The third of my trio of Cardiff Guide ticks, and a stroll across Bute Park,
via this Government building which looks a complete rip-off of Low’s Double Negative album cover.
Weirdly, I took a photo of this unremarkable but haunting tree,
which I now realise bares more than a passing resemblance to Ones and Sixes.
If Low’s next album is a picture of a suburban Cardiff Brain’s pub at dusk, you read it here first.
I’m trying to make the Romily sound more exciting than it is. And goodness know, a line-up of Pedi, Bitter and Hobgoblin is more likely to excite me than anyone in the blogoshphere.
But as I’ve been saying for a while, those old Brains pubs had been neutered by opening out and pink food. Perhaps that’s why Marston’s bought them.
The interior is pubby but plain, the barperson wonderfully cheery. My first temperature check since Selby, and hopefully the last of the pandemic. Quality equipment, by the way.
Back in Aldershot, Maltmeister commented (double) negatively on the state of my spectacles. Perhaps Malt had told the lady, as she offered to clean my glasses with the special pub solution (possibly gin).
She thus became the ONLY person, other than my Mum, to clean my glasses for me, and will surely win a retiredmartin award come 1 January 2023.
After that excitement, the pub would struggle a bit. Four in at Welsh tea time (6pm) discussing cirrhosis of the hair. “I’ve tried every shampoo”.
Earth Wind & Fire sang “Let’s Groove“; they were talking to the wrong crowd. I finished a pint of Brain’s that found some aftertaste late on and headed for town, asking Twitter for guidance.
retiredmartin 
Wow, are they still using temperature guns, haven’t seen one for ages. Still you’re lucky Komissar Drakeford lets you into the Covidy and ungodly pubs at all.
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Yes, I wondered what restrictions were in place; Duncan told me that Northern Ireland were still asking for photo ID.
As it was, all the pubs in Wales I visited were friendly and the sign-in too about 10 seconds so no complaints, whatever the merits or not of the Welsh policy. That’s the only temperature gun I’ve seen since last summer !
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They’ve got one, Bill, but they didn’t use it on us the last time that we went to the Romilly.
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You looked cool enough anyway.
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What would characterize a dishonest ale?
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Anything from Maidenhead.
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One deserving of a Jilly Goolden-esque description.
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You nearly walked past our house Martin, and I think that’s a fair summary of the Romilly.
You – forgivably in January – missed probably its best point though, which is its garden in fine weather, and for which we’ll struggle to repay it.
Before we were mostly vaccinated they ran a brilliant table service out there, and it really was a salvation.
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But did they clean your glasses ?
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No, but did offer to give the wooden leg a coat of Ronseal.
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Was it the lovely bar girl who always dresses up eccentrically that cleaned your in glasses Aldershot.?
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It wasn’t, Tony. Maltmeister did offer to clean them but it’s not the same as a barmaid, is it ?
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