retiredmartin

September 2024. South Yorkshire.

I guess you like to imagine us pub tickers all living in one huge gated community, lounging about all day comparing notes on micro opening hours and mascot names. The truth is, we all live in our own gated communities, and meet up entirely by accident in Dronfield or at Northern Premier League fixtures.

Unless we do what is known in the parlance as “Being DES“, when we’ll do taxi duties to allow a fellow #PubMan to get half a dozen tricky ticks under their 36″ belt.

Last week I was BRAPA‘s taxi.

Quite an easy gig for me, five (not six, read on) pubs around Greater Rotherham I’d done alone and with Mrs RM that last week, so I knew they’d be open, and that Simon wouldn’t be picked on for his weird marker colour choice.

All I ask from Simon is that he puts his hand up when he needs a wee stop, and doesn’t add crumbs to the huge pile of crumbs in the footwell of Mrs RM’s Citroen.

My reward, apart from fantastic company, is another chance to explore the suburbs of western Rotherham on the way to pick Si up at Mexborough,

contemplating the contrasts between council houses in Rawmarsh and stone cottages in Upper Haugh. I expect a Greene King Wacky Warehouse diner in the Guide next year.

Because I like burning money, I cough up 50p to park behind the Mexborough Spoons where I’ll meet BRAPA if he remembers to get off the train.

Note that Spoons regards the Coronation Street version of the new GBG to be BIGGER than my Emmerdale copy,

which means I’ve less pubs to tick. And you think I’m daft. #emmernotcorrie

Simon has to cross a busy road from the station to reach me, and unlike Stafford Paul he waits for cars to stop, so I have 10 minutes to order and consume a small Spoons breakfast (£2.99, 435 calories) and calm down Dick and Dave before they meet Colin (top).

There’s a barely touched pint of Guinness* on the next table, I swear it sat there 27.5 minutes. If I hadn’t been driving I’d have drunk it; is that bad ?

I leave Simon to do his BRAPing in peace while I explore Mexborough’s high street (patience !) and you’ll have to wait a week for his verdict on the Old Market Hall.

And I leave him at the Deer Park Tap, a bucolic drive through leafy Thrybergh,

while I explore the adjoining tat shop,

and walk the bounds of Thrybergh village,

the highlight of which is the long-closed Royal Oak‘s sign.

In fact, I’ve done my minimum 10,000 steps by the time Simon is (im)patiently waiting outside in the car park of the Deer Park, tapping his watch.

It’s only 10 minutes drive into posh Rotherham (Whiston) and Sitwell Park’s genteel golf club, where we encounter the first moment of pub peril.

It’s packed, there’s a wake. We’re not dressed for a wake.

Simon has to dodge some inquisition about his relation to the deceased, but he’s used to dealing with “wake pressure” by embellishing his conversation with a thespian flourish, and gets his pint underneath the golfing trophies.

Pub 4, barely two hours in, and it’s at this p(o)int I notice Simon is already a bit giggly, not helped by the Sizzling Homestead‘s lone beer being Old Peculiar.

Prompted by Mrs RM’s concern for #PubMen health, I make Si eat half of my beige sharing plate.

Mmmm.

Now, I’d hate BRAPA to fail to complete the GBG this year (he only needs another 1,688 pubs in 49 weeks) by a single tick, having persuaded him to declare on five rather than the usual half-dozen, but four strong beers with a busy Friday’ working’s work (whatever that is) saw him calling time at the wonderful Wilton, where he confirmed with the estimable landlady that this was, indeed, a blanket.

Somehow, I delivered him at the door of Rotherham Interchange a minute before his train. You don’t get that sort of service from a Greasbrough Uber.

* “Undrunk Guinness” was Damien Rice’s follow-up to that song about Aung San Suu Kyi. FACT.