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
May 2026. Blyth. Nottinghamshire. Off on our latest trip south to see Dad and source blog material from Transylvania. Sis gave me a book of lunch stops off the motorways a while ago, most of them at garden centres and alpaca farms. I...
May 2026. Sheffield. Joan and Dave reached the end of their world tour of Yorkshire in Sheffield, stopping overnight in Retired Martin Towers to admire the beauty of our “natural” garden. The cultural tour for Americans takes in the...
May 2026. Masham. North Yorkshire. Half a dozen pubs (well, two of them brewery taps) and a golf club bar for 1,205 residents of Masham; time to see if the GBG has picked the right two (the red Ps). It appears Dave and Joan joined me in...
May 2026. Masham. North Yorkshire. From the Peak to the Dales. This year’s crop of new GBG entries in North Yorkshire had only one thing in common; they’re a sod to get to on public transport. And who wants to drive to Masham, one of the...
May 2026. Stockport. Manchester. Sheffield. Big news in the RM household yesterday as Matt and Emma move from Piccadilly to Heaton Norris, SK4. If it was good enough for Old Mudgie… I met Matt and Emma’s lovely folks in Beermoth a...
May 2026. Sheffield. Central Sheffield isn’t underpubbed, but apply the cask ale filter and the area around West Street looks a little different. I’ve lived here more than 5 years, I ought to have visited all the real ale pubs in...
May 2026. Sheffield. Mrs RM has been hard at work on her blog this month, and it would be amiss of me not to congratulate her on beating my blog view count AND starting to make money by recommending a travel bag that will fit in that...
May 2026. Richmond. North Yorkshire. Every fourth year Richmond gets a new Beer Guide pub demanding my attention, and every fourth year I leave a Yorkshire tiwn considered one of the country’s best wondering what the fuss is about. This...
May 2026. Whitby. A stunning walk along the Whitby coast, arriving back in town to discover Eddi hadn’t been yet. I can’t get my head round gigs 6 months in the future for artists and audience as old as we are. Planning 6 days ahead is...
May 2026. Whitby. Too many pub crawls artisanally curated exploration of public houses over-focus on beer and miss the point of visiting pubs. Always visit a Sam Smiths pub over a pokey micro called “11 o’clock craft bock” or something....
May 2026. Whitby. Whitby was busy enough for a Goth-free Wednesday in May, enough to keep the cake shops, and the pubs ticking over, though of course Sam Smiths pubs close for reasons unrelated to trade. “Still seeking a management...
May 2026. Whitby. Dave “US Dave” turned up just as Stafford Paul were contemplating the merits of the pubs across Whitby harbour. Slightly reduced merits these days in the Duke of York and the Board, as Whitby has gone full-on “small...
May 2026. Whitby. I’d told Mrs RM if she was ready to leave for Whitby at 6am that Wednesday morning I’d take her along. I even threw in the prospect of a campervan overnighter opposite Loftus Police Station, where I parked up, alone, at...
May 2026. Leeds. 3 hours between train in Leeds, time for the Freedom breakfast in Spoons (Becketts Bank), the culture, and a pint in a re-opened classic. Oh, they’ve got rid of the “Family” in the title. Sign of the times. Anyway, the...
May 2026. Leeds. A night in Bradford, then a descent through the ornate passageway in the Midland Hotel to Forster Square station, from which you take the Kirkstall route back to Leeds, not the most scenic. But Leeds is scrubbing up...