retiredmartin

Getting that first pick tick in Kendal lifted a weight off my shoulders, like hitting a six after four dot balls at the start of The Hundred (powerful metaphor I feel).

It was now 4pm and I knew that Fell Bar and Factory Tap would be open soon, they promised, so I’d at least get 3 ticks sneaked away from Cumbria. But with “difficult” connections between the station and Oxenhope to head back to Manchester how could I best use my time ?

Well, by drinking too much, I guess.

I thought I’d been in the tiny and charming Fell Bar before, but it was actually Burgundy’s Wine Bar next door. Though I had been in the Fell Bar in Penrith. Us tickers need an intern to sort our record-keeping out.

Not many photos, but I can tell you that “Whats Going On” segued effortlessly into “Graceland“, just as Marvin Gaye intended, and as I finished a superb Milk Stout (3.5) the whole pub (all 5 of us) were singing along to the Paul Simon classic, which says something I guess.

Back at the Factory Tap where I’d had a mild hissy fit that they were shut an hour earlier,

I panicked a bit at the sight of a crowd, but luckily the outside tables cleared as I approached.

Another pint of that Fell Milk Stout, again lovely, and the really rather odd sight of a constant flow of cars crawling through the narrow lanes of the factory at 16:45. The A6 was closed so traffic was being directed through the clutter, apparently.

“D’ya want a pint while yer waiting ?” shouted the other drinker (who knew everyone driving through) to the guy in a Porsche*. He seemed tempted.

It was a jolly atmosphere, a bloke with a Marseille FC shirt wandered in looking bemused as I attempted a conversation about bouillabaisse, and I picked a half of something strong and crafty and inadvisable which no doubt will recognise from the head you get when expertly decanted into a pint glass.

Somehow brilliant, and I loved the fact that they describe their year out of the GBG (2020) as a year in the doldrums.

*It was probably a Ferrari; I know nothing about cars.