TAKING DOWN THE TREE

January 2024. Waterbeach.

I’ve just returned from the weekly 3 day trip down to the parents (mostly OK), where I find myself becoming slightly unhinged by being indoors for more than a couple of hours. Mum and Dad’s house is so brightly decorated it can be seen from an Elon Musk satellite.

You’ll be delighted to know Mrs RM took down our tree on the 27th while I was in Grimsby, probably while listening to the Low Christmas album.

If I had my way in our house (and clearly I don’t) the deccies would go up the day after Retired Martin Day (which is on the 22nd) and come down on the 24th, in line with what all the shops do.

Waterbeach still has its trees up,

but you can escape the glitter with a walk through tiny Cow Hollow Wood, a mere five minutes from Chung Hwa and the Sun.

The Millennium wood is a quagmire, and the sole other walker is wearing “appropriate footwear”, unlike your hero.

I give up thoughts of a proper walk and head for the neighbourhood Chef & Brewer pub.

Well, “restaurant with hand pumps”, anyway.

I’m greeted at that table blocking my way by the greeter, explain I only want a pint, and am told I need to us the rooms at the front. Perhaps a place that separates diners from drinkers so blatantly can’t be called a pub. But do I care.

I’m at least allowed to approach the bar, where my two first choices are “Available Soon”,

and I know no-one with a good word to say about London Glory (Fuller’s tribute ?), and get a card machine waved at me with £5.00 on it for my last Rudolph of the year.

It was OK, a reluctant 3 if you like, but as the only drinker in a chain pub with a dozen punters the day before schools go back I wasn’t surprised if turnover was slow.

Nice soundtrack though.

On my last visit 4 years ago the beer range had been rather more ambitious;

but every visit seems interest in cask wax and wane, and I also note the Waterbeach history section in the Gents has been replaced with a more generic Cambridge display.

PLEASE NOTE : Waterbeach is NOT Cambridge.

Mind you, strictly the Bridge isn’t in Waterbeach either. It’s Clayhithe, home to the River Cam conservators. Note their yellow dredger;

As everywhere, boundaries matter.

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Published by retiredmartin

Retired NHS, doing long walks around UK and the world to record the great bits. Focused on Good Beer Guide pubs and live music.

6 thoughts on “TAKING DOWN THE TREE”

  3. Don’t put decorations up and then you don’t have to take them down. That’s worked well enough for us this year.
    “The Millennium wood is a quagmire”. So too apparently is Tim’s Picture House not two miles from me.

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    1. I s’pose he – Tim – does have an interest in keeping in a government which renders local authorities so poor that they can’t afford public health inspectors then, yes.

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  4. Oh, so that’s what a conservator ship is then.

    Don’t know why Britney made all that fuss.

    So you had two first choices then, and not a first and second, Martin? I wouldn’t have rated those two quite as equals myself.

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