THE PUB
The Woodman stands on the outskirts of the village of Wormley West End. The surrounding countryside is typically English: narrow lanes, wooded hills, hedge-rowed fields, horses, & quaint cottages and manors. We started at 8:30 a.m. & Ray & I re-stocked the shelves while Linda vacuumed and cleaned both bars. We had a break from 10 till 11 when the pub opens. Ray gave me a training run on the computerized tools and I pulled my first pint of McMullens Country Bitter¹.
It wasn’t a busy day and we got through to closing time at 2:30. Ray took Linda and I down to Cheshunt and we did some shopping there and in Hoddesdon, a 20 minute bus trip away. It was bitterly cold with sleet and rain and we caught ataxi back to the pub in time for the evening session, 5:30 till 11. That session wasn’t too busy either and at 10 Linda came out for a lesson on the tills and her first taste of pints pulling in an English pub.
By the time we had cleaned up it was nearly 12. It had taken till about 11:30 to kick out the last of the locals, most of whom are simple-minded country folk², and we went upstairs and fell into bed exhausted.
¹McMullens of Hertford is a long-established, family-owned brewery founded in 1827 in the town of Hertford, the capital town of Hertfordshire. NB as of 2019, McMullens no longer owns The Woodman, which is now known at The Woodman and Olive, a daft mish-mash of names if you ask me!
²Stay tuned to read about just how badly-behaved some of these rustics really were!
CurseOfTheTraveller 