April 2026. Wigan. My final Greater Manchester GBG26 newbie is a good couple of miles west of town, and which man doesn’t want a 45 minute slog through industrial wasteland and retail parks to an industrial estate brewery tap. Despite being in one of the world’s great pub towns, I decided on moderation, and had one...

April 2026. Wigan. Another weekend, another trip to Manchester, but this time for a rare Saturday gig. Not that the lack of football means Piccadilly is any quieter, Platform 14 showcasing the nation’s favourite train beers. Perhaps. A change from a train at Platform 14, toward Blackpool rather than Liverpool,...

April 2026. Guisborough. North Yorkshire. This next “pub” had been irritating me for a year or more with its Friday and Saturday 3pm-7pm hours, but you take the rough with the smooth as a GBG ticker, and Guisborough is a nice little saunter in the sun. The priory grounds are free to wander, and picnic, and flirt,...

April 2026. Skelton-in-Cleveland. North Yorkshire. By noon last Friday I’d clocked up 16k of steps, almost enough to wipe out a third Thursday night’s crispy beef calories, and I still had 3 hours to waste away before my straggler of a GBG “pub” opened. Let’s explore Skelton (pop. 6,535, similar to Waterbeach), one...

April 2026. Saltburn-by-the-Sea. I visited the Cleveland coast in last weekend’s heatwave, or at least that’s what it felt like with the radiant heat stronger than the air temperature. My irritating 3pm GBG opener (go on, guess what it is) meant half a day to kill by the seaside, admiring Saltburn’s floral displays,...

April 2026. Loftus. North Yorkshire. As an old Cleveland mining town with a population about the size of Waterbeach, Loftus didn’t promise much more than a couple of cheery micropubs, and the run of boarded up shops and chippies where the A174 meets the old station road is grim. But walk east up the hill from Mad...

April 2026. Loftus. North Yorkshire. I’d picked unsung Loftus for my campervan overnighter as it was free, a short bus ride to Staithes, and had a new GBG entry to tick. Sadly that was shut on Thursday, but next door Mad Alice’s was just opening, and I wasn’t going anywhere else. I outed myself as a Camra...

April 2026. Skinningrove. North Yorkshire. It wasn’t until the last few years of Beer Guide completion that I really got to appreciate the Scottish coastline, but I always assumed 30 years of ticking meant I knew most of our seaside villages. But apparently not. A night in the campervan in a car park in Loftus (the...

April 2026. Staithes. North Yorkshire. I took this picture of Staithes High Street on a dreich day in 2017, when we oddly walked past the Royal George, oblivious to its GBG pre-emptive potential. And this one last Thursday. You get a better picture of the cobbles in the first one, so I’ll keep that in. Nothing much...

April 2026. Staithes. North Yorkshire. One of the best stretches of coastline anywhere, I reckon. From Scarborough all the way round to the edge of Middlesbrough, with Whitby the big tourist draw and Staithes and Robin Hoods Bay the day trips. Not much has changed since our last Staithes stagger in 2017, they still...

April 2026. Easington. North Yorkshire. Mrs RM declined my offer of a night in a a campervan in a Cleveland car park, her loss. Two hours later I’m at the coast, “I can see the seaside !“, and planning blog titles for the Tiger in tiny Easington (pop. 400). I’m expecting it to be full of folk on day trips from...

April 2026. Sheffield. Something very heavy on the brain seemed to lift after Dad’s house sale completed, though we’ll still be popping down to Waterbeach to see him, no longer needing to sleep in an empty Sunnyside. Mrs RM presses on with her blog, inbetween planning Spring trips to Armenia (there may only be...