January 2026 wasn’t as dramatic as January 2025, thank goodness, but parental concerns still limited our travels. Not that you’d necessarily know that looking at the travel map; Rare trips into Lancashire, Norfolk, and Nottinghamshire’s Radcliffe, the only January trip I still need to tell you about as I caught up...

January 2026. Waverley. Rotherham. “What’s new and shiny in Sheff ?” is the Eternal Question asked by beery tourists, and truth is the central “scene” (ugh) has settled down a bit since the Old Shoe, though we’ve now got an upmarket Thornbridge pub and a flashy continental beer bar, so perhaps it’s time for a Brew...

January 2026. Waverley. Rotherham. I knew it would take something new and exciting to persuade Mrs RM to stop refining her Sarajevo blog and come out for a walk on the remains of Orgreave pits, and that something new and exciting was a visit to the new (but dull) village of Waverley, betwixt Rotherham and Sheffield....

January 2026. Bradford. 2.9 miles in 37 minutes from the Crown down to the Alhambra, and a sorry tale of pub death awaits, despite a year as the UK’s Capital of Culture (and it IS a cultural giant). This is the extract from CAMRA’s marvellous pub guide showing the area west of the ring road. Note the grey “P“s....

January 2026. Waterbeach. It takes great resolve to take the train to Bradford and only have one pint; no-one ever completed the GBG like that. But the Crown out on the western suburbs was the totality of my toping that Monday, partly because I was doing The Culture. A £2 bus (only 6 minutes late) out from the...

January 2026. South Blackpool. Another 20 minutes wait for a tram at Blackpool Tower (I’m not making this up); I’d have walked the mile to the Tipsy Seagull quicker. Not only were we meeting Blackpool Jane, in actual Blackpool, we were joining her in the shadow of Bloomfield Road for craft beer and curry. South of...

January 2026. Blackpool. If in doubt, tell the truth. I was wiped out by the time I’d finished that pint of Acorn Blonde in Bispham, fit only to head back to the warm embrace St Annes Travelodge with a cup of M & S instant coffee and an Eccles cask. But we were meeting Blackpool Jane for pub and curry at 5, and I...

January 2026. Bispham. Blackpool. I like this Blackpool tram map so much I’m going to use it in my Rotherham post. None of you will notice. Ah, Bispham. How do you even pronounce it ? And why is Little Bispham so far from Bispham proper, let alone Bispham Green ? This would have been a good time to slow down a bit,...

January 2026. Cleveleys. Blackpool. This Blackpool tram map is getting some use. More use than the actual trams that Friday, anyway. Two uncoventional new pubs in the GBG in Cleveleys, but the Wobblinn has one thing that might attract the Pub Men. No, not the seating, or the fire extinguisher; it’s the beer...

January 2026. Cleveleys. Blackpool. Dashing from the Beer Shed, I made the Fisherman’s Walk tram stop with 20 seconds to spare. Or actually, 20 minutes, as the trams north seemed to head into Fleetwood and disappear. “Trams every 10 minutes” said the signs, the evidence of our own eyes that Friday rather different....

January 2026. Fleetwood. I’d travelled the length of Blackpool’s tram network for some photos of a noble if faded seaside town and a GBG tick. And, while the Beer Shed looks a bit plain micropub, it’s another exemplar of the model, cheery and chatty and a great advert for cask. First of all, I have to get in. As I...

January 2026. Fleetwood. Not really a cut-out-and-keep guide, and I’d struggle to sell you Fleetwood (pop. 26,232, plus a Football League team) as a holiday destination, but it’s better than Clacton, so there’s that. I had half an hour before my new GBG pub opened, plenty of time really. I’d actually seen the owner...