It’s FA Cup Preliminary Round Weekend, when the big boys come in, and Prescot Cables v Trafford looking the tie of a storm-assisted round. I’ll be there if my car passes it’s MOT*. Prescot is a long way in every sense from the western Cotswolds and Cirencester and where I finished my latest excursion. Despite… Continue reading CIRENCESTER – NICE PUBS …
BEDMINSTER COMES TO STROUD
Stroud is an OK town surrounded by superlative countryside. Most folk will know “Cider with Rosie” land to the north, but I’ve always preferred the more industrialised (i.e.the tractors there still work) area to the south. The Forest Green Rovers FC ground is one of my favourites, veggie burgers notwithstanding. Minchinhampton and Rodborough Common are easy… Continue reading BEDMINSTER COMES TO STROUD
THE WORCESTERSHIRE WAY
Bewdley is more than basic ex-Banks pubs; it’s like a Georgian Barmouth by the Severn. On 2016’s summer day, the riverside was packed with day-tripping Black Country folk enjoying chips and beer by the river. On the walk to the Rising Sun an old couple stopped us on a junction to enquire about a good… Continue reading THE WORCESTERSHIRE WAY
BANKS’S MILD IN BEWDLEY
Exam results are out today, with my son’s Maths and Sciences results (well done James) reminding me of my own prowess. Physics CSE Grade 4 means I should know there’s water in beer, even if I don’t know whether the notation is h2o or co2. As should be obvious by now, my lack of analytical… Continue reading BANKS’S MILD IN BEWDLEY
MOULTON’S LION – SALT OF THE EARTH
I finished the Cheshire Guide entries at the weekend, and the county’s new GBG pubs were as varied as you could hope. There was a clutch of entries south of Northwich, many with the irksome opening hours that Beer Guide tickers love so much. I seem to have missed Moulton off my travels, and I… Continue reading MOULTON’S LION – SALT OF THE EARTH
WINSFORD – SUBSTANCE OVER FORM
South Cheshire has some of the biggest contrasts between adjacent places anywhere. Old fashioned Nantwich struggles against craft-capital Crewe, while Sandbach and Holmes Chapel feel a world apart from the salt mining towns on the Weaver and Wheelock rivers. Middlewich has a pleasant canal network, but it was harder to see the merits of Winsford… Continue reading WINSFORD – SUBSTANCE OVER FORM
WARRINGTON – LOOK UP
When Mrs RM and I first started crossing into the The North (at Catchems Corner) 25 years ago, Warrington was a bit of a bellwether town. Multi-room pubs, boarded-up shops, folk dressed up for their curry as if they were going to a wedding. Don’t see that in Cambridge. I still stay there occasionally; there’s half a… Continue reading WARRINGTON – LOOK UP
SWANSEA – SKATEBOARDS, SPOONS (AGAIN) AND SUMMING-UP
I am now an expert on UK indoor skatepark exteriors, having taken my son Matt to nearly all the UK’s scruffy looking shacks. The best one is in Warrington, the one in Stockport is genuinely terrifying but at least there’s good pubs nearby. The discussion* about Swansea‘s revival tends to focus on the marina, but… Continue reading SWANSEA – SKATEBOARDS, SPOONS (AGAIN) AND SUMMING-UP
DRAUGHT BASS & JOE’S ICE CREAM IN THE MUMBLES
2015/16 season was the first for a while I failed to get a ticket for Swansea v City, which has always a good chance to get soaked in May and make a few more inroads into Glamorgan’s huge slice of the Beer Guide (93 entries !). While Matt competed at the scary looking skate park,… Continue reading DRAUGHT BASS & JOE’S ICE CREAM IN THE MUMBLES
DEEP SLADE DARK BY THE GOWER
We were on the home strait now, with a last Welsh stop in Gowerton on the edge of Swansea. Two minutes off the M4,unless you’ve got a tall campervan in which case it’s twenty minutes to avoid the railway bridge. The bikes came off the back for the first time Caernarfon but oddly only I… Continue reading DEEP SLADE DARK BY THE GOWER
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