retiredmartin

April 2024. Harpenden.

Unless Borehamwood has come up in the world since my last visit (2001) I can safely say Harpenden is the poshest town in Hertfordshire.

And that’s despite a less than glamorous underpass at the station.

The number of bistros and Thai restaurants is a good indicator of prosperity, and although the pubs were winding down that Sunday evening we found Taylor Tar Thai thriving, and rightly so.

That’s sticky rice in the wicker basket, but you know that.

Apart from a cuddly friend for Baa Baa Toure,

I can’t imagine ever needing to buy anything in Harpenden apart from sourdough and coronation chicken,

and the pubs all seem a bit samey now that the Mad Squirrel has gone.

So thank goodness for the Cross Keys, the blue light enticing us in for one last half and loo stop before a night in the campervan.

My vaguest of vague recollections of this GBG perennial from a dozen years or more back would have been of a smartish “country pub in town” too, but the bashed Baylis & Harding bottles tells a tale.

“Can we join your table” asks Mrs RM.

“You can…but be warned I’ve just had curry” says Geordie bloke. You don’t get that in the upmarket Fullers pub.

“Excuse him, he’s from The North” explains his better half.

“I’ve come a long way for a man of my looks and intelligence” he says, when I try to pin him down on his exact origin.

He, like everyone else tonight, doesn’t seem very Hertfordshire, but then that’s something you’d see in Waterbeach as well where the pubgoing is done by immigrants from Newcastle and North Kent or Newry.

The Side Pocket here is a clear 3.5; with a lime and soda as well I’m charged £2.25 which just sounds wrong.

OK, the view is of the back of Northern Man,

but they make us feel welcome,  and that’s all you can really ask if a pub.