Thursday 1st August, 13:00
Happy Yorkshire Day! And I celebrated by crossing the border not only into evil Lancashire, but then into South Cumbria for the latest #ThirstyThursday of this productive summer season. Long blog this one I'll warn you now.
Best to get the difficult pub done first .... a second BRAPA walk from Cark-in-Cartmel station to Cartmel village ....
Only 25 mins but the footpath runs out SO quickly, there's no buses, more cars than you'd like as a pedestrian, and it just astonishes me because Cartmel seems a reet little hub when you get there.
Oh well, at least it was only 23 degrees and not 33 degrees like when I came here two years back to tick off that Unsworth Cheese and Pizza catch-all thingie.
The bright sun nearly tricks me into entering the wrong 'pub', as it began with the same letters.....
Hang on ......
That's better! Welcome to the Royal Oak, Cartmel (2931 / 5091) and please Cartmel CAMRA, no new 2025 Good Beer Guide entries, I've suffered enough. I arrive sweating unlike a prince in a pizza shop, stinging my eyes as I try to select a beer by Fell brewery. 'Cuppa Joe' coffee stout might seem a weird choice in the scorchio (23 degrees, I'm so British!) circs, but flippin eck, I was rewarded. Beer of the day! The staff are a stand out feature here, bloke asks what I'm up to and genuinely interested by BRAPA. Tells his female colleague just as I go to sit and rest my weary legs and mop my brow, but she calls 'don't you want to talk to me too?' so I return for five more mins of BRAPA chat before escaping to a corner seat next to brewery merch and random logs, judging indoors to be slightly cooler. Dining interior as you'd expect from such a location, but comfortable enough. Bloke comes back over, makes a note of my blog / Twxtter handle, and asks if I can crop him out of the beer photo if he's in it. Really positive experience to kick off a long day, and although I have time to stay for another half, I decide to the walk back to Cark done sooner rather than later.
Before the train is due, I have chance to revisit the Engine Inn, Cark-in-Cartmel which I enjoyed a lot when I actually ticked it few years back, though it didn't feel as magical today. Still, I found a 50p, an old man slagged off new Olympic events he didn't think should be allowed, and although I asked for a half, I was given a pint of the Bowness Pale. Never mind! I 'struggled' through it.
Now it was off to Dalton-in-Furness for a pub I hoped was opening at 3pm. It didn't have much social media presence to prove it, I suspected this was due to it being spectacularly unfashionable, and this proved the case .....
My favourite pub of the five I ticked off today, Clarence, Dalton-in-Furness (2932 / 5092), and if South Cumbrian ticking has taught me one thing over the years, it is this - 'if it ends in-Furness (in fairness), the people are going to be INTERESTING'. In CAPS. So it proved. Just a couple of mins after 3pm, they're streaming in. Skinny tattoo leg lady has got cuts all over her head - faceplanted her own driveway on the way back from a heavy sesh the previous night. A kind metaller couple play darts to one of the more woeful standards I've witnessed. Not saying I could do better. The duo behind the bar have happy engaging demeanours. She sings. Jolly Steve Evans tells her that her voice could be better. There is a Blind Sooty on the bar with an England headband. The Gower Sunrise is a stark reminder that I'll be seeing Glamorgan beers with more regularity a week from now. Satisfying pub visit.
My decision to visit that pub meant it was going to be a late finish. Now I also have a Kirkby-in-Furness tick too, but this opens 4pm AND is a train change at Barrow, so I decided to swerve it as today's main aim was to get my two remaining North Lancs pub done.
But just down from Dalton is Ulverston, one of those towns I do quite like, but it puts a new pub in the GBG with the unerring regularity of a Falmouth, Dumfries and the Driffield - Bridlington road.
Sounding like something resembling an insurance firm who deliver unreliable trains, Avanti Capitola, Ulverston (2933 / 5093) says a lot about Ulverston's shift to become a shiny cafe culture flounce pot - so different from the grey grim gravy sodden pub town I visited (and enjoyed cos #PubMan reasons) 12 years ago. I danced around a handbag, headbutted a low hanging hanging basket, and shimmied indoors to order a pretty decent Lancaster Blonde, touch too warm, bet their cellars aren't underground enough! A man with a walking stick and a glassy eye who looks like he's here on a day trip from one of the 'in-Furnesses' holds his walking stick aloft and salutes Oscar the Owl. "It's called Jake the Snake and is my pub mascot!" he tells me of his stick, when I explain Oscar's purpose. OG mascot Martin the Owl got lots of attention in an Ulverston Micro now called Gather, so maybe it is a town with an owl affinity. A display cabinet contains plastic lemons, toy tractors and Prosecco. Decent place to have a drink but as GBG entries go, I had to wonder 'why?'
Time to leave Cumbria and head for the main event - Morecambe (4pm opener) and Lancaster (5pm) as I had designs on Lancashire completion before the month of August was out.
Morecambe's up first because slightly more tricky, changing trains, and glad I had my wits about me enough to realise quite late on that the pub was closer to Bare Lane than Morecambe itself, leaving me a 20 min walk instead of a 45 min walk.
More like the Torrid Groan Taps, I found the Torrisholme Taps, Morecambe (2934 / 5034) a soulless depressing boring experience, the only bright point is spotting a bus outside in 21 minutes time going direct to Lancaster! THREE independent sources message me, surprised I feel like this as they had happier experiences here full of amazing staff, free flowing ale and ram packed with Morecambe's pub elite. I am the only customer today, incredibly rare for a micropub at 5-6pm on a Thursday. Even rarer, the duo behind the bar (an older couple) don't really engage, in fact they mumble amongst themselves for the majority. She tells me the unusual guest I choose is from Kendal. One theory I had was that the main people are away on their summer hols and this duo are simply holding the fort? One other customer, an elderly man, finally appears in my pintly death throes, and he's not known to them either. Pair this all with a minimalistic layout, with seating high like modern settles which isn't conductive to an open atmosphere which would increase the chances of sociability, I found this wholly unimpressive. This is my main bugbear with micropubs, when they aren't ON IT (like totally), it affects my pub experience more negatively than it would in a chain / traditional pub.
The bus plays its part by turning up, but nevertheless I can't shake the feeling that time is really getting away from me. And when I reach Lancaster bus depot, I realise my intended pub target isn't central but a good yomp south to a suburb called Scotforth. Doesn't take me long like, but everything was conspiring to extending an already epic #ThirstyThursday trip out.
All of my photography now took on something of a 'Brief Encounter' turn (proximity to Carnforth?), reflecting my increasingly deranged mental state! But the Wobbly Cobbler, Lancaster (2935 / 5035) is the Micro experience I was craving after that last horrorshow. Busy inside and out. Old and young. Male / female 50/50 split. Happy, friendly, colourful. Longish wait for service, which allows me to 'bond' with a touchy feely bunny boiler, but I think she means well. "I get it, I used to work in a pub!" she tells me, as we wonder when our turn to be served will come. "Does that mean you have empathy with them?" I ask. "I wouldn't go that far!" she replies out of corner of her wet mouth, but as she's getting served, she tells the nice lad with a stroke of his hand "I feel your pain having worked behind a bar myself!" Hmmm, bit two-faced? But makes me chuckle, and this IPA is insanely good, best beer since Cartmel. Chipboard smells a bit funny, but all in all, a nice environment and I'm so pleased to end on a high.
Ridiculously priced Uber all the way to Preston seemed a good idea at the time, late bid to get back to York for some time before midnight! It works, even time for a quick unscheduled half Titanic Plum Porter in the always amusing Old Vic, where a bloke in the loos chats about 'touching toilet doors' keeping my 100% record of someone saying something quirky to me every time I've been here, which is now a lot of times!
About 45 minutes into my train journey home, I get up to use the loo when I notice on the electronic ticker tape that we are shortly arriving into Horwich Parkway. Errrm, seems a bit strange for a Preston-York direct service?
Oh look, I've only gone and caught the wrong train! Manchester bound. Trainline tells me a delayed one came in on same time and platform as mine was due in. Unlucky, but also a bit stupid.
Have to leg it to Manc Victoria (GBG and headphones go flying as I've forgotten to shut my bag), where thankfully a train is nicely timed, quick coffee and snack, and I get in 00:10 instead of 23:36 but no real harm done!
What a day.
I'm not pubbing this Thursday because I'm meeting people in L**ds on Wed evening, so I should be back then to tell you about some post Billy Joel pub ticking in Glamorgan.
Si
Brilliant as always, I must read the posts sometime rather than just getting AI to describe what's happening by looking at the pictures. The Sooty with a Terry Butcher headband is brilliant but needs blood.