England Expects...

 

...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 the screen so I asked the barmaid...

...Doom Bar or Ringwood Forty-niner - no brainer (not Doom beer).  Name and number provided for track and trace and contactless payment made,  all very organised.

There were at least a couple of dozen customers inside and out, but I opted for the lovely sunny afternoon in the promenade beer garden...

...where whispy clouds drifted by.... 

and a breeze whispered through the huge Eucalyptus tree.  Just nice...

Hanging baskets of brightly coloured flowers festooned one of the beer garden walls - (useless fact warning)  which is in fact the back of the Hythe Pier railway workshop...

...and I watched as the electric narrow gauge pier train departed the pier head for the incoming ferry as it has done since 1922. In this frightening world of changes, such constants are strangely reassuring.

Less reassuring for it’s owners was the cruise liner sitting unloved and unused in Southampton Docks - waiting for it’s elderly clientele to re-book their post lockdown cruises..

The Ringwood Forty-niner was good  and as a bonus my beer glass explained that another sort of beer called Doom Bar is named after a sandbank (where many cask ales have foundered).  Apparently this is in Cornwall, which is near Doom Bar’s home...well about as near as you can imagine a chemical plant brewery in Wolverhampton being anyway.  

I listened to the conversation from nearby tables which seemed to be in an East End or Essex dialect - suggesting that perhaps Hythe is the new Southend on Sea for stay-cationers from the south east.

I thought I might try another pub in the village, so I wandered past the Pier entrance to Ebenesers, which had closed at 2:30pm and would not be open until early evening...

...so I thought I’d try Hythe’s oldest pub...closed...opening at 4pm...

...giving up for the day on Hythe pubs' post lockdown opening hours, I walked the mile back to the Travellers Rest and had a pint of Abbott Ale (GK not Dartmoor).  It was OK for GK (average - good)...

...and the flamingo looked on unperturbed...