retiredmartin

Today

Greetings from Hooton.

Well, I left Cambridge with my Aygo buffeted from side to side by Storm Deidre on the A14, but it’s sunny and calm in Chester, where I’m ticking Merseyside to a conclusion.

My B & B is £29.92. It would cost nearly that much to park in Chester.

Actually, the Limes is in Hoole, next door to the Lodge Bar that taunts the GBG by entering and promptly leaving. I might call in later.

Only 15 minutes to the wall, tantalisingly close to this classic. I might call in later.

Chester’s walls aren’t as good as York’s, there aren’t as many Sam Smiths pubs for a start.

But they’re less crowded. And you never quite know if you’re in Wales or not.

Part of the wall is closed for conversion into a micropub, so I get off where it says Kaleyards. Everyone remembers the Great Kale Shootout on Hollyoaks.

One newbie, the tap for Wrexham’s Big Hand, the biggest Scouse crime against the Welsh since Capel Celyn (joke, joke).

I’ve enjoyed Big Hand beer in their homeland, and they were superbly crisp and refreshing here. Even if one of them was a “rugby” special.

It’s a downstairs bar, once upon a times a Fat Cat, and quirky enough.

But it’s the customers who make it, a cheery, chatty couple who live in Heaton Norris and have never been to Red Rock.

And a quite brilliant manager with just the right amount of banter and a track record of getting the Piper on Chester’s ringroad into the Guide a few years back.

She gave me some Chester recommendations. I may go there later.