retiredmartin

July 2023. Uttoxeter.

I consulted the bus timetable to return from Kingstone to Uttoxeter; it seemed to suggest I should have left the previous week.

Still, the alternate walk back via Loxley was rather less stressful than the outward slog,

helped by the armful of questionable toffees (top) grabbed from a jar as I left the Shrewsbury Arms. My conscience was clear given I’d just paid £8.40 for a pint and a few chips.

Gorgeous views to Loxley Bank,

and Blount Green Henge, better than that one on the A303 if you ask me.

I had an hour till I needed to escape town and the hordes disgorging from Uttoxeter Racecourse, time for one pub.

My chosen (non-Bass) revisit, which will remain anonymous, saw me standing at the near empty bar staring at a Pedi pump, awaiting service. Three locals strode to the bar, and the landlord says “What you having ?”. I’m not sure what got me more grumpy, the blatant serving of the locals first or the lack of a “Oh no, that chap was first“. Or perhaps bloke in their 50s really are invisible.

I left, and headed into town, where my attention was drawn to a gaggle of outside drinkers in the courtyard of the White Hart.

Yes, the Uttoxeter Brewery Tap, and you thought that was the Night Inn, didn’t you ?

OK, it’s just a few tables out in the sun, open weekends in the summer, and “sun” and “summer” aren’t really words we recognise this year in lil ‘ol England, but it was cheery and the beer was foamy and tasty (NBSS 3+) and I see no reason why it can’t have a separate GBG entry next year (except it would keep the Vaults out).

A lady visited on her “last night as a single woman” to buy her daughter the Walkers crisps that seemed to be elusive in the town’s other pubs. Elsewhere, there was much debate about the merits of the lined glasses, and a general consensus that CAMRA was to blame.

At the station a pleasantly intoxicated young racegoer asked me a series of increasingly bewildering questions about the direction of the train, the tube from St Pancras to London Bridge, and the difference between Tonbridge and Tunbridge.

I was (genuinely) amazed to hear that a 20 year old had never been to London before; she was amazed I could give her directions to Wadhurst Castle from Tunbridge Wells by pub.

And then she asked me for career advice. I always give youngsters the same advice, and it’s NOT “Never ask for a taster”.