Milly Mossop

I am the worst blogger in the world

I quite literally can't believe that I last posted in October of last year. 10 months ago! If this blog were a child it would be handed over to social services quicker than you could say "oopsie".

Anyway, so what I'm going to do is re-design the site, learn how to upload photos and stuff and then do a big re-launch, as if that was the idea all along and I've just spent the last 10 months coming up with a really good plan. Downside of course being that whatever I come up with will seem like a shit plan for 10 months work.

For now I just wanted to share some news, except I don't think I've got any readers left, so this is going to feel a bit like talking to a wall. I'm getting married! Woo hoo! (Wall stares back impassively and thinks 'what, you expect me to go out and buy a hat?')

Well, Wall, just in case you grow some ears and a sense of romance, let me tell you it was incredibly exciting. May 18th in Montgomery, Wales, overlooking beautiful countryside. I laughed then I cried, then I laughed again (then he said "are you going to say yes?" so I did) then we went for a pint in the Crown Inn. Good pub.

The date's fixed for May next year in Northumberland and so far no one involved has fallen out with anyone else which by all accounts is a minor miracle. Still, plenty of time yet.  I have 5 wonderful bridesmaids, recently re-branded boozemaids after our latest attempt at wedding dress shopping (in fairness this time we looked at dresses before drinking our body weight in Chardonnay. Although I wish someone had spotted the cow muck on my jeans before we went into the posh Pimlico bridal shop, I'm sure the lady noticed). And I have a Mate of Honour - Gandolf - who I have to say I'm congratulating myself on appointing. He's just like a Maid of Honour - supportive, encouraging, reassuring, wise - without being a girl about it. With Gandolf it's all short, pithy emails and colour coded spreadsheets. I can't write an email of less than 200 words and spreadsheets scare me. So hurrah for boozemaids and mates of honour! I'm hoping I get to keep them after the wedding.

So, pubs.... Wall, how would you feel if this blog took on more of a bridal tone than a 'pubs I've been to' tone for the next 9 months?... It's just that a) hard not to think about the wedding when I have 20 minutes downtime in front of the computer and b) the pretty wedding dress I saw on Tuesday will look even prettier without a 9 month London Pride baby filling it out.

But I will try, I promise. Ok, what pubs have I been to recently?... The Grosvenor, Sidney Road, SW9 - brilliant and bad as ever. The Warwick, Warwick Way, Pimlico - really like that actually (not that I can remember it after the 3rd bottle of Chardonnay) and the food smelled good too (just wish I'd had some). The Oddfellow Arms in Alnwick has had a change of management again and doesn't do ale at all at the moment - I really hope they do by next May because it's the ideal pub for wedding guests to congregate in before the service, near the church and HUGE beer garden. See, couldn't last 3 pubs before I brought the wedding up again. Sorry.

Mozz is round at Macbeth's doing a Battlestar Galactica marathon (remember they used to live together in Balham? Now they live 500 metres apart in Stockwell. It's sweet in a slightly disturbing way. I don't think Mozz ever grew out of boarding school). When he's not here our sofa is always broken (it only works if we're both on it together) so really I should be grateful for his childish interest in '70s science fiction bad remakes because it gets me in front of the computer with an empty head.

But maybe I should take a good book to bed with me instead. Which reminds me, I read a genuinely excellent laugh-and-cry-out-loud book the other day, Wife in the North by Judith O'Reilly. She's got a blog as well which I'm going to add to my side bar in a gently sycophantic, fawning way (*I want to be like you when I grow up and have babies and live in the back of beyond and write books*).

And that's all, Wall. See you again in another 10 months. Or the next time the boys are watching Battlestar Galactica, which will be hopefully sooner.

The Glanbran Arms Revisited

Remember The Glanbran Arms? Pub in the middle of Wales that I drove past once and fancied the look of...

Well turns out it's been closed since last August but has recently been bought by a very intelligent sounding man called David; I can tell he's very intelligent because he stumbled across me on the world wide web and left a lovely, encouraging comment on my early Glanbran post.

Dave's planning on re-opening the Glanbran Arms this August, and it sounds like it's going to be a right corker, with real food and a log fire (not to mention idyllic surroundings). Definitely worth the trip from Sarn (I'm already working on Mozz to take me in August), and, I'd wager, further afield.

Sarn Inn, Montgomeryshire, Powys, Wales

Have I mentioned before that on previous trips to see Mr & Mrs Mozz on the Welsh borders I've been somewhere bereft of pubs (albeit well over compensated with cosy farmhouse kitchen banter, log fires, and breathtaking scenery)? Well not this time.

Also here this Easter weekend are Mozz's brother, Big Mozz, his girlfriend Missus Mozz and their two year old son Oz. Upon meeting Big and Missus Mozz for the first time a year or so ago I was relieved to learn that they're very cool, as indeed is little Oz. Hence all of us being here at the same time adds heaps to the fun, and provides a good excuse to explore some of the local pubs together...

Mozz and I arrived late Thursday night, Big M and Missus on Friday. Missus, being a very diligent mother, felt she should stay and put Oz to bed whilst the 3 of us others spied a 90 minute window before dinner and thought it was high time we ventured to the only pub within walking distance, the Sarn Inn.

There's scant information about the Sarn Inn on t'internet, but my favourite snippet somes from this page and reads thus:

The spirit of adventure in my constituency is embodied by Operation Dragonfire, about which the House will hear much more in the months to come. It is a project to build the first amateur rocket to be sent into space. The idea was hatched in the Sarn inn with the landlord, Bertie, on one especially spirited evening. Whether or not it works, we are having some tremendous evenings planning the project.

The speaker is the MP for Montgomeryshire, Lembit Opik, and he is addressing the House of Commons in May 1997, almost exactly 10 years ago. Mr Opik is still the local MP (and recently received national tabloid attention for swapping his weather girl for a cheeky girl) but Bertie the landlord has been replaced by a chap called Dave, who's pretty handy with a pool cue. Bertie now makes Love Spoons (nothing to do with love balls I'm assured) from a factory in Newtown and is still a regular face in the Sarn Inn.

I know all this because after our introductory pints (Best Mild and Masters Pedigree) on Friday, we returned after a meal in Bishops Castle on Saturday, having picked up Farmer Oscar who introduced us to all the locals. Farmer Oscar's family has farmed the land around Mr & Mrs Mozz's house for generations, he keeps some cows in their yard, and at the moment 6 of his sheep in their orchard as an energy efficient lawn mower. He also doubles up as children's entertainer for Oz, who loves nothing more than a ride on Farmer Oscar's tractor, and indeed for me and Missus Mozz who spent much of yesterday afternoon zooming around fields on the back of his quad bike. So basically, we like Farmer Oscar a lot.

On Friday as we walked down the hill to the Sarn Inn we played the 'what's the pub going to be like' game, partly I think because the boys were expecting to walk through the door and straight into a waiting fist, such is their lack of trust in dodgy looking village pubs in the arse end of nowhere. We collectively decided it would have a red, threadbare, sticky carpet, a long bar, pub standard dark brown wooden furniture, and, er, that's as far as we got. Then we were suddenly there.

There appeared to be, on first impression, one bar tender and one customer, both sitting the wrong side of the bar watching something random on an old telly balanced on a low bar stool. It turned out they were both bar tenders, in fact one the landlord, and we were the first customers (at 7.00pm on  Friday evening).

Warm hellos and unsure chit chat around beer ordering followed. Mozz led us to a table by the pool table. Big Mozz and I led us straight back out to the garden tables out front on the road so we could have a cigarette (Wales having introduced its smoking ban on April 1st, 2 months ahead of England). Back inside we had a couple of games of pool until the karaoke / disco team arrived and needed the pool table to set their kit up on, and then it was time to leave.

All in all, we unanimously agreed, an ideal local pub, indeed everything a local pub could and should be. A friendly welcome, good choice of beer (there were lots of bottled options as well that I'm guilty of not investigating further), a landlord eager to greet new faces but never at risk of upsetting familiar ones, clean without being sterile, and above all a place where you can relax when you want to relax, and dance when you want to dance (one imagines).

I liked it a lot, and look forward to our next visit.

Glanbran Arms and other Welsh Rarebits

In 15 minutes I'm downing tools and getting the hell outta here!

I've randomly remembered to look up a pub that we drove past on the Best Road Trip ever, from the south to mid Wales a few weeks ago. The scenery, courtesy of the Cambrian Mountains, is pure therapy and I'd love to spend more time exploring the area.

As it is I have to make do with a few photos I snatched out of the car window, including one (that I'll upload once I've got my Advanced Blogging Certificate) of the Glanbran Arms on the side of the road in the middle of rolling hills and blue blue skies.

Anyway, I doubt we'll have time to go back there this Easter weekend, but I'm hoping we'll check out the Anchor, and I know that a table has been booked in a highly regarded pub / restaurant in another village for Saturday night, which I'm looking forward to LOTS.

I've also been busying myself for the last 15 minutes buying walks from walkingworld.com and I'm hoping I can persuade some of the Mozz clan to come and stretch their legs with me, it looks like it's going to be a sunny, fresh weekend!

Happy Easter!

The Ship Inn, Port Eynon, Gower, Wales

But back to pubs.

It's worth mentioning at this stage that many pubs will appear on these pages that I haven't actually been to. This isn't one of them, but it's worth mentioning if only because I'll forget later. To explain; Mozz drives, I don't, and when we're idling (ok, speeding) through the great British countryside on a Sunday afternoon I very often see a pub that I'd like to stop at for a beer but before I've had time to say "2 consecutive blow jobs for a pint in that pub" we're ten miles down the road.

Anyway, point being, the next few pubs will be mentioned in an almost lusty manner, because I haven't actually been there yet. And perhaps never will, unless I get my driving licence. (Now there's an incentive).

After The Ship Inn that is. Which I very much went into. Along with 50 or so heavy, bald Welshmen cheering along their boyos in the rugby whilst England floundered (needless to say we left before half time and joined our friends in the seaside cottage we were sharing for the weekend).

The night before though a few of us (Milly, Mozz, Molly, Ronnie, Donnie, and Wolfie) had a few happy quiet pints there. No that's not true; my pint wasn't happy, it was a paranoid Worthingtons Creamflow with an identity crisis. But I was happy enough - we'd found the place in the pitch black through the magic of the Tom Tom lady (once I'd got over my initial jealousy of another woman's voice in the car), the bar was still open, and I could smell the sea from the car park.

The Ship Inn is one of two pubs in Port Eynon on the Gower Peninsula, the other is the Smugglers Haunt that looked like a better bet but was closed at 2.00 on a Saturday afternoon so lost all important Milly points before it even started.

Thus holding the fort, The Ship did its job modestly and enough and in earnest. I wish it was at least half the size and served proper ale, having spent the last half hour of the car journey since Wolfie called with VIP (Very Important Pub) news looking forward to a pint of Brains, and I wouldn't risk the food, despite, and because of, not seeing any being ordered or served but, all things being equal, can't really complain.

Apart from anything else, if I really did complain I can't imagine the landlord's response would be anything other than a loud guffaw followed by a dainty expletive. This is a pub that caters for its local clientele, doesn't really give a kipper about the holidaying cash rich-time poor from London, and quite rightly so. If I'm honest, I just felt a bit left out.

I could dwell on it, or I could just go and put dinner on, hungry Maccie B has been counting the minutes loudly since I said I'd make a start. (Lest you think I'm an oppressed wannabe housewife, Maccie B cooks most nights and Mozz can't cook at all so I take his occasional turn when I'm here.)