Finally, I got to the pub. Twice, actually: once for a family dinner at a gastropub; once for a late afternoon ale at a park pop-up, a brisk wind blowing through the gazebo.
We might have gone sooner, had a pub visit not become so logistically laborious. Mask, check. Warm extra layers, check. Charged mobile for Covid app check-in and hands-free ordering, check.
Oh for those halcyon days when ‘Fancy a cheeky half?’ was the jump-off point to an easeful afternoon.
The Moon Under Water is a famous George Orwell essay describing his fantasy London pub. Two minutes from a bus stop, down a side-street, it is an ‘uncompromisingly Victorian’ gin-palace with tobacco-stained ceiling, upstairs dining and several ground-floor bars.