Garden Hermit Goes to the Pub 2

  Last August the second wave/lockdown of the pandemic and Retired Martin's move to Sheffield were still events that were unimaginable* when, with both excitement and apprehension,  I set off to visit one of the oldest pubs in Hythe, and amazingly one which has kept (more or less) the same name since first being opened in 1851. According to the authoritative source of Hythe history, Graham Parkes, in his book ‘Hythe A Waterside Village’, the site of the pub has been associated with beer and brewing for over 250 years, when a malthouse and possibly a brewery existed from around 1750.  The Malt , as it is now known, started out life in the 19th century as the Malt and Hops Tavern.  Though the brick building itself is not a historical attention grabber, it still sits on a street of pretty terraced cottages of similar vintage, though some shades of their exterior decor may be more modern.     Inside The Malt there is now little sense of the pub's history and it is laid out as a

  Hythe seashore - more mud than shells... ...don’t try the title if you have dentures, or if you are in a Covid secure environment where spitting could be dangerous.   Pastel cottage perfection ... Once again I am in my home village of Hythe, Hampshire checking out the pandemic pub scene.   But as the sun always shines on Hythe - as LifeAfterFootball will verify - I couldn’t resist the chance to appreciate the cute fisherman's cottages and soak up the rays in the seafront park. Is that our cruise liner Edna...? Of course Hythe is as cosmopolitan as Bournemouth but smaller and without the hordes of weekending Midlanders.  Container ships glide silently by in Southampton Water (as the sea is known in these parts).  Old ladies with wheelie cases sit on a bench by the shore and wonder what they are going to do now that their cruise ship is moored off Bournemouth and isn’t doing cruises, annoying the nimbys who don't want them any more than wind turbines . Accommodation with sea v

No apostrophe on the sign Russ... ...but only Russ will be able to tell me whether there should be an apostrophe in the title and, if so, where it should be ( I’m aiming for a short version of 'Ebenezers is Good', Russ ).   As the auto spellcheck didn’t suggest one, and Apple are never wrong... Satellite image - shadow of a giant GH eclipses UK...? Anyway the shadowy figure that is Garden Hermit was once again on the move to investigate post-lockdown pub life in the local village.... Bass pipe...?... ...past the mysterious half buried pipeline in the woods, possibly supplying draught Bass direct from Burton to secret storage tanks on the lost Isle of Wight... Bridge art ...under the bridge carrying the Hythe & Fawley railway line, closed (except for Fawley Refinery traffic) in the 1960s and now no longer used by the Refinery. However it may soon become Hampshire’s newest rescucitated railway ... Pop up squashed flat advertising... I past the litter still doing its best to a

  ...every man to do his duty, as Nelson famously told his men, using some early messaging system involving flags,  at the re-openeing of pubs post-lockdown  Battle of Trafalgar.   Of course I’ve blogged this Hythe village centre pub before  and I have unashamedly stolen this cropped photo from the previous blog post  on that other blogging site that I have now abandoned.   However in one of my first post lockdown sorties to the local village (yes really) it seemed appropriate to look in at The Lord Nelson and see how the traditional, multi-roomed pub is fairing since the pubs re-openend. Ok it seems... First challenge to negotiate the narrow passageway past the two small front rooms, and the Poop Deck snug, to the large rear room without encountering anyone coming the other way.  Mission accomplished, I arrived in the rear bar, squirted the sanitiser (on my hands of course) and approached the heavily fortified  well screened bar.   It was difficult to see the cask ale pump clips past