BRAPA in .... HOW NOW COW & PLOUGH : CIRCLING THE DRAINS OF LEICS

Leicestershire won't come quietly as a ticking county. The sheer lack of pubs opening at a sociable hour (12 noon or earlier if you wondered) on a Thursday haven't helped. And now Leicester City's relegation means they'll play Hull City next season, which has me second guessing myself even further.

Quite frankly, even Lincolnshire is looking more appealing at present. And that's not a sentence oft uttered in the world of pub ticking, unless you are a fan of Doom Bar, dining pubs and death trap roads.

But I was determined to keep cracking on with Leicestershire on this particular mid-May Thursday. After arriving in Leicester, I take a short bus ride out to Oadby, which feels like a Leics suburb, but apparently is a place in its own right. The pub isn't really in Oadby anyway, a fair yomp out on a busy road full of tufty trees, trippy tractors and tosspot toddlers.

A plastic cow at the end of a large car park is the first sign that this is no normal pub tick .....

To my right, kids are encouraged to 'pet' small woodland creatures (not humans from Staplehurst or Brenchley). An advert tells me that I can play crazy golf with a bloke dressed as a tiger, after dark!

Which building is the pub? I have two options, or maybe they are the same thing? Brewery? Pub? Brewpub? Vegetable? Animal? Mineral? Who could tell!

I circle the building(s) until I finally find entrance. Cow & Plough, Oadby (2491 / 4385) . Forgive me at this point for thinking 'this is going to be a bit bollocks' as a few suits and flowery dresses lurk by the entrance of an impressively vaulted long room. It gets better as I find the handpumps hidden in a dark side bar, zero people, it is hard to find a staff member. And in a sort of annexe beyond that, an abandoned buffet, giving off Marie Celeste vibes. Now if it'd been Fox's Party Rings, Pink Wafers, Mini Scotch eggs, and fun size sausage rolls, I'd have probably stuck a few in my pocket, but it was slimy artichokes and slimline (probably vegan) quiche, not really in the spirit of a buffet, so I relent, and about two minutes later, the suits and flowers are picking at it. A close shave. A rather lugubrious barman serves me their own Steamin' Billy, plus Charnwood ales, which I quite like, but thought I'd escaped since I'd finished ticking North Leics. Brewerianarama festoons every wall (I wonder why it always 'festoons' and never 'litters' or 'clutters'?). Some serious care and attention has gone into providing pub hubbub to what could easily have drifted into high end dining knobber territory. An exciting trip to the loos, through a rabbit warren of deep dark corridors reveals even more. With the 'circular' bus ages away, I stay for a second pint, this one I enjoy out front in the sun, the suits and flowers have dispersed a lot quicker than I was expecting and suddenly all is serenity. A real 'don't judge a book by its cover' pub tick.

Chillin' with the bus stop schoolkids is my next challenge, always a low point of midweek mid afternoon suburban pub ticking.

From here, this 'circular' bus route drives tortuously around the city, the traffic gridlock at times, my bladder crying, until we reach a place called Aylestone which according to the GBG comes under Leicester, but it surely could be given its own Oadby-esque status. Two ticks to do. Both open by now.

I wouldn't say there was anything wrong with the predictably named Ale Stone, Aylestone, Leicester (2492 / 4386). Going through the motions in a 'just opened at 4pm, easing into our stride' sort of way, serving their local community with aplomb, decent quality ale (I couldn't expect too much from an ale called Hairy Helmet but it swallowed well) - and I'm not sure if the Sam Smith's beermats gave the micropub a certain gravitas, or just made me feel incredibly nervous about wielding my many electronic devices. I got lost finding the loos, slightly embarrassing and probably a BRAPA record in a pub this size, they were situated on an unlikely corner halfway down! My impression of previous visits to Leicester are of a town not quite as happy and welcoming as Derby or Nottingham, so it'll be interesting once I hit the likes of Two Tailed Lion, Blue Boar and Real Ale Classroom in the coming weeks / months to see if I my opinion gets revised, like the time when Ipswich finally 'made sense' at about the 8th time of asking.

But joy was just around the corner, quite literally, and today's third of four ticks.

Turning onto the street where the pub was located, it was shining like a beacon at the far end, everything in its shadow. Weirdly, a bloke in a vest standing yards from the pub has stopped a bloke on a bike who doesn't want to know, or I'm not even sure he knows, and is saying 'alcohol is the world's biggest killer!', what a time to hear that! With a chuckle and shake of my head, I take the photo .....

It wasn't two weeks ago that I was denouncing Everard's as unable to produce a truly good pub in BRAPA history, and what do they go and do? Prove me wrong immediately. That's one of the things I love about pub ticking. Challenges your pre-conceptions. Stops you getting stuck in a pubby rut. Black Horse, Aylestone, Leicester (2493 / 4387). Look at that managerial list, a thing of beauty. This pub is no Watford F.C! No surprise to find a beautifully long sprawling carpeted interior (7/10 because I'd have like to have seen it encompass all areas), and when I somehow choose the one beer that isn't on, the barmaid looks genuinely gutted for me, you can't fake sad eyes of that quality. The Pure Gold Pure Purr Purity wasn't a bad second choice. Being fairly cavernous and having very few customers circa 5pm means not a lot of interest happens after that, but I can bask in the fine surroundings and contemplate that earlier question, that if alcohol really is the biggest killer, would this really be such a bad place to die?

I couldn't believe how time had gotten away from me (I'm blaming Oadby), all my Ansty, Groby, Barkby, Syston plans in tatters, it'd be a rush on now just to get a 4th tick anywhere before my train home.

Luckily, there was a tick right on the station. And the name was strangely familiar .....

Had the barman not resembled a damp eyed Jonjo Shelvey / Sausage Dog hybrid, I might well have approached the bar with a "I cannot compute, where on earth is yer £6.40 ESB?!" but I didn't want to scare the poor chap, and besides, it'd have been a niche comment that only BRAPA loyalists like yourself would 'get'. So a £4.10 Leatherbritches it is. 'Bespoke' this time, a slightly more appetising name than 'Hairy Helmet'. I quite enjoyed this particular take on the Parcel Yard, Leicester (2494 / 4388). It is pretty spartan, in a deliberate way. So much floor space, Morris Dancers could perform without being jarring. You might even host a snooker tournament here. Booths around the sides, I meanwhile find a low settee at the end. It works! But the cherry atop the Bakewell tart of the day came when one of my top Twitter chums, Broood, Steve to his mates, appears for his BRAPA debut. Lovely guy. So switched on too, he's chatting pub ticking intricacies at a level which only tends to happen when I bump into a RetiredMartin or an Eddie F - AKA hardcore pub tickers. Steve even notices I've forgotten to highlight Black Horse in Aylestone (where he lives), so he gets a debut double greening - and not many people can boast that!

So there we have it. I'd had to work incredibly hard for 4 ticks today, one of which was right outside Leicester station, so I'm now wondering whether I have to consider Saturday's or even an overnighter to continue my Leics progress.

And I hope to be tomorrow / Tuesday to start telling you in four parts whether Dover is dreadful, or actually a bit misunderstood.

Thanks for reading, Si