In search of Gavin & Stacey

I obviously wasn’t quite quick enough off the mark with my previous post, as 18 minutes before I hit the “publish” button, Martin’s milestone article, about having finally completed “ticking” every pub in the CAMRA Good Beer Guide, was there staring at me from the front page of his blog. Talk about being overtaken by events, but at the same time congratulations for pulling off a magnificent achievement. I'm sure he's feeling mightily relieved to be free now of the hold this completion goal had over him.

Moving swiftly on, and it’s time for a quick look back at a few days spent in the pleasant, South Wales, seaside town of Barry, or Barry Island if we want to be precise! Mrs PBT’s had expressed a desire to visit the town for some time – something to do with the BBC sitcom “Gavin & Stacey,” so on the basis of fulfilling my wife’s wishes, I agreed that we should take a drive down to Barry Island, and check the place out, for ourselves.

Matthew came with us, as he had a week off from work, so last Tuesday morning, we loaded our bags into the back of the car (several bags in Mrs PBT’s case), and set off to South Wales, via the M25 and M4 motorways. The last time we had made that journey was to attend my aunt’s funeral, in February 2020, just a few weeks before the Covid restrictions were introduced across the country. As on that previous trip, we’d booked overnight accommodation at a Premier Inn, but this time in Barry Island, rather than Llanelli.

I’ve mentioned before that Eileen is a big fan of the Premier Inn brand, and whilst I am somewhat ambivalent towards them, preferring an independently owned and operated hotel, at least you know what you are paying for. The Barry outlet opened 10 years ago, and has 80 rooms, overlooking the town’s waterfront. The latter is actually part of the former dock area, as the town’s famous sandy beaches are a mile or so further south, but the waterfront forms a pleasant backdrop to the dock area, which has been redeveloped with some attractive, and reasonably affordable, modern housing. The only downside for me was all rooms at this Premier outlet, are air-conditioned and fitted with non-opening windows.

Give me fresh air anytime, as I really am not a fan of air con. It’s presence did little to assist marital bliss either, as Mrs PBT’s insisted on the room temperature being set several degrees colder than I felt comfortable with, and for it to be left running all night. We nearly fell out on the cruise, over this issue, but at least on the ship it was possible to open the balcony door to get some fresh air, and to escape the all-pervading icy cold air blasting out from the vents in the cabin.

We managed to survive three nights without divorce papers being issued, but give me an opening window any day, rather than this artificial cooling which is not the route we should be going down, during this period of steeply rising energy bills. I mentioned my dislike of aircon in a post last month, describing how it is used to excess in certain parts of the world, but as we head into autumn, I think we can safely drop the topic, for a while at least.

Premier Inns, usually have a Whitbread-owned, chain-restaurant attached – quite often a Beefeater, and this was the case at Barry. We ate there on the first and the last nights, visiting a nearby complex called the Goodsheds, that was home to a rather good craft beer bar, along with a number of street food outlets. 

More about this excellent complex in a separate post, but the Beefeater offered the usual chain restaurant fayre, which was sufficient to keep the family well fed and watered. The only couple of gripes I had, and they are very minor ones at that, related to the non-availability of the advertised naan bread – this would have been useful to mop up the plentiful sauce associated with the chicken tikka curry. There was also no marmalade to go with my toast, on the one morning I joined Matthew for a full English breakfast (shouldn’t that have been, full Welsh?). Both these shortages were attributed to supply chain issues, which isn’t surprising given what is going on in the world.

There was no cask of course, a situation that increasingly seems the norm these days, but the keg Atlantic Bay Pale proved an acceptable alternative. It’s interesting to note that Beefeater have move away from waiter service, asking customers instead to order and pay at the bar, for both food and drink, although a member of the waiting staff still brings the food across to the customer’s table. I can see where they are coming with this, along with policy of the hotel of not cleaning and making up guests’ rooms during stays of longer than one night, unless specifically requested. This no doubt, is a hangover from Covid times, but one which makes perfect sense to me, as apart from the bins being emptied, who really needs their sheets turned down, and the bathroom sink and shower cleaned, on a daily basis?

We visited Barry Island pleasure beach on our first morning, after dropping off the wheel with the damaged tyre at the local branch of Kwik-Fit. The cause of the deflation had already been identified as a small, crosshead screw, that had obviously been discarded by a careless contractor. As suspected, the tyre was beyond redemption, but over the course of nearly 50 years of motoring, discarded screws have been the cause of the majority of damaged tyres I have experienced!

With 2 hours free parking along the seafront, we had sufficient time for a stroll along the promenade, followed by a coffee at Marco’s Café, the refreshment room featured in the Gavin & Stacey sitcom. The beach was practically deserted, despite there being plenty of people about, but with its views across the Bristol Channel towards the Quantock Hills, I was left wishing I had brought my binoculars along, and not for the only time on the trip!

It's surprising how quickly seaside resorts change in both feel and appearance, as soon as the schools have returned after the long summer break. It’s as if someone has suddenly thrown a switch that suddenly changes summer, straight into autumn, even though pupils would only have been back for a few days. The lack of family parties does make for a less frantic and more mellowed atmosphere, even if saying so makes me sound like the child catcher, but on the plus side it did bring out the charm of the pleasure beach.  The funfair rides and attractions would no doubt be opening later in the day, but the lack of noise from the latter and the nearby amusement arcades, which were open, did allow us to sit and enjoy the views out to sea in a tranquil setting.

Later on, after collecting the wheel with its new tyre, we drove back towards Barry seafront, but this time we stopped at the other side of the promontory at Nell’s Point, overlooking Jackson’s Bay and the entrance to Barry Docks. The earlier rain showers had disappeared, which meant greatly improved visibility out to sea. With a convenient bench to sit on, and plenty of passing dog walkers for company, it was a nice spot to relax and just while away the time.

Little did we know the drama that would unfold later in the day, although as we drove towards Cardiff Bay, the sudden and quite dramatic crisis with the Sovereign’s health had not reached its sad, but perhaps inimitable conclusion.  We found our way into central Cardiff before parking up in the Bay area, close to the Norwegian Church, in a setting overlooking the waterfront. A short distance to our right, we could see the Senedd – the strikingly modern, Welsh Parliament building and almost next door, the impressive, red-brick Pierhead Building, constructed in 1897, as the headquarters of the Bute Dock Company.

We’d decided to take a stroll along the waterfront, but unfortunately the weather had other ideas, because as we edged towards the Senedd Building, the heavens opened. We’d already noticed the rain clouds, sweeping in from the Severn Estuary. Anticipating a real soaking, we hurried back to the car, and it was there that Mrs PBT’s decided she wanted to go to somewhere that was more seaside like. I knew that the resort town of Penarth was only a short distance away, and I also remembered a couple of my Welsh cousins talking about the town. Penarth it was then, and after taking a wrong turn and ending up at the Cardiff Bay Barrage, we managed to find our way to the seafront at Penarth.

We parked along the seafront – another enlightened place offering free parking for two hours and ended up having coffee and cake at a rather nice tearoom, at the shore end of the pier. You could see across the estuary towards Weston-Super-Mare, from the observation deck at the end of the pier, and yet again I was cursing not having brought my bino’s with me.  Like Barry, the seafront at Penarth had that “end of season” feel to it.

The coffee and cake were both good, and after walking to the end of the pier, we drove back to Barry, heading of the seafront for a final look at the beach, and the chance to buy a few things for home. We ate once again at the Beefeater, and it was whilst eating our meal that we learned of the sad passing of Queen Elizabeth II. Despite being in our mid-60’s, both Eileen and I have only ever known the Queen as our head of state. I wouldn’t say the Queen’s death cast a shadow over the end of or mini break, but it was definitely one of those moments where people remember where they were when they heard the news.

Later on, whilst watching events continuing to unfold on TV, we saw a news report from presenter, Hywel Griffith, coming from the steps of the Welsh Parliament Building. It was strange to recall that just a few hours earlier, we too had stood on those very same steps, sheltering from the rain. It was a sobering end to our holiday.

Something's occuring in the background

The Bailey family have just returned from a three-day break in Wales. I desist from naming the destination we stayed at for the time being, as I want to write on a different topic, for the time being. I didn’t take my ancient laptop along, as I thought I could use the spare time to get stuck into a good book – as per last June’s cruise.

Foolishly, I was forgetting Mrs PBT’s “need” to have the television on, during every waking hour we spent in the hotel room, and when it’s 24-7 repeat BBC newscasts, then it’s not particularly conducive to reading. There are no prizes for guessing which major news event my good lady wife was following, and we were sitting having dinner, in the Beefeater Inn, adjacent to our hotel when news of Queen Elizabeth II’s passing, flickered up on a myriad of mobile phones. How did we ever mange without such devices?

Obviously, the Queen’s death is a sad occasion, not just for her family, but for the nation as a whole, and a new head of state is both an historic and momentous event, but returning to the main topic of this post, I distracted myself, as far as is possible with the TV blaring out, by catching up with a few of the numerous beer-related blogs that I follow, paying particular attention to prolific pub-ticker, Retired Martin’s recent posts.

Those who don’t follow Martin’s informative, and at times amusing posts, will be unaware that as well as being on “permanent exploration of places, pubs, people and new music,” there is one underlying passion that has guided his travels through our fair and pleasant land. This passion, which some might call an obsession, is Martin’s quest to visit very pub in the CAMRA Good Beer Guide. I obviously wish him well as this should be completion of a 30-year quest, but as I discovered whilst away, Martin is inching ever closer to  finishing this long-held goal.

As of yesterday evening, when I sat down to write this piece, Martin had just eight pubs left to tick. I mentioned at the time that he was up against the clock, although I should have known better, because I awoke this morning to the news that he had just one more pub left. That need for speed comes about because sometime soon, perhaps very soon, the 2023 edition of the Good Beer Guide will hit the nation’s bookshops, and according to the rules that govern this sort of thing, if he fails to tick those remaining pubs before the publication of the new guide, it’s back to the drawing board.

The reason behind this is that every year, the Campaign for Real Ale’s 200+ branches, carry out a systematic review of all 4,500 GBG entries, with each branch scrutinising the current pubs within their individual areas, prior to submitting revised and potentially new entries for the following years guide. Now if all those CAMRA branches were to change just two pubs from their allocation, this would mean 400+ revised entries occurring in each year’s Good Beer Guide. Some of them might have been in the Guide before, dropped out possibly from something minor like a change of licensee, and then reappeared, but if we discount these, there could still be a potential “churn” of 200-300 pubs each year.

Committed GBG “completists,” like Martin and a handful of others, will have this information carefully logged on spreadsheets, which enable them to keep an eye on and identify changes, but against such a background, it’s easy to understand how the whole completion exercise could fail, because of a handful of revised entries. In addition, when the remaining handful of outlets, are in the remotest and most far-flung corners of these islands, the task becomes harder still. Fortunately, our intrepid pub-ticker has completed the Scilly and Channel Islands, along with the Isle of Man, but with the Orkney & Shetland Islands still to go, will Martin finally complete the Good Beer Guide, this year?

One thing that is evident from Martin’s recent posts is the huge number of miles he has driven in pursuit of his quest. Having just driven 400 miles, on a return trip to South Wales, I don’t envy him all that time spent behind the wheel. Our recent trip was a reminder that I find long-distance driving tiring at best, and stressful at worst, especially motorway driving. The process is certainly not the pleasant and quite experience it once was! Owning a car does give one almost unlimited freedom to travel to wherever takes one’s fancy, but that freedom comes at a price, and isn’t without its own irritations.

The extremely flat, rear tyre I noticed on our first morning in Wales, was one such example, although fortunately the incident occurred overnight, in the car park, and Britannia Rescue were soon on the scene to change the wheel. The nearby branch of Kwik-Fit were also able to provide a reasonably priced, replacemnt tyre, so the only real damage was to my wallet, plus an hour or so of lost time. Such happenings are on the whole rare, and relatively and minor in their impact, but obviously the further and longer one drives, the more likely they are to occur.

I shan’t reveal, for the moment, whereabouts in Wales, we spent the past three days, but you might get a clue from some of the photos used to illustrate this post. Must go now, as I have lots to catch up on!