Hello. It hasn't been the most wet-led of months, at least in terms of GBG '23 pub pints glugging down the BRAPA gullet.
30 new ticks for the month isn't enough to set the pub ticking world alight, in fact this is my lowest tally since December 2021. It is still above the March average of 27, although that total has been skewed by two barren Covid years.
The moment of 30 tick realisation
In fact, I should now be wending my way towards Dover right now, checking in for the night at a guesthouse belonging to 'Inga', and racing for a last orders tick in a pub called the 'Louis Armstrong'. But the cancellation of tomorrow's planned train strike has actually impeded my pubby progress AND chance of late night Swedish massage because I can now do Kent there and back in the day. You couldn't make it up could you?
I blame a lack of holidays and Bank Holidays in March for my below par total. When I'm sat in my rocking chair aged 125 in the year 2104 and a small Alien Twild says "beep beep BRAPA, tell me what was the longest month of your life, beep beep?" I will tell it that March 2023 is right up there.
I've amassed 2,390 current GBG pub ticks (4,294 across all GBGs). 53.11% complete - more actually if we take pub closures into consideration. But still 74 off my October 2022 cross ticking tally, where I lost 315, which a bit like my dodgy right knee, I don't like to talk about.
However, optimism abounds - April is gonna be a LOT better. You know what, I'm going to stick my neck out here and aim for 61, double it, add one. Bank hols, a week off work, a couple of decent football ticking days planned, and when I'm here in a months time, I'll be on the verge of being 'back in credit'. Then we can go full beams crazy banana ticking in the summer. What a plan!
(But Cornwall can get stuffed this year, too punishing in 2022, and I'm sure the local CAMRA just randomise what they put in cos it is so hard to survey the pubs).
Slightly manic as plan forms in my brain
Oh yeah, just booked my summer holiday and it is going to be epic. Spans three counties across 13 days, I'm going to need a new liver afterwards. No more details yet, I've spent about £1.3K on fancy leafy holiday homes cos I'm sick of Premier Inns, its all a bit BRAP-stupid to be honest.
Last time I tried something this daft, this was the state of me by the time I reached the gents loos at the Six Bells in Fulbourn, Cambridgeshire on my final day:
Oh dear
My seven favourite pubs of March in no particular order were:
Final Whistle, Southwell
Ship Inn, Deal
Berry, Walmer
Terminus, Conisbrough
White Lion, Rempstone
Lord Hop, Nuneaton
Crown, Belton
More than usual going through into the BRAPA End of Year Awards ceremony, but the standard was high this month. I could easily choose six more I'd recommend you visit.
Struggling to light the fire in Rempstone
A couple of limp ducks, but not much to set my teeth on edge. Especially as I wanna keep this fairly brief by BRAPA standards as Sainsbury's is coming any minute and I want to be in bed for 9:45pm on account of a 6:32am train tomorrow morning. Damn you, non-strikers!
I've made progress in all the counties that matter to me in 2022/23. Let's end this blog by seeing how I'm doing. A better statistician than me (he's still called Jim Brunt) has the percentages:
Kent - 65.3% 94 pubs ticked. Can I make it 100 tomorrow? Loving Kent, but I'm aware it is going to start getting harder again soon if I'm going to take it seriously.
Got a bit excited at Westgate-on-Sea
Nottinghamshire - 91.4% completed. Getting close now, AND I'm pretty relaxed about the full 100% anyway. Kimberley can rot, Retford is a false economy, and I'll be Wellowing my own self pity if I spend a fortune on that one alone, so I might have a stab at the other three then leave it til the 2024 Guide when more gaps appear.
Lincolnshire - 44.2% completed. Hard to get motivated by Lincs, but Daddy BRAPA proving his weight in gold with some top chauffeuring up and down the A15. Some pubs open like 6pm on a Saturday even, that's the real killer.
The most Lincolnshire photo I've taken so far
Leicestershire - 20.3% completed. Yay for Loughborough! Also done 50% of Mountsorrel (that's one pub), and about 30% of Leicester. Baby steps. Rome wasn't ticked in a day. Key is to do Leicester last, and work my way around it. Plungar has 3 different Thursday opening times, 3, 4 or 5pm. Cheers lads.
ESB is now £6.15 in Parcel Yard and seems to be going up each time I visit. Shouldn't I have a loyalty card by now?
Colin says if it goes beyond £7, we reassess our last pint in London. But I tell him that's loser talk
I'm enjoying my new #ThirstyThursday routine of alternating one week pub ticking, one week reviving my lockdown traditions of @WineWestWotSi or @SiFiPieFri - gimme a Twitter follow if you like red wine, westerns, wotsits, sci-fi, pies, space raiders, craft cans, obscure 60's music on cassette tape, or any combination of the above.
And that is about it. Thanks for reading. Sweet dreams, see you in a Kentish / SE London pub tomorrow about noon.
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