retiredmartin

January 2024. Waterbeach.

I spent Monday to Friday down with my parents, occasionally getting Dad out of the house as the weather gradually improves. It won’t be long before it’s summer and I can take him to pub gardens again.

In the meantime, I was going slightly mad sitting in a living room heated to 26 degrees (we have the heating off in Sheffield) watching “The Chase”.

By Wednesday I cracked and nipped out to The Sun.

You know the Sun, you’ll probably feel it’s your own local by now.

Have I shown you the (empty) 5 litre bottle of Cheddleton before ?

Closed Monday and Tuesday, so there’s always a concern that the cask won’t be great at 6pm on the Wednesday.

But it is.

Quite a collection there; two dark beers from Hailsham and Bideford, instead of the usual Woodfordes/Black Sheep/Youngs line-up.

The Lister’s is cool and rich (3.5+), so good I stay for a rapid Dark Night (3.5).

There’s not even a Chung Hwa waiting for me at the end.

But a 20 minute chat with Bev, Landlady Helen’s stalwart stand-in, is all I need to feel human again.

Bev is from Rossendale, that cradle of the Industrial Revolution just below Burnley. She corrects my pronunciations of EVERY Lancastrian town, including the one I’d just blogged about, and reminds me why we need pubs to unwind.