retiredmartin

I love that photo. Hard to describe why, but it just says “Proper Pub” to me. Bloke in suit drinking a pint while watching Natalie Imbruglia’s “Torn” ins a classic upmarket Hertfordshire boozer. “But what’s he drinking ?” you ask, missing the point.

My last tick for Herts is the Bell in Bovingdon, one of the Chilterns villages we used to visit for pub grub in the ’90s before “pub grub” became “classic pub favouries”.

It’s a gorgeous village, and importantly doesn’t have a scary roundabout like Hemel Hempstead.

I think this wooden carving depicts BRAPA, who visited recently, after five pints.

I expected the smell of lasagne and chips as I entered, but either they end lunch early or this is just a classier Chiltern boozer, with Stella and San Miguel the beers of choice (wot, no Staropramen ?).

More Side Pocket, surely the Ghost Ship of the Chilterns, though I admit I’m always tempted to go for Youngs so that one of you can comment “Not what it was since it left Wandsworth”.

It was a gorgeous way to finish a county, a classic NBSS 3.5 pint accompanied by Bruno Brookes Sounds of 1997. If there is any video of Mrs RM singing along to “2 become 1“, please keep it for the dark web.

Some heroic Saturday drinking going on (it was my 3rd pint in an hour and a quarter but that doesn’t count cause I was on official ticking business). “I’m not feeling like a Campari” said one protagonist. What even IS a Campari ?

The Tellytubbies, a supergroup formed by Oasis, Blue and Ocean Colour Scene, were Number 7 with “Tellytubbies say ay-o”.

Anyone who said “Nah, that’s you, Duncan and Simon” loses the half of Doom Bar.

And here’s what you came to see;