retiredmartin

My “statutory obligation” summary of the previous month, a post I was tempted to title “56 pubs, 2 BlueSky cancellations and a funeral“, but thought better of it; it’s not the done thing to mock BlueSky.

I wondered what I’d done to upset the woke Twitter, as my trips to Greater S****horpe haven’t been blogged yet.

A return to normality, of sorts, after commemorating Mum’s life on the 4th, and some exciting trips to see family and friends stretching into Hampshire.

56 different pubs, from posh Doncaster on Rugby night,

to gentlefolk Mansfield.

A cathartic post-funeral yomp round Mansfield produced (unbelievably) my most-UK read post ever (ever),

a short note on keg Mansfield in a flat roof estate pub getting 2,500 views in 24 hours.

You might think folk just want to read about cask and cookies in classic York boozers like the Golden Ball, but you’d be wrong.

A worrying number of pubs added to the Top 100 in February; my publishers (Faber Fiction) may have some issue when I deliver the first draft of my book.

But you can’t not have the Stalybridge Station Buffet in there,

particularly when young Quosh is in there so often.

Good company in the Rock at Chiddingstone Hoath, too, and always great to get octogenarians out.

The landlady at the Rock was SO good I can’t not name it my Pub of the Month, so I’ll have to give Emsworth’s Coal Exchange the coveted Beer of the Month award for its HSB.

I’ll hope for moments as magical as that one in Emsworth in March, but our only confirmed trip is to a city without any Untappd check-ins. Make of that what you will.