retiredmartin

9th February 2023.

On my weekly trips back to Waterbeach (“home”) to entertain my parents with readings from my blog I can at least get the blog up-to-date, as long as Dad doesn’t the internet box off.

What I can’t do is leave the village, the northern exit (the brewery quarter) closed and the middle one near the Indian restaurant subject to 15 minute delays.

On this Thursday, it would be quicker to drive home to Sheffield than to travel the 10 miles up the A10 to Ely.

Several disgruntled tradesmen joined me in the Brewery Tap at the Golden Hour of 16:00,

timing their arrival with the traditional playing of Sheryl Crow.

Regular readers, probably the Patronised ones, will recall that the Brewery Tap isn’t a brewery tap (anymore); it’s just a solid boozer that used to serve the barracks and has of late been filling a gap caused by the tragic closure of The Sun*.

In all my years in Waterbeach I’d only ever been in the Tap half a dozen times, which says more about the quality of The Sun and my wandering than the pub, which is friendly and comfortable.

But I’m not the one ordering the first cask beer out of the taps (Wherry or Elgood’s Cambridge) and join the hip folk drinking Guinness.

In fact, the first five pints ordered (and they were all pints) were Guinness, and I doubt a Beavertown pump or cans of low alcohol craft would change that much.

They come to their “third place” for the warmth, the crisps, the moan about the roads with their mates, the pub dog, the Kylie on the jukebox.

The Guinness, lacking that pretentious shamrock or heart, is distinctive and refreshing but rather dull. It’s 10p under a fiver, mind, and that’s not a lot more than a pint of cask lottery round here.

Talking of cask lottery, I told myself I’d hang around for 20 minutes and if anyone ordered a Wherry I’d have a half. But they never did.

And then C******y came on,

and it was time to go.

*More on The Sun to follow.