From Blackpool, I caught the No.63 bus to Wrea Green for my next tick. I shan’t be making a habit of the bus, but the alternative was a walk from Kirkham. In the rain.
Wrea Green, famous only for the proximity of RAF Wharton,
and the lovely village green captured here by Keith Wright. You could almost be in Essex with a green like that, the key factor in Wrea Green winning “Lancashire’s Best Kept Village” award 15 times – 1959, 1965, 1966, 1968, 1972, 1980, 1986, 1987, 1993, 1996, 2001, 2005, 2009, 2010 and 2012.
In 2013 the village green manager was sacked after a 7th place finish and Wrea Green has bobbed up and down between the leagues ever since.
I arrived ahead of opening time at the Constitutional Club, so I did a pre-emptive tick at the Chef & Brewer.
Actually, it was mainly a pre-emptive “keep out the drizzle”, but I stuck a few quid in their till so they can afford to replace these rotting beams with some nice concrete ones.
Now, this chain pub was a cosy corker. No food trade, a local stoking the fire, two Proper Beer, a landlady popping round “To see if you were OK for drinks ?“.
Nothing like the dining hell that is Waterbeach’s Bridge. No “Are you dining with us ?”, no “drinkers at the bar only“, just a real sense of village local.
The conversations were ALL about food; the pork pie shop in Skipton and the breakfasts in Hurghada (that’s Egypt not East Lancs).
And the Black Sheep was perfectly GBG quality NBSS 3 stuff.
As was the 61 Deep in The Institute, which pleasingly opened BANG on the stroke of 16:30, to get a tricky tick out of the way.
Well, not that tricky, but you never know with clubs. The cheery lady asked me for my card at the exact moment as the glass was plonked in front of me, and I took a swig quick in case she’d been put on orders to refuse “those CAMRAs”.
We talked about the rain, I commented that something smelled nice, the lady said it was her which was a bit embarrassing, and I couldn’t quite decide what I made of the decor. 1970s ? 1980s ?
Anyway, off to Preston, where it is always 1989.
retiredmartin 
It appears your Mull trip was a couple of months early.I predict a GBG 2023 entry. https://mobile.twitter.com/tobeermory
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RAF Wharton? Was that photographed from a Canberra based at RAF Luton? 😉🛩
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My uncle in Bedfordshire worked in the UFO centre at RAF Luton.
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Something smelled nice?
Yes, fried onions are great, aren’t they?
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You know all the best lasses.
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I’m just weighing up, how you might best – and truthfully, I’m an honest kind – build on lady’s mistaking your compliment for the aroma of her delicious cooking, for one on her perfume, Scott.
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You find that quality young lady who dips into the pickled onion jar to dab behind her ears every time she sees you.
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The Grapes used to be a good Boddingtons pub in the days when that beer was worth drinking. It was quite an easy cycle ride when I lived in St Annes years ago although I would avoid the country lanes at night. The airfield is actually at Warton – Wharton is a business school in Pennsylvania. I visited the GRE Assurance offices at Lytham once – it was home to the company’s main computer centre and there were two blockhouses in the grounds where data backups (then probably on reels) were kept. The place was actually under the flightpath out to sea from Warton and as BAe used it for aircraft testing this was a precaution against a plane coming down right on the computer centre, which luckily never happened.
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