retiredmartin

In the spirit of doing things with Mrs RM that don’t involve pink pens and Doom Bar, I joined her on the Sheffield Bear Hunt the other Saturday.

Don’t worry, it’s not a REAL hunt. Grief, we’re not in Rotherham.

No this involves finding and waving your phone over a multi-coloured bear, getting a ping, and earning discounts on gummi bears. A bit like Track & Trace but the idea is you stay out of the house.

Some good exercise; we racked up 20,000 steps that day, including the steep start on Blake Street.

It took Mrs RM a while to work out how to get a tick, so we had to keep going back to the Hendos one but once we got going she was very competitive, barging gentlefolk and crying children out of her path.

The whole of Sheffield seemed up for the challenge.

Obviously ticking bears is thirsty work, so Mrs RM made me stop after every dozen at a cafe or pub; sounds like an ideal children’s birthday party.

It turns out there’s at least two Sheffield bars with “bear” in the title, so let’s start here;

ALL THE PUBS IN SHEFFIELD ON FOOT No. 36 – Bungalows & Bears

This former fire station on Division Street near the Brew Dog looked like a trendy new bar when the street was pedestrianised a month ago, but now looks like the Mitchells & Butlers All Bar One clone it is.

With its glitter balls and padded furniture to stop accidents when you’re headbanging to Dire Straits it’s an odd place to visit at noon but we loved it.

Cheap grazing food including squid, some interesting substitutions,

and an advertised Doom Bar (in Camden glass) that turned out to be a very decent Abbeydale Moonshine (NBSS 3).

Lovely staff, as so often in Sheffield, and free soda water for Mrs RM that made it a bargain lunch stop.

If they actually choose the music here (we left to the strains of Gene Clark’s “No Other”), they may be the best staff in town.

We just weren’t sure about their own contribution to the bear hunt…