retiredmartin

Some posts from yesterday to keep the blog up to date before storms or Putin intervene. Why oh why can’t they leave us alone !

Saturday is football day, with trains west from Sheffield full of plastic Scousers with no connection to the city hunting the glory. You don’t get that at Manchester Citeh, oh no.

I was worried Storm Deidre would disrupt rail travel, but it looked OK. And direct.

But trains south of Nottingham had been cancelled and East Midlands squashed about 4,000 football fans onto two carriages heading for Anfield (and Jaxon’s micropub), with disastrous effects, especially when the Stella drinking football fans (and it IS all cans of Stella with the blokes) and Prosecco downing Hen partiers needed the loo. “Excuse me !”. “What ?”.

Liverpool holds a weird fascination for hens, though the loudest group in my row when I finally get a seat at Piccadilly are celebrating a 40th birthday and having trouble finding their tickets. My 40th was spent in Ghent in brown bars. I know you lot are fascinated by my birthday (22/12).

I can see why BRAPA takes trains, rather than cycling. There is SO much going on. Two posh Brummies (yes, really) are reading out aloud the onerous instructions from their Air B & B, I wish I’d recorded it for you. Stick to Travelodge next time, ladies.

At Lime Street I dodge the showers and take the Merseyrail along the coast towards Ormskirk, with the train emptying at Sandhills, closest stop for Anfield.

My trip is taking me deep into what’s traditionally Everton FC territory,

and I’m delighted to bring you this classic shot* of the Toffee’s new ground being built at Bramley Moore Dock, with the delights of the Wirral behind.

I explored the historic (crumbling) pub stock of north Liverpool recently (here and here), but I’d never been to Orrell Park, as Charlene sang in 1982.

That building across the road deserves a close-up.

but the main drag is not for the faint-hearted.

Actually, I HAD been here before, as the Raven is on my GBG spreadsheet under “Walton”. It’s a classic Spoons.

Possibly.

Jaxon’s is a more than decent small pub in the Merseyside tradition.

OK, micropub shop conversions all look the same, but this one has a bit of character, a dartboard between the loos,

and a healthy cask turnover with half a dozen in (all blokes, all Everton fans). AND they’re playing “Hits from the last time Everton were good“; “Sledgehammer“, “The Reflex” and all. Mark Crilley would have loved it.

I never know what I want in micros, I’ve rarely heard of any of them, so I ask for the Twisted Wheel house beer on the top of the beer board.

The Guvnor sounds perplexed. I point at the beer board. “Oh, we don’t have that one“. So why bother with a beer board, then. It’s like having a Facebook page with the wrong opening times you can’t be bothered to update because the locals know when you’re open.

But the Fixed Wheel they DID have on, called something like “Bitter” “Technicolour Beat” was superb semi-murk, cool and chewy. At £3.75, cheaper than Sheff, dearer than Manc prices.

One Merseyside tick to go, on the other side of the city. I needed sustenance.

Sadly, the “Lancashire pasty” from Waterfields was a total mess.

Rather like me when my soaked self reached Rice Lane station. The Beatles never wrote songs about these places, did they, huh ?

*Please contact my agent if you wish to use this photo commercially.