BRAPA and ......... the Unseen Crystal Ball of Pendeen (Cornwall Part 5)

Day three of my third year in Cornwall and it was time to head west and fill in some of the remaining gaps that had appeared since the last time I was down here, and unless you count the Isles of Scilly (I wasn't, for now), it didn't get any 'wester' than the little hamlet of Pendeen.

After changing at Par and Penzance by train, I then took a bus which bumbled its way dolefully through the rugged coastal countryside passing 'old friends' like St Just, Botallack and Trewellard - stars of my 'debut' year in Cornwall back in 2017.  No wonder it wasn't until late lunchtime when I finally arrived at today's first pub.

The weather still hadn't broken as my optimistic Premier Inn breakfast goers were predicting, and we were again in the midst of a drab. grey overcast day with the odd downpour, good job I'm not too bothered about getting a gorgeballs tan out of this mostly indoor holiday!

Mystic breakfast 

Compare that to 2017, sat outside the Trewallard Arms blinking into the hot sun with two hours to kill until the next bus, trying hopelessly to nurse a single pint for fear of drinking too much and making the journey back to Penzance too hard on the ole' bladder!  IF ONLY I had known that just a short stroll up the road, I could've come to this pub too and properly ruined myself.  I could've even popped into the neighbouring Geevor mining museum.  This was the ultimate in 'BRAPA making you kick yourself'.

Still, we're here now, and "it is what it is" as we pub tickers say in a futile attempt to grasp for the few remaining strands of sanity we possess.

A 13th Good Beer Guide appearance for this one, would it be unlucky for some?  A first since 2012, it actually made its first appearance in 2001 so must've done all those years consecutively.  BRAPA stats eh?  You gotta love 'em!

Ivy-clad to the point of being almost invisible was this St Austell Ales friendly pub, North Inn (1651 / 2621).  Despite having its fair share of lunchers on my visit, and despite the tin mines being a now distant memory, this place had one of the most authentic old Cornish pub atmospheres I've encountered, with a cracking range of red faced bearded bar blockers with other wordly accents, it was like a Captain Birdseye convention with fewer fish fingers.  It DID have a fish tank though, another 'Cornish pub staple'.   The men rolled their imagined glass eyes at me as I ordered a pint of Cornish Best, which was of varying quality as it progressed down the glass.  You'd have to go to the Star in St Just or the Countryman in Piece to find quite such a peak-Kernow set of folk.  There was even a Cornish Tom Irvin (CTI) in a 'Monster' cap perched on the end of the bar, but he sure wasn't on the energy drink!  I sat facing the bar between a thin mouthed pious couple of zero humour and a group of posh 'ladies who lunch' - one of which had to take her daughter to a concert in Penzance but was worried as "one can get roughed up".  They behaved til the Prosecco kicked in, when they started making farm animal noises.  Sheep and goat were cringeworthy, though when the lady in the multi coloured home knitted sweater did her 'cow', it was strangely arousing.  No wonder the dog under the table looked terrified.  "I CAN SEE YOU!" the loud school teachery one said to it, but another lady thought she was talking to me so it was my turn to make a lame arsed joke about 'behaving myself, honest'.   I scared the pub by returning my empty glass to the bar and saying goodbye, and got plenty of bewildered smiles from those who'd stayed for a post-lunch snifter.

The beers

The bar

The ladies who moo

The bus out of Pendeen back towards Penzance was delayed.  By 9 minutes.  This was to be a recurring theme of the holiday.  I saw CTI, walking back towards the pub, he was now clutching a can a Tennents Super.  Now where did he pick that up in Pendeen?

I'd worked out that staying on the bus through the painstaking 'Penzance Interchange' meant I could get to another required pub, at another small village called Ludgvan.   The village is spilt into 'Lower Quarter' where I got off the bus and 'Churchtown' up the hill where the pub was.

A fat boy bounced on a trampoline in a Plymouth Argyle home shirt and counted his jumps, trying to impress his little brother.  I smiled, he tried to look menacing.  Apparently, Ludgvan was home to the last native wolf in the UK, but I was spooked enough by our fat friend and still not entirely recovered from Bodmin in truth.

You thirsty for those BRAPA stats?  An 11th appearance in the GBG (though one of them as an "also try this pub...." afterthought, glad they don't do that any more!) but its first time since 2009, having made its debut in 1990.  So now you know.

I'd calculated that if I rushed myself along in here, I could get done in my regulation 27.5 (25?) mins and dash back down the hill, just catching next bus to Penzance.  After all, it had been REALLY slow going to far, I had a long way back to Quintrell Downs, and needed to inject a bit of life into the day as we were already getting into the late afternoon.

So it was probably something of a blessing that the White Hart (1652 / 2622) wasn't the kind of pub I was particularly bothered about hanging around in.  It seemed to have been spoilt by modernisation, which just doesn't cut it for me in this part of the world (North Inn kept its spirit, so why not here?) with lots of blackboards, dried flowers, posh menus and the like.  A shame, as the shape of the ancient building, uneven stone floor, and clientele comprising six thirty something blokes who'd finished a hard day's graft at 'Penzance Gardeners' and were laughing over a few pints of lager suggested it could've been so much more.  It even had Draught Bass as a regular ale til not that long ago, and why would you sack that off for the Doom?  I can think of a few beery bloggers who'd be saddened by that thought.  But hopes to have a pretty rushed pint weren't helped by the barman (who looked more like a scientist than a Cornish barman) going AWOL for ages.  "He'll be back soon .... I think" the blokes reassured me as I 'tried' to look relaxed and casual, fuming inside.  They chatted on London "It's a bladdy ghetto!  But I loikes Camden"  Barman was changing a barrel, not sure what, but my Avocet beer was again pretty average quality when I got it.  And even then, I couldn't relax as my Dad phoned in what can only be described as an 'Ilkeston Panic'.  Not many people have rung Ludgvan in an Ilkeston panic so I felt privileged, and did my best to make 'Ilkeston reassurances' in between big gulps of avg ale as a Linkin Park Acoustic album played in the background.  Two German ladies appeared, blinked a bit, so I went to say hello and smile and took my glass back to the bar.

You see my problem with this pub?

Bar blokes

11th hour German invasion

So I ran back down that hill, as punk in disguise Kate Bush once sang (or was that up it?) and OF COURSE the bus was NINE minutes late so I'd not needed to rush.

But if the pubs and beer had been a bit of a mixed bag so far, things were about to take a turn for the better back in Penzance.  Join me in Part Six for that one.

Thanks, Si