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.
July 2026
August 2026
September 2026
Top Words
- pubs
- pint
- sheffield
- spoons
- cask
- bass
- beer
- stocktake
- preview
- arms
All posts (720)
October 2025. Barnby Moor. North Notts. “Barnby Moor ? Wherezat ?”. Well, if you’d read Roger Protz’s marvellous book on the Great North Road (£7 + postage) you’d know all about (Ye) Olde Bell in the posh bit of Bassetlaw (the bit that’s not Worksop, Retford or central Donny). One of the grandest staging points…...
October 2025. St Albans. One of my favourite campervan stops is St Albans, about £7 overnight on a Sunday with no diggers (not that I’d recognise a digger if one licked me) and a quick train into St Pancras. After a quiet decade there’s also the occasional new GBG entry, and I arranged to meet… Continue reading A...
October 2025. Fancott. Toddington. Oooh look ! An actual hamlet, comprising some woods, a stream, a miniature railway, and a pub, your second on the exciting “Pub Crawl from Toddington Services”. A debut Good Beer Guide dining pub, too, looking exactly as you’d expect. I love those figures in the back of the...
October 2025. Toddington. A slightly different route from north to south last week, with an ultra-rare visit to bucolic Bedfordshire. Toddington (nice village sign) is your gateway to the mysteries of Central Beds, including the birthplace of my Mum and last home of Bob Monkhouse. And now there’s a modest pub walk...
October 2025. Sheffield. I don’t do beer festivals (or tasters, or dimpled mugs) but I also don’t turn down invites from Pub royalty, either, so put principles aside and joined Alfie/Ian/Mr Chelsea on his Sheffield overnighter, starting with a quick half in them Two & Six. This newish micro took a while to make the…...
October 2025. Waterbeach. Can I get the blog up-to-date before month-end ? Worth a go. While BRAPA reminds me of that glorious Summer of 2022 as he conquers the Scottish isles, I’m condemned to an eternal journey betwixt Sheffield and Waterbeach, wondering which is truly home. I’m alternating the 3 hour trips...
October 2025. Covent Garden. London. My first London ticking of the new GBG season, always a joy, and as I leave the corner pubs of Bloomsbury it’s time to “Do the culture“. Five minutes from the Lady Ottoline to Sir John Soane’s house, immortalised by Maria McKee on my melancholy melodies post*. Surely it’ll be…...
October 2025. Bloomsbury. London. A second new GBG London corner pub in two minutes, and for a second time I wonder “How’s this evaded the Beer Guide so long ?“. Only now does my detective work reveal the Lady Ottoline was previously the Kings Arms (see windows), which I suspect the Official GBG Archivist Jim…...
October 2025. Bloomsbury. London. Two nights a week down in Waterbeach visiting Dad for free cups of tea and ’60s entertainment; that also gives me a chance to get to grips with London’s new Beer Guide entries. I may not be competitively “doing the GBG” anymore, but there’s a real joy in pubbing the capital…...
October 2025. Matlock. Your £10.15 day return to Matlock from Sheff gives you an hour and six minutes, which is just enough time to tick your new GBG entry, consider how pretty England is in The Fall*, wonder if there’s a bar in that castle on that hill, leaving all of 28 minutes to add… Continue reading HOMEBREW OR...
Page 67 of 72