked just as overgrown 6 years ago, so attempts to attract bowling alleys and cinemas have clearly stalled. Expect BrewDog there in 2025.
Better facilities than my own similarly sized village though, with Morrisons, Lidl, boat builders and crumbling industrial complex with enticing floral display.
Nice church,
and brightly coloured High Street.
Though sterner colours at the only GBG regular The Nog, much enjoyed by Mrs RM and I when we ditched the lads in the Lodge a few years back.
I’d never been in The Bear, the main town pub and hotel.
But they can spell accommodation nearly rite so I reckoned I’d give their £30 rooms a try on my next visit.
Especially with a recent (1994, my first) GBG entry to its name.
The deal was sealed by kedgeree and flat white in the new and wondrous Lovington bakery.
Kedgeree, poker nights and a Lidl. What more could you want?
More pubs, less tourist waffle I hear you cry.
retiredmartin 
“why there’s a cow on their sign, rather than a horsey” but look closely and you’ll see that the white horse is jumping over the black cow – and that’s probably the next little-known verse after “The cow jumped over the moon”, and the Water is over the Moon as Tim keeps reminding us.
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That’s some place name sign.
Who was the wag, who applied the transfer – decal to you over the pond types – thereby twinning Wincanton with Ankh-Morpork, in the mythical land of Discworld, a series by Terry Pratchett?
I love all the “gateway to…”, “you’ll never leave” , etc., stuff too.
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It’s true, the Terry Pratchett bit:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ankh-Morpork#Real-world_connections
(None of your Bojo myths here, sugar plums.)
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Doesn’t spending time with BRAPA count as witnessing cosplay?
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And come to think of it, you’ve been to beer festivals. If those aren’t events full of strangely attired individuals you never see in any other environment I don’t what are!
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I consider it to be my pleasurable duty to point out, that “spud” – the familiar word for solanum tuberosum or the potato – is a Middle English variant of “spade”, and so reminds the properly-informed of the fact that the vegetable has to be dug from the ground.
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And a diet of too many of them might get you into hospuddle.
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“I was in that other weirdly named racing town that only seems to exist in sports bulletins.”
I like how it’s twinned with Ankh-Morpork. 🙂
“Mind, at 54, I’ve still yet to go to a racing “meet” , though I’ve also avoided baseball and cosplay without serious harm.”
All three are basically the same thing, just with different costumes. 😉
“with enticing floral display”
That could be practically anywhere in the UK.
“Though sterner colours at the only GBG regular The Nog”
The Nog Inn? That’s something to wrap your head around. 🙂
“But they can spell accommodation nearly rite”
Am I missing something? Or perhaps they’re still going by the 1720 spelling?
“The deal was sealed by kedgeree”
Which they’ve been serving almost as long as the Bear has been open?
“What more could you want?”
Not much. Especially as you sprang for the extra 50p for the egg.
Cheers
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Never heard of Cosplay so I reckon you meant to write Coldplay??
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