retiredmartin

Another bumper post from the North-East as I get to apply some more pink in the GBG as I complete Northumberland. AND visit another town for the first time. At this rate they’ll be no new worlds to conquer, and tears will flow (we’ve just home from Millom, the excitement never stops).

I owe Bedlington an apology, having it down in my mind as being interchangeable with Ashington.

Well, the folk are just as cheery, there’s a GBG micro and a pre-emptive Spoons, and there’s chips if not parmos to be had, but Bed (as the kidz call it) feels a different world.

Sumptuous stonework, neat lawns between the shops and the road, and some ancient pubs.

It was the Rothbury of the North-East. Or would be, if Rothbury hadn’t already taken that job.

With an hour to kill, I contemplated a Boddies,

But sadly the last time the cream of Manchester was served here would have been about 1998.

Their Facebook page suggests this is the place to come to lose your keys.

So I walked the town, looking for the source of the name of their famed non-league team, and found it on this dustbin.

Actually, if you want local history head for the Spoons. Bit surprised to find one here, in what seemed little more than a quiet village,

and the Red Lion was only a third full on a Sunday afternoon.

Rare to see a darts board in a Spoons, but this was a delightfully scruffy one serving a foamy Secret Kingdom to grace any GBG pub in Northumbria (OK, anything over NBSS 2.5 will do that, this was 3).

That’s the best his hair ever looked.