retiredmartin
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.
Latest Posts
February 2026. Hull. Getting your GBG tick done early is a good idea, as anyone who’s been on Orkney worrying if the death of the Queen will mean your penultimate Guide pubs will close as a mark of “respect” will confirm. But it does...
February 2026. Hull. Great excitement in the Pub Ticker community as I note a Draught Bass check-in on the way to Hull, but sadly Nolan’s (next to Ye Olde White Hart) was experiencing a lack of the amber nectar. Has there ever been a...
February 2026. Hull. Mrs RM was away in Rome with mystery chum, leaving me to fend for myself in Sheffield. Middle age (59 to 99) is supposed to see you settle down to home comforts, isn’t it ? But by Sunday lunchtime I was itching to...
February 2026. East Manchester. From Timperley, a tram back to Manchester interrupted by the racists in Piccadilly Gardens, and an hour in the Art Gallery, before continuing on the metro to Clayton Hall. Just beyond the Etihad stop, not...
February 2026. Timperley. Greater Manchester. At Sunday School we used to sing “Jesus wants me for a Sunbeam“. No, not the Wolverhampton pub serving 9am pints of Abbot, Paul. I guess I’ve maintained that positive outlook on life, finding...
February 2026. Timperley. Greater Manchester. On Saturday I dropped Mrs RM off at Manchester Airport after an exciting trip through Wynatt’s Pass and less absorbing trek along the A555, which let me tell you in no A57. Mrs RM was off on...
February 2026. Sheffield. One of the best things about retirement, and goodness knows it’s been epic, has been getting to meet nice people over a pint in comfy pubs. And so it was that I finally met one of the many nice guys from...
With apologies to Devo. February 2026. Lichfield. My third GBG pub ticked before five, I actually felt wiped out as a night in Lichfield lay before me. Young BRAPA really needs to finish the Guide before he hits middle age and loses that...
February 2026. Lichfield. Quite a rarity for me to get three new GBG pubs in quick succession these days, on a bus line as well. The number 36 rumbles between Walsall and Lichfield every half hour purely for the benefit of Beer Guide...
February 2026. Stonnall. A rare new GBG pub double, and just a 20 minute stroll from Lazy Hill in the West Midlands down to Stonnall over the Staffs border. I am delighted to find I know nothing about Stonnall (pop. 1,546) so I use AI....
February 2026. Aldridge. Walsall. No railway station in Aldridge (the curse of B******g), but plenty of buses from my secret campervan stop. I still made the schoolboy error of heading for central Aldridge, confused by Lazy Turtles and...
February 2026. Aldridge. Walsall. What can possibly compete with a wet Sunday in Letchworth ? Why, a wet Tuesday in Greater Walsall, of course. Where would I rather be than a shopping arcade in Aldridge, ruminating on my culinary...
February 2026. Letchworth Garden City. According to the times on my photos, I left my first Letchworth pub of the afternoon at 16:27 and entered my fifth at 17.29, which even by my standards is going some, particular with a detour to the...
February 2026. Letchworth Garden City. I write my posts almost entirely chronologically (rather than thematically), because, oddly, that’s how my life tends to work. So, from the Arena to the Cinema, Letchworth’s Art Deco gem, “now...
February 2026. Letchworth Garden City. Just for you, a map showing all the things in Letchworth, a town rather changed from our time there 35 years ago. Notably, Sagar Tandoori where we ended our £40 Friday night splurge with a flaming...