As we approach the end of week 6 of lock-down I thought I would share a couple of updates from life locked inside the pub. Let’s be fair if I had offered a golden ticket to spend your lock-down in the pub it would have been over subscribed, after all where better to be?
So today is my line cleaning day and I have cleaned the single line that I have retained for personal consumption. Sounds great doesn’t it, ice cold draught beer… The flip side of this is a distinct absence of choice. Those who have drunk with me will know that I do change my beverage from time to time and having only one draught line somewhat precludes that.
I start 11 gallons of product like an Olympic sprinter, its the best thing that I have ever tasted, pure nectar. The trouble is that there are 88 pints in there and (as your mum always told you) until that is gone you can’t have anything else. I sit down and think that I fancy a glass of wine and this little voice says ‘have some beer first’ then there is this little debate before I fold and drink some beer, see you never realised how tough it was did you?
The fact that pubs are closed appears to have been accepted by the general public far quicker than I expected. Despite lights ablaze and music blaring I leave the front door open and it is used only by delivery people. We have developed a system, given the no contact rule, for dealing with deliveries whereby they place items just inside the door and I either spot them on CCTV or fall over them.
It is funny how used you get to furniture and shadows and well to being open I guess. Obviously I have moved furniture around and the amount of times I step off the steps with a paint brush in hand to see ‘who that is’ before realising its a table! Apparently it takes me longer to adjust to being closed than the general public. I know the pub is shut, after all that is why I am painting and it looks like a bomb site, yet the other day I got off the step 4 separate times for the same bloody table that caught the corner of my eye.
It is bad enough dealing with the ducks without going to serve the furniture. 4 times, that is not just special that is Gav special! I am not that stupid though, I introduced myself to said table and now I don’t have to get off the step I can just call out to see if Bob wants anything. See, they all think I am daft but I am as daft as a fox me.