retiredmartin

March 2024. Newport (Shropshire).

Oooh, look how close I got to a emotional return to High Offley’s Anchor. Actually, I’d like to go with BRAPA; he should make it his last Guide tick, 7pm on a freezing Thursday in February.

We could conceivably have parked a mile or so from the Anchor, but it was dark, and freezing, and Newport had a recommended free spot.

And if you were in any doubt which Newport this is;

Is this the BEST Newport ? Well, no.

But it did have a free parking place by a canal that was rising by the minute,

though minutes after we began the 10 minute walk towards town and a rare new Guide entry the skies opened (aren’t they always open ?) and horizontal rain started to lash Mrs RM with a vengeance.

I thought she might be washed away and end up in another Newport, and no-one wants that, so at the junction I directed her to the refuge of a Joule of a pub.

There was no way I was standing still to take a photo so here’s one Google took over.

I was in the New Inn on a Sunday night in that golden summer of 2017 for live music in the attractive but very cluttered conservatory.

It was packed then, and we seemed to set a trend of sodden couples taking refuge on mid-afternoon Wednesday when a lot of pubs would be closed until later.

Mrs RM was presented with a pint of Pale, and more importantly a seat by the fire and some blankets from one of those baskets saying “TAKE ME !” you expect in Brunning & Price.

Indeed, feeling middle-class, with all-day opening and blankets and “toasty” fire suddenly felt a virtue, and if Joules houses are full of fakery I think we cared little.

Alannah Myles sang about “Mississippi in the middle of a dry spell“;

the closest we were getting to that was Mississippi Mud Pie but you rarely see that on pub menus any more, except no doubt in Sleaford, and they weren’t serving food till 5pm, or we’d have stayed.

We left after a pint; an group of four students had 8 pints of Pale and Blonde between them while we tentatively peered outside, so pubs aren’t dead to the young yet.

One of them was a Welsh farmer, offering his fellow students venison on the cheap.

“Do you want a whole deer ?“. It wouldn’t have fitted in our campervan fridge.

The rain abated, we ran for the next pub.