retiredmartin

You’re getting these short reports from The Final Countdown before it’s rudely interrupted by our annual visit to Cranborne Chase (aka Sixpenny brewery land) for the End of the Road festival.

I’m there for the usual motley array of teenage angst and Americana and Bao buns, with little interest in the headliners who I saw at their peak thirty-three (33) years ago. Really, who wants to see 57 year old blokes ?*

The Pixies provide the soundtrack as I inexorably move from fourteen pubs needed to thirteen (13) on a late summer evening in Plockton as the journey time ticks up to 17 hours (plus ferries).

But you’ll probably expect any post about Plockton to include the Local Hero theme, and as all good pubs play Dire Straits these days (ask Mrs RM) I’m happy to oblige.

Never seen the film, but since it’s about Scotland I assume it’s one where Clare Grogan plays football in a kilt. Clare had a new (Altered Images) album out this week; we listened to it on the way up.

I digress. We had a half hour journey as night fell to our pitch for the night, and I needed to get Plockton’s second tick ticked (actually it was the midges that were to ruin our evening).

The GBG App is convinced there’s two pubs called Plockton Inn. Think of the fun when one of them drops out and BRAPA does the wrong one.

The one facing the harbour is called Plockton HOTEL, and has a bloke who looks like Action Man coming out.

Inside, it’s chaotic. Four brilliant staff attempting to deal with the demands of two dozen diners who have lost any patience that the pandemic might have created.

Interesting cask, but a glass collection point reveals what the locals drink;

The overworked barman was removed from pulling pints of Tennent’s to find bottles of wine, meaning a 5 minute wait for Mrs RM’s half of Jarl (NBSS 3.5+), but at least she had this view from a seat on the edge of the harbour, one of the best beer gardens in the world;

Honestly, it was just gorgeous.

Thirteen to go !

*That’ll me by the monitor, screaming “Monkey Gone to Heaven” and drinking hot cider on Sunday night.