retiredmartin

My first possibility was “The slow, sad decline of midweek drinking“, a rumination on the emptiness of pubs outside the weekend rush (see also: Life After Football).

Plenty of pubs round me, of course, and as you’ll know I intend to visit EVERY one of them on foot, even though that’ll muck up my GBG ticking schedule. I need to be more BRAPA and less LAF.

This was a Tuesday night which I’d earmarked as “recovery”, but Mrs RM was determined to save pubs if she couldn’t annoy Sir Humphrey. We paused at the door of the Florist, but I fancied a stroll pre-pint.

Goodness me, isn’t it getting dark quick ?

This was the view of a scary Bole Hill;

It actually took 10 minutes to find the steep path out of the playing field, by which time I’d earnt a drink at the Princess Royal on the descent home. Could YOU pass this beacon in the night ?

ALL THE PUBS IN SHEFFIELD ON FOOT No. 49 – Princess Royal, Crookes

This was one of the neighbourhood pubs that first planted the idea of living in Sheffield in my mind in 2016., when I wrote “I’d be happy to live in Crookes, but you get double the value in Preston“.

The Princess Royal didn’t last long in the Guide, and seems best known for it Gilmour windows, but we take corner locals like this for granted at our peril, which is why it was sad to only see a handful of customers at 20:48, when pubs should be at their busiest as folk avoid appalling TV.

Mrs RM looked at the beer range and immediately said “Large glass of Red“, I thought “Black Sheep, innit ?”.

It was off.

I HATE having to return a beer, particularly on my doorstep.

“I’m awfully, awfully, sorry, but I think it might have gone” I whimpered.

Cue my second potential blog title, “How to deal with a returned pint“.

Apology, immediate offer of an alternative, a check to see if the Tetley was up to the mark.

It was, and after a tour of the pub that took in the bench seating and snooker table but somehow omitted the Gilmour Windows, I had a second pint of Tets (NBSS 3.5).

Hi-Vis jacket folk were joined by a late night smoking man who moved from high table to bench seat to outside smoking den and back again in ten minutes, before leaving.

All it needed was a drunk pub blogger with a stuffed cauliflower and it would have been perfect.