November 2024. Bath.
I woke up this morning in a windowless hotel room to terrible news. I’m sure you heard it too. The bad guy has won, the next 4 years will be torment.
But enough of City’s defeat in Lisbon and the End of the Pep era, and celebrate the fact we can still meet half a dozen friends in wonderful pub towns like Bath and talk about brewery closures and whether it’s Bank’s or Banks’s.
I donned my Bass Star T-shirt, took a photo of the GBG pages to remind me what’s new,
and scrambled around on Waterbeach platform trying to load my e-ticket before realising I had to get paper tickets (why?).
In Sheffield they squash 300 people travelling to Manchester into a single carriage and pray. Folk going London to Bristol get a whole carriage to themselves, which just shows how much more productive we are in The North .
In 2022 we had a day of Somerset drizzle, yesterday saw solid grey,
but the sun always shines in pubs. Jon and Tracey the Somerset almost locals, Kentish and Stafford Pauls, and Sheffield Will ensured we wouldn’t fall foul of that ban on solo drinkers.
I can’t be bothered to give you room by room accounts of the pubs, I’m sure Kentish Paul can, and he’d been inexplicably denied the pleasure of the Old Green Tree in 2022.
This is to Bath what the Free Press is to Cambridge or the Briton’s Protection is to Manchester, a civilised drinking house.
Just a shame that, as before, the (new on) Butcombe was distinctly average, but that was to be the last bum note in Bath till the very end.
The proposed title for this crawl was “Making sure Paul Bailey eats lunch”, but some folk believe eating’s cheating and Will left us here to try and find a pub charging under £6 a pint.
But as you can see from the route map, we weren’t going to be hard to catch up with…
retiredmartin 
I was about to say, but someone else got there first:
https://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/international/trump-urges-caution-as-election-may-have-been-rigged-20241106252298
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Exactly what I was thinking.
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With out a doubt my favourite pub in Bath.
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Congratulations Martin, on producing the first write-up on yesterday’s excellent day out in Bath. A day of superlatives, before being brought back to earth with the thundering crash of this morning’s crap news from across the Atlantic.
Sorry I didn’t make it to the Ring O’ Bells, but by the time Tracey left me at the station, and I’d found somewhere for a much needed wee and coffee (in that order), I’d already used my ticket to access those facilities on the platform side of the barrier. (Brilliant flat white, plus chicken & bacon sandwich from “The White Feather Coffee Co” on platform 2).
My write-up, might take a little longer, as I’ve a long weekend of decorating, curtain fixing and garden wall re-building, ahead of me!
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In truth you didn’t miss much in the Ring O’ Bells, Paul, and you got full value in six (?) excellent pubs. I even enjoyed the Salamander despite the emphasis on food.
And I popped in that White Feather Coffee Co this morning for Americano and excellent sausage roll.
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Weather looks pretty warm. How come no shorts?
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You’d have worn shorts. I presume you’re familiar with all those Bath pubs ? And would like to be in them right now !
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I’d rather be anywhere else right now.
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Commiserations, Dave. I assume you’ll be moving to the UK asap?
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I think they’d miss American cheese, Will.
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You wonder why you stay.
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Martin said it was warm, but when I challenged him he checked and found that it was 11celcius (that’s 52 in American).
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11 ABOVE freezing. So warm.
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Yes Will, had I looked at the weather forecast before leaving Stafford I wouldn’t have packed a jacket.
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