A SNATCHED 20 MINUTES IN THE SUN

January 2025. Waterbeach.

Coming to the tough-to-write posts now. Mum took a turn for the worse over the weekend, and I’d hardly be able to leave her for the next two days. When I did pop out, for her favoured pineapple juice, I nipped in The Sun to clear my thoughts.

Pubs are good like that. It’s not the beer,

it’s the chance to chat to the landlady (or her daughter) and the chap drinking halves in the corner,

and just be alone with your thoughts.

One of those bottles would have been nice, but let the record show that Woodfordes, so often the unloved pump on the bar, delivered the goods that afternoon.

Nog and the Nelson’s both superb, helped by the Sun’s rapid task turnover. The Sun is not a pub for sippers of halves.

Mum didn’t even notice I’d been gone.

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Published by retiredmartin

Retired NHS, doing long walks around UK and the world to record the great bits. Focused on Good Beer Guide pubs and live music.

11 thoughts on “A SNATCHED 20 MINUTES IN THE SUN”

  1. “Pubs are good like that – and just be alone with your thoughts”.
    Absolutely, the more challenging the times, the more important the pub for a while.
    Wishing you and your mother well.

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  2. I recently read that people in the US now spend more time alone than ever before. I do think the pub can provide a place that eliminates this type of isolation especially in difficult moments. Sad event to deal with, but you do prove the value of the pub.

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  5. “Pubs are good like that.” You’re right. A few years ago when my mum was on her way out, she was in a nursing home in Wrexham and I had to go to a chemist to get her some medication. They told me it would take about half an hour so I went to a pub that I hadn’t even known was there. It was quiet, couple of blokes playing pool, another in a corner with his paper and me. The landlord was behind the bar. The conversation went something like this:
    What can I get you?
    Pint of Guinness please.
    There you go. Haven’t seen you before, are you new to Wrexham?
    No mate, I’m Wrexham born and bred, lived here for the first 18 years of my life. Here now because my mum’s on the way out.
    Oh mate I’m sorry. Do you want a whisky?
    Better not, got a lot to do this afternoon.
    It’s all right, I’ll get it yer.
    Thanks but better not.
    Fair play, but there’s one in the optic for you when you want it.

    It’s one of my most abiding regrets that I didn’t take that drink. It was offered in friendship and sympathy to a total stranger and a single whisky wouldn’t have hurt.

    Pubs are great aren’t they?

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  6. I agree. There’s a strange contradiction here, if you go to a pub with your mates, you’re going there to get plastered but if you go on your own, you’re an alcoholic. You can’t win can you?

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