The Bridge Inn, Dulverton, Exmoor

Well this was an unexpected find on a wet weekend in the West Country, and what a lucky find it was too. We were in the area for a wedding - a really beautiful, happy occasion with straw bales for seats and homemade picnics - and with a spare hour chanced upon the Bridge Inn, a blessed haven from the unseasonal damp weather with a choice of 3 cask ales (we drank the imaginatively titled 'Ale' by the local Exmoor brewery), a fake fire (whatever, it provided heat), and a stash of board  games.

"Ooh!" squeaked Mozz in his boyish excitement, "we can play Connect 4!" I took a moment to think back to the last time he played Connect 4 on holiday in Scotland, we'd stopped off at Macbeth's log cabin in Dunoon for a night - I think he got to bed at 5.00 in the morning. I had no idea Connect 4 was such an addictive, competitive game. "We could..." I replied cautiously, "or we could play Scrabble?.." Somehow, no idea how, I got my way without a struggle, and we played our first game of Scrabble together over a pint of Ale in a traditional English Country Pub. I'm not sure I knew what bliss was until then.

My mother kinda lessened the fun factor a couple of days later when, having told her about our weekend, she replied with a chuckle, "oh you're such an old married couple!" I tried to hastily climb the coolometer by retorting "yeah whatever, after that we got leggless with the locals and trashed the place and had an orgy" to which she replied "yes but you didn't really, did you." (Sheepishly) "no, not really. Sorry mummy".

But suffice to say, the Bridge Inn really is a lovely pub and I wouldn't hesitate to go back if I was in the area. I made a note of the other ales which of course I lost, but pretty sure one of them was Otter.

On the Wedding Front, I've just amused myself by ordering 3 copies of Debrett's Wedding Guide, one for us, one for Mozz's parents and one for mine. Part of me is now thinking 'I am not the person I thought I was, she would never have bought a wedding guide let alone Debrett's', another is thinking 'well at least we'll all be singing from the same hymn sheet now, which is ironic because the vicar has vetoed the one hymn, in fact the one thing about the entire wedding, that Mozz really wants' but with crushing defeatism I know the truth is that I want to buy something wedding related to keep it all alive. Which is stupid, because I know that in 8 months time it's all going to feel only too real and I'll be cursing table plans, flowers, favours, hair styles, travel logistics and everything else that I imagine gets squeezed into the last few weeks. So really I should enjoy this lull and make the most of it.

Talking of which, Mozz's programme about Great Big Enormous Bridges has finished so I'm going to go next door and curl up on the sofa with him.

But the Bridge Inn, great pub.