retiredmartin
retiredmartin
Martin
Retired NHS, doing long walks around UK and the world to record the great bits. Focused on Good Beer Guide pubs and live music.
Latest Posts
September 2026. Sheffield. With the new Good Beer Guide about to drop (ugh), and a big trip this weekend I didn’t want to go chasing lone GBG 26 entries these last few days. But as you’ll know my brain doesn’t respond well to being...
September 2026. Manchester. Catching up with Mrs RM in Manchester after our respective trips I really wanted a proper meal, on a plate, with a pint, in a glass, in a pub. Sometimes pub food in Manchester can mean pizza or bao buns or...
September 2026. Manchester. Early September is always an odd time for this #PubMan, with the new Good Beer Guide about to drop* (ugh), a recovery period after the annual music festival down in Dorset, and the change in the weather...
Playing Cluedo With Pub Names.
September 2026. Markfield. Leicestershire. I wasn’t looking forward to the long slog home from Dorset on Monday morning. For a start, the campervan battery had been judged “marginal” by KwikFit, and with Mrs RM A.W.O.L. in Prague I faced...
September 2026. End of the Road. Dorset. Four days on Cranborne Chase, 1% of my whole year, and again the time flies by, a “festival marking the passing of time“, as James sagely noted last year. I’m here to discover new music, eat too...
September 2026. End of the Road. Dorset. A dry End of the Road ’26 in every sense. Taking a break from all but the strongest of the craft IPAs, instead hitting the fruit smoothies hard each morning. The winner was, obviously, the Kale,...
September 2026. End of the Road Festival. Dorset. 2025 saw a biblical deluge at End of the Road; this year we had the last heatwave of the year and a campervan turned into a sauna as I returned for my daily snooze mid-afternoon. Still,...
September 2026. Cranborne Chase. Dorset. Pubs and football and Chinese takeaways are all well and good, but it’s people who really interest me. Take the people Mrs RM and I brought into the world. What explains Matthew’s musical taste...
September 2026. Duston. Northampton. You left me in the Squirrels in Duston, having volunteered to leave the pub (kitchen closed by 8) in search of food for James, Matt and Emma. And they thought Oates was a hero in 1912. Five steps...
September 2026. Sheffield to Northampton. Yes ! I’m alive, just back from four (4) days without internet (unless you stand in a field of sheep in Cranborne Chase). Lots of exciting music reviews from End of the Road ’26 to come, but...
September (YES !!!) 2026. Sheffield. Goodness knows what posts you’re going to get the next few days as I head into the internet wasteland that is Cranborne Chase, so this may be my last for a while. I expect you were hoping for...
An exciting looking travel map for a change, though it’s been a quiet couple of weeks back from Wales, as I sort out Dad’s paperwork (it never ends), delete photos, and bring the blog completely up-to-date for the first time since COVID....
August 2026. Lutterworth. The Great British Bank Holiday never disappoints; our trip home from visiting Dad wrecked by bumps at Grantham and, after a switch from A1 to M1, Leicester. We paused at Lutterworth, not as exciting as Shepshed...
August 2026. Cambridge. I drove down to Waterbeach yesterday to see Dad. The back pain is worse than the pain from lack of recognition now, and I at least got to watch “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang”. Having sold Sunnyside I’ve got to find...