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
December 2025. Whitstable. A Proper Day in Whitstable must include oysters and beer and pashmina shops and pebbles on the beach. Mrs RM fancied something “authentic” but the seafood restaurants were both expensive and fussy looking, and...
December 2025. Whitstable. Plenty of pubs in Whitstable, but then I’m surprised it has a population of 32,196; although a lot of those are in the suburbs away from the pubs (and the artisanal muesli boutiques). 20 minutes from our...
December 2025, Tankerton. Kent. A short break from pubs as Mrs RM and I head to North Kent. Don’t worry, it’s the posh bit, we’re not savages. Six (6) posts coming up from Whitstable, with a night in Tankerton, where the MoHos were...
December 2025. Sheffield. 2 nights in Sheffield, 2 laundry washes, 1 trip to Manchester, 3 meals of Sang Lungs Singapore Rice and Crispy Beef (thanks to Chat GPT for the reheating advice). And then back to Rye on the greyest day of the...
November 2025. Manchester. Back in Piccadilly Gardens from Sale only slightly later than hoped, I admired the Manchester Christmas markets, apparently only second to Nuremberg, who are therefore the Arsenal of Christmas tat. All you need...
November 2025. Sale. Greater Manchester. A 3pm Saturday kick-off against Dirty L**ds, and just time before the match to meet Matt and tick off one GBG newbie in Greater Manchester with a half hour metro trip down into Trafford. There’s a...
November 2025. Rye. “At least the trains from Rye are reliable” I tell Mrs RM, as I head for the bus into town to start my latest 3:15 hour rail trip north (Sheffield not Waterbeach this time). “18:48 cancelled” flashes the sign,...
November 2025. Mayfield. My mystery trip into the Sussex Weald took us from Batemans to Mayfield, a village half an hour from the in-laws; a journey that Mrs RM made far too regularly when her mum drove my brother-in-law to the Catholic...
November 2025. Mayfield. East Sussex. My penultimate East Sussex Beer Guide tick takes us deep into the Weald, but only half an hour from Mrs RM’s in-laws (and Kentish Paul, coincidentally). Mayfield lies deep in the teenage Miss Spencer...
Quite a lot of the essential (i.e. pubbed) Sussex and Kent is doable by train from Rye, but there’s a few new Guide entries, and lots of National Trust properties, miles from a station. I took Mrs RM on a “mystery trip” just before the...
November 2025. Rye, Odd to think we’ve had a caravan in Rye Harbour for 3 years and I hadn’t been to all the town pubs before this last week. Heading back to Landgate from the Globe, Mrs RM had stopped a few yards short, staring at the...
Your brief monthly highlights package. Only forty-five pubs, 21 new GBG entries, in a month of high quality and variety. I almost caught up on the blog, too, though with reading Russ’s comments (thanks Russ) occupying 35% of my time I...
November 2025. Rye. The usual routine. 2 days in Waterbeach, leave a bag of washing in the garage for pick up later, pack light for trip to Rye via London. I cannot believe how much luggage folk drag around the capital. 22 minutes...
November 2025. Norwich. We daren’t travel too far at the moment, with declining parents and unsold properties, so it’s lucky I can get so much joy from an afternoon in a big city walking suburban streets, gazing at street art and...
November 2025. Norwich. 10 minutes out from Norwich market along residential Unthank Road to my new GBG tick, a genuine new pub from the Fat Cat stable rather than an old one you’ve walked past a hundred times and thought “Wonder when...