Crossing the flagstone floor into the Public Bar, I walked up between the stunned looking denizens of the Bathurst and ordered the house bitter then turned to the old guy at the end asking, “think it might rain?” I was sopping from the run in torrential downpour from the Colesbourne Inn and had left a spoor from the out to the in and further and the puddle gathering around me attracted the attention of the dog under the one table with chairs I probably wouldn’t ruin…I went and joined her.
Very nice crowd here in this ancient coaching inn and it really deserves a longer visit (the meals brought out to the couple that entered after me looked sumptuous). One guy at the bar managed to smoke a whole cigarette surreptitiously without leaving his stool; there’s a wine room, too.
One old dude went on and on about how some pal of his always has an excuse not to buy at the bar; when he mocked this fellow with a litodinous “my wife has hidden my wallet,” I must have channeled Fatty saying, a bit loudly and in the same faux voice, “every time I go out my wife hides all my condoms.” In the silence, I drank up and left.
