July 2025. Blackheath. Rowley Regis. Two hours is quite a long time to be waiting for pub opening in a Black Country town that isn’t Wolverhampton; I think I managed an hour in Stourbridge once, and 20 minutes in Halesowen. So, after walking all the streets around the market, and pausing to consider a night… Continue reading PRICE BOSTIN’ BLACKHEATH
Author: 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.
SCRATCHING THE SURFACE OF ROWLEY REGIS
July 2025. Blackheath. Rowley Regis. Birmingham was celebrating Ozzy and the Sabbath that Monday; I was there to hand deliver some post-probate documents to Wesleyan Assurance, an astonishing edifice resembling the Kremlin Department of Health HQ in Leeds. Dealing with Mum’s estate has been a frustrating and wearying task but at least today I get… Continue reading SCRATCHING THE SURFACE OF ROWLEY REGIS
OZZY
July 2025. Birmingham. Back from Hull, and straight off on the train to Birmingham the day after Ozzy finally left the stage for a final time. And tonight he’s left us forever. I’m not one to mourn the dead, but the outpouring of love for Ozzy tonight has been quite something. In 2019 Julia Jacklin was… Continue reading OZZY
PAULL WITH TWO “L”s
July 2025. Paull. East Yorkshire. I’m enjoying the new WordPress features showing which cities my blog views come from (the non-bot ones, anyway). Some of these places are plain made up; I do feel an obligation to visit any place I’ve not been to, especially if Blackpool Jane has beat me to it. Who or… Continue reading PAULL WITH TWO “L”s
ST. PATRICK’S, PATRINGTON. THE QUEEN OF HOLDERNESS
July 2025. Patrington. East Yorkshire. Our triumphant return from Spurn (hey ! that rhymes) was tinged with reflection that this might have been our last visit to this beguiling part of the East Yorkshire coast, captured beautifully here by BRAPA. Not just because I’m fast approaching middle-age, but the prospects of new GBG entries must… Continue reading ST. PATRICK’S, PATRINGTON. THE QUEEN OF HOLDERNESS
The tide is high but I’m holding on (to my Spurn tick)
July 2025. Spurn Head. Back in 2019 I wrote about the need for Hull CAMRA to get a move on and re-open the Dolphin, just off Spurn Head’s western edge. Six years on, no progress. Still, let’s blame COVID and Corbyn, eh ? With the threatened deluge nowhere in sight, I set off for Spurn… Continue reading The tide is high but I’m holding on (to my Spurn tick)
EAST YORKSHIRE HAS FALLEN (INTO THE SEA ?)
July 2025. Kilnsea. East Yorkshire. No big achievement to complete East Yorkshire (Humberside to you and me), only ever half a dozen new entries, but this year our final tick takes us back to one of the remote entries, an hour east of Hull past wheat fields, campsites, bikers and stalls selling soft fruit at… Continue reading EAST YORKSHIRE HAS FALLEN (INTO THE SEA ?)
POSH MACC
July 2025, Macclesfield. It wasn’t even 5pm and Mrs RM was already winding down the pub crawl round Macclesfield. Unlike some folk I could name, she hadn’t started at 9am, either. Shamefully, she was about to call an Uber, an Uber !, to take her us back to Sutton Hall, but only once she’d seen… Continue reading POSH MACC
CASK BEATS THE HEATWAVE IN MACC’S REDWILLOW
July 2025. Macclesfield. An overnighter in Sutton Hall just south of Macclesfield, where the rain stopped for only the second time since 1988. The walk into town along the canal towpath was pleasant, and gave Mrs RM welcome respite from those Sheffield hills. The problem was the pubs, far too many of them, and it… Continue reading CASK BEATS THE HEATWAVE IN MACC’S REDWILLOW
TICKING ON THE MACCLESFIELD CANAL
July 2025. Gurnett. Macclesfield. “Gurnett ? Never heard of it“. Neither had I before the new GBG introduced Ye Olde King’s Head to the world. I’d fancied coming here on the Old Codgers Macclesfield Meander last month, with it just a mile south along the canal, but the company from the Two Mudge(i)es and Frome… Continue reading TICKING ON THE MACCLESFIELD CANAL
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