retiredmartin

August 2025. Corley. Coventry.

We’d booked our usual B & B chain hotel in Brum from Sunday night, but there’s cheaper rooms at the start of the weekend, like the glamorous (for £40) Days Inn on the M6 just past Coventry.

Not very useful for getting you to Coventry on foot, or anywhere interesting,

But 20 minutes walk south from the mini Waitrose that provided Mrs RM’s less-than-bargain tea lies Keresley, home to an unremarkable shopping precinct,

an unfussy church,

and an unexplained mystery;

Apple Rain : On the evening of Monday 12 December 2011 hundreds of apples reportedly fell from the sky over the junction between Kelmscote Road and Keresley Road. This incident received both local and national media coverage and, although it drew comment by the Met Office, it still remains unexplained.

One pub, a mile away from the heart of the village (pop. 783),

but seemingly with the whole of the village are inside the Hare & Hounds on a Friday night. I counted 40 inside, and a car park so rammed you have to log you reg in the key pad or get a huge fine. I guess you could, theoretically, park here and walk to Coventry City FC, taking a tub of Haribo to munch while you watch a nil-nil with Hull.

It’s unfussy, more aimed as much at dartsman as diner (half hour wait for food),

and keen to hide its unexpected treasures.

Nine pints Carling to one pint of Bass is the accepted ration round these Cov suburbs,

and in truth I feared a bit for it in our heatwave, but it’s a solid NBBS 3, albeit a bit milky at the end.

An unimproved pub, though not always in a good way, with a tinny HiFi struggling with “Sorted for Es and Whizz” and the UK’s biggest collection of pub cliches.

If it ever makes the GBG (it won’t), Simon will love it.