retiredmartin

You left me at Lancaster’s main bus station, dreading the 46 minute journey with weak bladder over speed bumps to Heysham via marvellous Morecambe. I nearly got off at the Royal for a wee and walked the rest.

I survived, with only the minor issue of how to pass seven (7) hours before the 02:15 (stupid time) ferry to Douglas.

Shame I’d only been here to finish Lancashire at the micro only a month ago.

The Bookmakers is great, but I still felt a slight resentment it had edged out of the Guide a high quality Thwaites gastropub like the Royal (another one).

But I doubt the folk ordering their seafood linguine in a Peter Kay accent cared about GBG status, or the impressive handpumps saying “IPA”, “Gold” and “Amber”. Let’s not fall out over Amber.

I had tea (or is it supper ?), a fish and chip scoring NFCSS 3.5 that needed ketchup, so I asked for it.

“Finished with that, chief ?” said the nice man 20 minutes later, spotting a licked clean plate.

The IPA just got better and better, as Baa Baa’s face reveals. A cool, foamy NBSS 4, fresh from the Ribble Valley (or is it Wolverhampton ? I can’t keep up).

High scores for the soundtrack, too; the original and best”Killing Me Softly”,

edging out Jamie Cullum and (checks notes), the Eastenders theme by Nick Berry.

“Every Loser Wins” sang Nick Berry, and the Royal thrives despite losing its GBG entry.

A Chardonnay lady insists her husband forsake his seat in the sun for an inside table as the temperature dips to 17 degrees, and a couple compare holiday notes;

“I wouldn’t bother with the Spanish steps; it’s just a pile of steps“. True dat.

On that basis the 11th century graves outside the remains of St Patrick’s Chapel are “just graves“,

and the sunset over Morecambe Bay is “just a sunset“, of course.

But you know better than that.