Right, now I’ve reached the end of September I can bring you the highlights; none of this posting a summary two (2) days early nonsense.
Nothing particularly startling about the travel map;
but September 2026 was a notable month for good and bad reasons.
Beginning with the privilege of taking James and Matt and Emma to Cranborne Chase to see Geese and Angine,
and rather more delicate artists.
That dodgy shoulder was really playing up by Sunday night, though the 5 hour journey back on Monday with a miracle back support seemed to cure rather than kill.
Mid-month brought another sporting injury (also slowly healing) in Goldthorpe, perhaps punishment for visiting new Beer Guide pubs before the good book officially dropped.
I’d visited sixteen of those new entries, one a day, before the end of the month, All of them deserved their debut, though I may be a bit bored of brewery taps, micropubs and Spoonies by year-end. Why (oh why) can’t someone build some new late Victorian boozers selling Holt or Bass ?
So my Pub of the Month was a revisit, the Rose & Crown in western Chesterfield with the best mid-afternoon atmosphere you could hope for, and a wonderful young barperson.
Beer of the Month came in London, and it’s rare you’d say that. Under a fiver, too, for the Kent Pale at Limehouse’s wonderful Clement Atlee.
Back north to Dewsbury for Meal of the Month, the nehari at Desi Nashta proving that Bradford doesn’t have all the best curries.
I know how much you love my mainstream music recommendations, and September has been a stellar month for female singer-songwriters you’ve never heard of. Lizzie McAlpine, Stef Chura, Julia Jacklin, Matilda Mann, Gia Margaret and more.
I’ve mainly been listening to Vancouver’s True Mountain Laurel, whose debut record lasts 21 minutes and 40 seconds, which is about my attention span these days. I will have played this one 2,140 times by December;
We’ll be spending quite a bit of October down in Kent and Sussex as more parental dramas dominate our lives, but I guess a month in Rye has some recompense.
