Two days in Dorset in the campervan. Coffee on tap, new road atlas bought from the Works bookshop in Basingstoke (ugh !) on the way, two days not being nagged about the garden.
Like That Devon, Dorset delights in the unusual place names that thrill our readers.
Sandford Orcas, Chilton Cantele, Yeovil…
Sandford looks gorgeous, but you’re best driving to it down the grassy lanes with your eyes shut. Look at those contours.
I was, I’ll be honest, expecting the Mitre to be closed. Perhaps nothing HAS happened since the Facebook was last updated in May 2017, at which point everyone looked very cheerful.
On Wednesday I found the door open, but no-one at home.
A chap unloading boxes pointed me round the corner, and shouted something up the stairs that could have been “CUSTOMER ALLEN!“.
Yes, it’s the outside bar, keeping the London Plague out of the pub. Oddly, their website suggests they were back greeting customers inside by Wednesday so perhaps it’s just drinkers they want to keep out.
But we’re in a pandemic, you can’t be too careful. And too be fair the view from the hillside garden was a little bit marvellous.
For about two minutes. The Hopkandi (possibly Yeovil) was cool and rich, possibly the beer of the month. Sadly, with public transport options slightly worse than in Powys (one bus, 5pm), I had to tip it and move on.
If only the train had been going…
As suspect you know well, and just wrote as a wind up, Yeovil is in that there Zummerzet not Darzet. And it’s Chilton Cantelo, which also in Zummerzet. Sandford Orcas is Darzet – lovely pub, The Mitre, as you’ll find when you ever get inside it.
Correct, Hopkandi is by Yeovil Ales, who brew a few hundred yards from a football stadium quite close to my heart.
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Is it ? When did that happen ?
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Is Chilton Cantello Len’s brother? Erstwhile West Brom midfielder…
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Sister.
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asking for a friend!
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When you say “…tip it…”, did you mean tip it down your throat? You surely didn’t drive 190 miles over 3+ hours in order to stroll into the pub garden for a couple of minutes, have a few sips then bin the beer off & leg it for the bus? Admirable though your retirement hobby is, I can’t help feeling this is more than a little eccentric behaviour, no?
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Eccentric,. me 🙄
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“two days not being nagged about the garden.”
LOL! My darling wife has given up. She cuts the grass and does the weeding herself.*
* – my excuse is that a) mother nature handles that quite well out in the wild and b) it’s an English country garden. 🙂
“Like That Devon, Dorset delights in the unusual place names that thrill our readers.”
No comment. 🙂
“Sandford Orcas, Chilton Cantele, Yeovil…”
See above. 😉
“Look at those contours.”
Sorry. I only look at contours as it pertains to the fairer sex.
“Ring the bell”
Blimey.
As mentioned earlier this Covid thingy is wickedly intelligent. It only strikes at night (curfew) or it won’t attack if you have fries with your beer (New York) or, apparently, it’s more dangerous than possibly drowning at sea (i.e. BC Ferries used to mandate that you couldn’t stay in your car below decks as you may drown in an accident – apparently due to something similar happening in Poland ten years ago. But now, it’s better if you stay in your car below decks! Sheesh!)
“Note random arrow”
You could’ve turned it the other way to create all kinds of havoc!
“I had to tip it and move on.”
Please, not into a plant pot! That’s reserved for NBSS 2.0 and below!
“If only the train had been going…”
Oh, it’s going all right. But more like ‘to pot’ or ‘to seed’ rather than ‘to the next town’.
Cheers
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“Sandford looks gorgeous” and there’s several of my ancestors in the churchyard.
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Concrete and slabs, the only option for the garden of the touring beer sommelier.
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