February 2026. Sheffield.
One of the best things about retirement, and goodness knows it’s been epic, has been getting to meet nice people over a pint in comfy pubs.
And so it was that I finally met one of the many nice guys from Yorkshire, Rockin Rich(ard) Clark from Harrogate.
He’d been trying to arrange a catch-up for months, and it never quite worked, partly because I explode if I have to stay more than two days in the same place.
But last Thursday worked perfectly; no food in the house so a pizza and non-alcoholic Thornbridge beer in the Fargate for a half hour before Rich caught the train north. Mrs RM came along, she’s hardly left the house since Turin.
Reader, we were there, in the same seats, from 12 o’clock opening till gone 3pm. US Dick (no relation) will confirm that is nearly 2 hours. I have never spent so long in one place in my life, and I only moved to go to the bar (4 times) and loo (x times).
I suppose you want tasting notes ? Tough.
I’ll say this, Mrs RM and I started on that Green Mountain 0.5% before regaining sanity and moving back to Jaipur (more than twice what it costs in Spoons but hey ho), and then losing the plot again near the end;
I saw this post about pub pricing last night,
it’s probably been doing the rounds in some form for years. The killer lines are these ones;
Pubs allow you to stay for 10 minutes for a quick pint, or 3 hours for a chat about life, and politics and Harrogate. You’ll never have that conversation in an ASDA queue, or via Messenger.
Apart from Rich, the really interesting thing about the Fargate was how it changed over the course of that lunchtime.
Quiet at first, then swarmed by female groups, older couple, a smartly dressed West Indian gent with a cravat, the sort of people who you don’t expect to go to Sheffield pubs. And now they do.
retiredmartin 