BRAPA IS ..... CORONATION TICKIN' IN NORTH KENT (PART 2/2)

You left me at the end of Part One in a grumpy mood after two consecutive ropey pints in unconvincing pubs (Wainscott & Cooling), but I was in a taxi heading back to civilisation .... IF you can call the Medway towns civilised.

And this taxi driver was superior to our Sri Lankan personal privacy invader. One of those rough and tumble simplistic Kent over 60's blokes, just living their bestest Kent lives.

"Corrr, ya don't wanna be going back to Strood if ya got pabs to do in Rochester" he wheezes like a southern vulture ".... I may as well take you straight there!" "You know best" I reply, admitting I don't know the local area, making me a prime candidate for being ripped off, but I trust him.

He adds that once you're in Rochester, you are practically in Chatham, and once you are in Chatham, you're practically in Gillingham, and once you're in Gillingham? ..... well, I'll let you finish that sentence. Pub four.

Rochester is often my Medway saviour town, this was my fourth visit so it surprised me that I still had two pubs to do, less surprising they both sound a bit modern and flimsy. Three Sheets to the Wind (2469 / 4363) certainly felt a bit poky indoors, the kinda place where one bloke stands in front of you waiting for service, and suddenly you've unwittingly formed a queue - a pub pet hate for me right up there with 'tasters', bookcase wallpaper, twilds, twogs and random piles of logs not doing anything. But we must credit Three Sheets, it was trying to 'do something' on this increasingly damp typical British Bank Holiday. There's live music going on at the end of the garden (hang on, a micropub with a garden?), I ask a fluffy couple to shuffle up under the awning so only my right bum cheek has to suffer the soggy bench. The ale is excellent, albeit a touch cold, I eat my floppy quiche and smile encouragingly as the leader singer, a funky Peter Sutcliffe, warbles 'Have a Nice Day' by the Stereophonics none too convincingly in this downpour, redeeming himself with a rousing rendition of 'The Whole of the Moon', a song I've always weirdly admired! Before long, a confident lady perches about ten instruments at my shoulder, says hi twenty times, and is soon on stage doing a particularly maudlin 'Back to Black' which would even have Winehouse saying 'cheer up petal'. And she's been dead for years. The punters are a shiny happy smiley bunch, and there's even some signs of a barbecue firing up, but all I see is bread buns and a mass of sauces.

I was particularly glad of the 'entertainment' having had to nurse my pint due to my other Rochester tick not opening til 4:30pm, even on a Saturday, the monsters!

But I couldn't linger forever so wasted more time with a slow walk up to an old favourite from my Rochester debut back pre-BRAP in 2013, the Who'd Ha' Thought It.

It was in fine fettle today, just as I remember. I'm told about a beer festival outside but I only want an indoor half, so service is a struggle, and when I am served, my Goachers is topped up with a totally different Coronation guest ale. Oh well, I just had to pretend I was a Colchester chap who likes mixing his ales. Still, a lovely pub, and nice to be dry and indoors!

But 4:30pm was finally upon us, so time to head down to my remaining Rochester tick (no doubt they'll stick something new in next year, the Falmouth of North Kent).

I'll confess I wasn't expecting much from a 4:30pm opener called 12Degrees (2470 / 4364) but I have to say, it won my heart quite quickly, and it was that same old story, good folk at the helm. After all, as cracking as the flavour on my Kent Brewery ale was, again it seemed a touch cold which my man on the ground in Kent Richard Pitcher who tells me a lot (as you'll know if you read part one) saying it is something to do with putting small kegs in the fridge or something .... I can't remember the details cos beer talk is like when I was attempting Biochemistry at A-Level, my brain just cannot process the info. And yet, chat me to me on the Industrial Revolution, the periodic table or song birds, and I'm a porous sponge, the best type of sponge. I'm considering whether the other customer, the lovely Bill, is going to have a North Eastern accent because he has the face for it. But before long, fabulous owner Debbie starts chatting to me and Col, & poor Bill is reluctantly roped into the photo, and if this wasn't 5% beer in pub five of the day, I'd remember more detail. £3.80 a pint too, 'Parcel Yard? You'll never sing that!'

Yes, I was 'feeling it' by now but I really wanted to push myself for a six Kentish tick before I reached London, so I hop off at Dartford where I still had two to do.

Foresters sounded like it was doing 'the Coronation' to frightening levels so I swerved it today ....

I'm EXACTLY the kind of unwitting foolish visitor who'd get roped into a bit of Dewie's kebab for the shits and giggles (probably literally) so instead I head to the other pub .....

There was something spectacularly uncompromising and down to earth about the fab weatherboarded boozer that was the Malt Shovel, Dartford (2471 / 4365) and I'm blaming that bonus half of mixed in the 'Who'd Ha' Thought It' because my mind was numbed even more than usual at this point! The ale wasn't very LocAle, Tribute in fact best it got, which might upset a lesser being than me, served by a nice clucky hen, whilst a load of blokes in shorts with tanned hairy arms look you in the eye and say 'alright' and 'haha, good lad' when I half raise my glass, smile and try in vain to look sober. But I remember enjoying sitting here, and what else really matters when all said and done?

Sober by The Parcel Yard? Might be the name of my autobiography. £6.40 is getting ridiculous, I'm in a 'Cost of BRAPping Crisis' of my own making, so I've made a vague mental promise to myself to 'revisit / explore' other pubs in the St Pancras area when time allows, after Charles I a few weeks back was great.

And there we have it. I hope you enjoyed it.

I'm back on Sunday to tell you about Hastings in the first of two parts, after an 'emotional' return to Essex.

Keep it pub! Si