My glass is half full as we hunker down once more

OH what a day it was, what a day it was, oh! The eve of Lockdown 2 had to be a celebratory occasion, the last night of freedom for a month.

First stop, Early Doors micro-pub in busy Skipton, charity-shop capital of the Dales, though I notice Age UK has closed.

I said au revoir to the regulars. Charlie, Haakon, Ian the top Tyke grumbler and droll John.

Landlord Paul was selling stock at reduced prices. His New Zealand pale at £3 a pint was a grand start. Nothing to do with Kiwis, it’s brewed in Burnley.

There wasn’t time to go to my clerb, the Working Men’s, but since it has survived for more than 150 years, it’ll still be there next month. I rounded off the day at the

Old White Bear, at socially distanced tables by the wood fire, with some fellow old, white grizzlies.

Observing the rule of six, of course. Though it may have been six of one and half a dozen of the other. It sometimes gets that way after a few pints of Naylor’s Gold bitter.

Mrs R came along to give the occasion a much-needed shot of pulchritude.

Whatever you say about the Bear boys, they wouldn’t win a beauty pageant – but that’s not what we’re here for. Known locally as “the Laffer”, after a notoriously taciturn landlord of the last century (people round here have long memories), the pub, dating from 1735, is a place for mutual mickey-taking and gossip.

Classic Yorkshire.

I shall miss it. But I did in Lockdown 1, and it was there when life was partially resumed. I look forward to that happy day returning. Twenty-three to go. Now where did I put that Co-op box of inferior plonk?