retiredmartin

I promised you I’d head back to Linton today and I rarely lie.

It wasn’t much brighter than Sunday, but I’m not going back a third time to take photos, even though the brewery tap where I thought I might get actual beer was closed.

To be honest, I need to be weaned off all this brewery tap and pub take-out nonsense. Judging by Discourse most of the CAMRAs won’t be rushing back inside pubs when they DO open and they’ll need professionals like me to be on top of their game.

The two pubs I missed last night don’t seem like the village boozer of CAMRA dreams; in fact they didn’t 20 years ago when I last popped in.

They do look appealing, in their way.  The vast Dog & Duck was delivering essentials boxes to the vulnerable; I’m not sure if a gallon of Greene King IPA counts as essential.

The Crown loses a point for the sign but gets its back for the contours.  If you like pale beers from Oakham you’ll probably give it another point.

The village is a mix of light industry, dormitory for Cambridge commuters and folk who work from home (before the virus).  The latter group may well be the ones who keep three pubs open all day on coffee and WiFi.

They live in houses like this one;

If you pressed me, I’d say there’s nothing I like better than stumbling on a village for the first time and declaring it wonderful.  Maybole, say, or Thixendale.

I’d been to Linton a few times, but completely missed its beauty.

Not just the vast collection of timber and faded grandeur, but a criss-cross of walks over ford and duck-filled streams that led to Linton Zoo, the bona fide tourist attraction.

I’d never been, don’t approve of zoos, but Simon had.

In fact, the animals were hiding from BRAPA in the brewery shed back in 1988, and although I walked round the grounds on the “Zoo walk footpath” I didn’t see or hear sight or sound of them, either.

Unless this is a lion and a zebra; I’m not great with animals.

Perhaps the animals have been furloughed or are working from home. Or escaped down the A1052 to terrorise Saffron Walden like they did in Llandudno.

I had no desire to find out.

Great walks, and I think I may have found the Madchester “Mad for it” hat that Si lost here in 1988.