The Red Lion - Crawley

Visited 4th October 2012.

Something a little different today. I'm off on my hols with the family. The photo is of myself and Ms S. junior. The Red Lion is at Gatwick airport airside and was very busy. Which given the prices I was totally surprised at. Over £9 for a burger that did not include a beer. Between us we had three chicken burgers, three Pepsi', one cheese and ham panini and a pint of Abbot ale. The bill was well over £40 making this easily the most expensive 'spoons I've visited so far. The staff were friendly, chatty (as much as time would allow) and obviously hard working but I did leave feeling a lot lighter in the wallet! 

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The Drabbet Smock - Haverhill

Visited 9th September 2012.

The sun is still shining and it's pleasantly warm as we walk across the square to a modern looking 'Drabbet Smock'. Inside it's a lot more traditional and comfortable looking. It is however very busy and it takes us a few minutes to find a table. By now I am feeling a bit more with it and order a Buffalo Trace and Pepsi for myself and a Pepsi for Mrs S. Mrs S. is also feeling a little peckish so we have some chips and onion rings too. Another pub with a nice relaxing atmosphere and again we stay a while before heading back to the car for the journey home. Two nice pubs today and a great wedding yesterday - not a bad weekend. 

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The Corn Exchange - Bury St Edmunds

The happy couple

Visited 9th September 2012.

Mr and Mrs S. have been invited to a wedding. Stiggy, who has been with me on several 'spoon' visits is getting married. As usual, any special event that involves a trip somewhere different involves much planning. As it turns out there is no way we will have time on the day of the wedding to visit any 'spoons but we are going away for the weekend so there is always Sunday.
The wedding was great fun and it was nice to see that Stiggy scrubbed up so well, who'd have guessed? But the wedding was yesterday and today we have to get down to the serious business of pubbing. We are only a couple of miles away from Bury St Edmunds so thats where we head for our first pub of the day. And it turns out to be a pretty decent looking pub. We go in and immediately find out that we have to go upstairs, so we do, where the first things we see is a very interesting view of the sky. Nice ceiling! We had breakfast at the hotel we stayed at overnight so were not hungry and I had rather a lot to drink at the wedding reception so we settled on a Pepsi each. We stayed a while as it was a nice place to sit and chill and boy did we (I) need that. We had already had a bit of a look round Bury St Edmunds while looking for a parking spot and it looked to be a very interesting place. We had walked in the Abbey Gardens and saw Abbey Gate, the usual touristy things, very unlike us really but it was relaxing and a place that we would like to revisit one day. I had a list of four pubs that I thought would be good to visit but had seriously underestimated how exhausted we would be so following a look at the map and a bit of a rethink the new plan was to visit just one more pub that was in the general direction of home. 

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The Royal Oak - Dorchester

Visited 2nd September 2012.

Our final pub of the day was a few miles up the road in Dorchester, a town that I spent a lot of time in some thirty years ago and I was curious to see how it had changed. As it turned out I was able to recognize quite a bit but not 'The Royal Oak' which was opened several years after I left. Mrs S. took the group photo. Usually it's a bit of a mission to get anybody to stand with me for the photo session but today I was surrounded by budding models. It was very busy inside and we ended up sitting around a couple of tables outside. Bizarrely we all ended up having Pepsi to drink, much to the bemusement of the barman who served us. We sat chatting for a while but it was soon time to head for home. It had been a good day and we had packed a lot in but we were also feeling a bit sad as we knew it would probably be a good while before we would get the chance to all get together again. Pub of the day was, for me anyway, 'The Man in the Wall', I thought the bar was great!

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The William Henry - Weymouth

Visited 2nd September 2012.

Our third 'spoons of the day and we have all decided to get something to eat. This pub does allow children, so we all troop in, push a few tables together (not easy as it was very busy) and start looking at the Sunday roasts. Most of us opt for the roast beef and head off "en masse" to the bar to order and then return to our seats to choose again after being told they had run out of beef. A few minutes later and we are back at the bar but ordering the chicken roast where we had much better luck. We stayed longer than we expected, mainly because the food took quite a while to arrive but when it did it was fine. We then left and went and found a funfair, seriously, we'd just eaten...

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The Swan - Weymouth

Loads of detail and all made from matchsticks!

Visited 2nd September 2012.

Next stop, Weymouth. Having parked we didn't immediately head off to a 'spoons but took a little time out and went and had a look around Nothe Fort. We ended up spending several hours there, much longer than we expected. This was partly due to meeting a man who had spent most of his life making scale models of ships out of matchsticks and was exhibiting some of his collection at the fort. Not everyone's cup of tea but I enjoyed it. We left and headed back to town and 'The Swan' where we found that it was a pub for over 18s only. The first Wetherspoons I have come across that doesn't allow children. Not a problem as there was a Subway across the road where most of our party headed while the boys went for a beer! The decor had definitely seen better days but did not seem to deter the punters (including us) as it was very busy inside. I had a pint of 'Old Thumper', my brother a Fosters and our friend a pint of Carlsberg. We lost track of time while we sat reminiscing and eventually had to leave as a response to Mrs S. hammering on the window telling us to "Get a move on". We did "move on", but only to the other end of the road where we found another 'spoons...

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The Man in the Wall - Wimborne

Mr Sinner with his brother and his family.

Visited 2nd September 2012.

My brother and his family have come to visit from a foreign land and he would like to visit a few old friends. A quick check on Google Earth and we decide to head to Weymouth where we will meet up with one of his old school friends and his family. Come the big day and it's an early start as we have to pick them up on the way. As it was such an early start we had decided to stop off on the way to Weymouth at Wimborne where we would have a bite of breakfast. Having parked up we took a bit of a wander and eventually found the pub in plenty of time for a fry-up. Having said fry-up I was then persuaded to try something different and ended up having the eggs benedict and a large latte with Mrs S. having pancakes and a cup of tea. The staff were very helpful and were happy to supply us with a glass of milk for my niece. This was a nice pub with great staff and a couple of neat features. You can't see it in the photo but the bar was very unusual, well worth a visit, my niece spent several minutes looking at it. Next stop, Weymouth.

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