Beer Compurgation

For the rest of my time, I will remember the exact stretch of woodland I was in as the origin of this post was forming. Across the stream, a break in the trees opens onto a miry marshland where a Golden Retriever, tongue lolling out of one side of his mouth, is doing his upmost to find the muddiest patches.   At that moment, I was mentally writing a post in my head about alcoholism. After weeks of hearing no words to write, finally the thoughts were coming in relation to my own Dry January, which lasted just a fortnight. Mostly the thoughts would have been an unintended sequel to this post from 2016 . I wanted to confront myself about my relationship with drink during lockdown and how an interest and hobby can cross over to something much more dangerous without realisation.    Little did I know, as I mentally formed the words in my head between the occasional calls to my dog, that my phone was ringing in my pocket to allay me with news that would be much more significant.

The below trip was experienced just over a year ago now. I've postponed writing about it as the current situation has continued and the future of pubs has been in doubt.    For completion's sake, and with the suggestion that I can look forward to starting these trips up again next season, I've written the below. My experiences are based on a pre-pandemic world and it doesn't change my view that I hope every pub and bar is able to open again successfully, regardless of any past visits.     It is a fact of life that the further away from home you travel, the less precise you have to be about where you are from. If you are on holiday in Colombia, you can loosely tell people that you are from England, should they ask. The chap you bump into on your local dog walk would probably like detail closer to the estate or even street name.   I think it was when I went to university that I became “from Manchester.” I’d never considered myself to be from Manchester but it is the nea