Blimey, only 10 days into the Great Re-opening and a second trip into the North Derbyshire mining villages for a real life, palpable GBG tick.
Days after conquering Clay Cross we were back down the A61 for a tick we could have added to the Three Horseshoes if I’d bothered to do proper research and realise the Tupton Tap was open earlier than expected.
Hope you’re keeping up, Russ.
Actually, Tupton, in Old and New incarnations, looks like a Clay Cross suburb, and our pre-opening walk is very suburban.
I know some of you follow this blog for fashion advice, and I can unreservedly recommend Beautylicious/Salon One for all your beautifications needs (not Mrs RM, she’s beautiful enough already. Oh dear is that objectification ?).
Our lunch options seemed to be not one, but TWO (2) branches of Nisa Local half a mile apart. Now, Nisa are probably the supermarket you least want to see when you’re compiling an artisanal picnic, possibly after Premier.
And this one is short on Brixham pate and ripened Bakewell goats cheese, but is beautifully laid out and we spent what seemed an hour finalising our purchases (arrayed on Derbyshire grass at top).
A feast for the King of Old Tupton that cost £4.07, and most of it only a few months out-of-date.
I have no idea why the Luke Evans of Riddings Jumbo Cheese and Onion Roll looks like this;
Our walk through round Cowlishaw Wood and the stables of Martin Lane (a disappointment despite being named after me) are bucolic in part, but spoilt by the tell-tale signs of future micropubs.
Unexplored Britain, can’t beat it. A curmudgeonly old guy at the top of Martin Lane brought us back to reality.
“Can’t make up its mind. Bound to rain in 10 minutes“.
10 minutes later we were at the entrance to the Tupton Tap. People will read this blog in 10 years time and wonder what this was all about;
A village famed for top arrow thrower John Lowe but here the home of a family cribbage meet. As required in all CAMRA pubs, here they are raising glasses to toast the start of the cribbage season.
It’s an Ashover pub, or seems to be, and is flogging a lot of pints on a damp Wednesday at 3.30pm. The rich Poets Tipple is a banging 3.5/4 and my beer of the embryonic year so far.
But I’d rather be inside, and fake a trip to the toilet to lick photograph the hand pumps on the way out. Is “faking a trip to the toilet” a thing ?
Since Mark will ask, the soundtrack was Al Green and Bill Withers. One pint for guessing each track.
But NO points for a Russ comment on Mr. Zogs Sex Wax.
retiredmartin 
“Let’s Stay Together”, “Lovely Day”.
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And you were half right, you were half right.
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Is there a Smiths reference there or am I deluding myself?
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Actually, it wasn’t Al Green so I’ve had to void the whole competition and call in the Auditors.
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Paul Simon?
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Wait, it wasn’t Al Green? I was going to guess “Let’s Stay Together” as well. And for the Withers track, “Ain’t No Sunshine When She’s Gone.”
Point of order, I don’t think I’ve ever asked ‘What music was playing?’ What I do is, when you don’t mention what music was playing, just sit here and quietly grumble to myself. 😉
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You MUST have asked, in your head at least !
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“You can call me Al Green”
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You keep finding these classic Midlands boozers I’ve never been too!!!! I’m going to have to up my game now you’re on the (sort of) doorstep. Cribbage and John Lowe in one post…you’re spoiling us!
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Is it Midlands ? I guess so, but feels scarily close to Northern !
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Chesterfield definitely see Sheffield as their rivals but most definitely Midlands. Albeit it does feel northern like lots of Peak District
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On the cusp of getting a Summer Dominoes Season going. Very-nearly retired folk noisily rattling Doms on Summer afternoons is what we’re really missing. Isn’t it?
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Well, one Dom certainly seems to be rattled just now.
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Hopefully someone will shuffle off soon…
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Oh yes.
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“TOP TUCKER IN TUPTON”
Truly a title to trigger transient tarriers. 🙂
“Blimey, only 10 days into the Great Re-opening and a second trip into the North Derbyshire mining villages for a real life, palpable GBG tick.”
Things are definitely looking up!
“we were back down the A61 for a tick we could have added to the Three Horseshoes if I’d bothered to do proper research and realise the Tupton Tap was open earlier than expected.”
No one’s perfect. 😉
“Hope you’re keeping up, Russ.”
The alliteration? Yes. The rest is a bit like BBM going on about footy, um, goings-on. 🙂
“and our pre-opening walk is very suburban.”
As indicated by the OS map; very boring names.
“(not Mrs RM, she’s beautiful enough already. Oh dear is that objectification ?).”
If it is, who cares? I think my darling wife is the loveliest woman around. 🙂
“Now, Nisa are probably the supermarket you least want to see when you’re compiling an artisanal picnic, possibly after Premier.”
Premier? Are we talking footy again, or merely making an observation that Nisa would be League Two if they were a football team?
“and we spent what seemed an hour finalising our purchases (arrayed on Derbyshire grass at top).”
(slow golf clap)
“and most of it only a few months out-of-date.”
Living life vicariously I see.
“and the stables of Martin Lane (a disappointment despite being named after me)”
Hard to measure up to you my dear boy. 😉
“but spoilt by the tell-tale signs of future micropubs.”
(guffaw)
“People will read this blog in 10 years time and wonder what this was all about;”
Sigh. I bloody hope so!
“here they are raising glasses to toast the start of the cribbage season.”
Blimey. They take it pretty seriously then.
“and my beer of the embryonic year so far.”
Nice!
“Is “faking a trip to the toilet” a thing ?”
At my age, I don’t have to fake it. 🙂
“But NO points for a Russ comment on Mr. Zogs Sex Wax.”
No worries! I can but have a quick lie down after seeing that.
Cheers!
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I must say that “Poet’s Tipple” sounds like a good one, and very nicely named. After I’ve had a pint of anything I feel like a poet, and after the second pint, I *am* a poet. 😉
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There’s an Old Poets pub in Ashover and a Dead Poets (one of me all-time favourites) down the road in Holbrook. An afternoon in either of those and you’d be as good as Keats and Yeats that Mark Crilley I reckon.
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And one fer yer nob….
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