retiredmartin

Perhaps uniquely, I bring you news of an event that you haven’t missed. I’m betting Pashmina Pauline is a big Gilbert & Sullivan fan; probably “Alone Again (Naturally)” is her favourite.

Harrogate is still a favourite of mine, despite a few less than stellar new Guide entries of late.

I was a bit distressed to find out just how long the train journey from my new home too, what with dithering about at Leeds and all, but I don’t recommend driving in to Harrogate. Ever.

I tipped up an hour before the “Disappearing Chin” (I know, I know, but there’s also a Major Tom here so be kind) opened so I headed east and looked for something ordinary in the capital of the pashmina.

Grief, is this really a League football ground ?

Even the parks are wide and open and hard to criticise, and back toward the station I find myself falling for the stonework (and the loo at the Tap).

The “Dis/Chin” as the kids call it, is another of those “so tiny I walked past it twice” places, but then I notice the nice lady putting out tabled on the pavement and it clicked. It’s the one on the left below, obscured by flowers.

“What you looking for ?” said the lady, sensing me inching inside a pub that clearly wasn’t quite ready for habitation.

I hate being asked what I want; I like to shut my eyes and point.

“Oooh, anything, er, light ?” by which I meant not a 10% sour turnip DIPA.

“We’ve got a Blonde Bros pale one and a dark one” I think I heard. Might have been a Pale Bros Blonde. “Pint of pale then, please“.

Who knows what I had. Unless I take a picture of the pumps I’m lost. It tasted like Paulaner, though it wasn’t, and was frankly just what I wanted in the heat. We get nice weather in the North since I moved up here, you know.

But it wasn’t cask, and I had a nagging fear that on my deathbed my GBG records would be expunged by the Keeper of the Ticks, so I had a half of Vocation Bread & Butter, which was better than fine (NBSS 3+). Despite the glass.

On the other table a couple of school friends were staging a little Alan Bennett play for my benefit, in which a nurse leaving a job in a Covid ward is mortified to find her card spells her name wrong. The bloke looked suitably sympathetic.

Simon liked this one, and there’s some nice interior pictures on his blog. I just took a photo of the Gents.

Charming.

But I really needed to revisit an old classic now…