A week in pubs: w/c 15 February 2010

Pub visits this week: 3

When I first started updating this blog regularly, way back at the beginning of 2010, I couldn’t get to the pub as much as I wanted, for two reasons. One was illness. The other was there was snow everywhere. In a crazy flashback to those distant days, I haven’t got to the pub much this week because of illness (although this time it’s my family rather than me) and I probably won’t next week either because there’s snow everywhere again. Gah.

Oh well. At least there’s London Popfest to look forward to. In the meantime, after you’ve read this weekly round-up, pop back in a day or two for a feature on Bradford’s glorious New Beehive Inn, as promised last week. I’ve finished writing it and everything! ‘Til then, thanks for reading, and enjoy your pubbing.

Monday
Freedom House, South Road, Walkley, Sheffield (featured here). An impromptu gathering for Cara’s birthday. There’s also a wake on in the other room and it sounds like a really good send-off, the sort where you’re celebrating someone’s life as much as mourning their death. Having necked a few glasses of wine before we came out, I get more drunk than I’ve been for a good few months and waste the whole next morning feeling like an aerophobe on a space shuttle.

Friday
The Broadfield, Abbeydale Road, Sheffield. It’s a sparkling sunny day and I’m meeting my girlfriend and son for lunch. It’s dead quiet in here, as it tends to be at lunchtimes, which is a little surprising given the number of people who must work around here. Poor Oliver has been ill this week, which is unlucky for him but quite convenient for us right now because he’s a bit subdued and not charging around like a nutter, as is often his tumultuous way when we’re in the pub. Instead he’s sitting nicely on the chair smiling and playing with beermats. Result! Sorry, Oliver. One day you’ll understand.

The Broady was my sort of local when I first came to Sheffield, and despite seeming to flounder quite badly for a while, many times running out of beers and a variety of key food items, it remained sort of my local for a good four years before I moved across the city. Greene King, who now hold the keys, even grudgingly allow a local ale on tap (although at 6.66% Abbeydale‘s Black Mass could easily be categorised, like a risqué YouTube clip, as ‘not safe for work’). Incredibly, for the second time this week I order some vegetarian food which arrives in carnivorous form (yeah, I’m looking at you, the Shanghai Garden in Upperthorpe). It’s meant to be a cheese and pepper wrap type thing and it’s got chicken in. The eager, smiling lass behind the bar sorts it all out pretty quick though, and my great big soft spot for the Broady remains as big and soft as ever.

Saturday
Rutland Arms, Rutland Street, Grimsby, Lincs (featured here). Cor, I think this might be the busiest I’ve ever seen it in here! It’s local derby day, with Lincoln City in town, and the away fans’ pub, the Leaking Boot (neé Darley’s) is now a pile of rubble, so we get one or two in here from time to time these days. It’s always tranquil enough, mind you, and although there are many new faces today, the biggest obstruction in traversing the room to the toilet is a white dog the size of a submarine. “Can they change it today?” is the theme of the traditional pissoir discussion. This is about the football, of course; for those of you who are interested, the answer’s no. Our poor Grimsby draw 2-2 to make it 23 games without a win, the longest such sequence in the club’s 132-year history. Naturally, we’ll be back on Tuesday night to see them play Macclesfield.