Skip to the bit about pubs!

Last few days have been a blur. Tay and I wake up after ten, and usually closer to 11 am. We eat a huge, elaborate breakfast around noon and people generally take an hour or two to get organised and ready to do something. We'll drive out and take in a pint at a village pub, and another at a different pub nearby. After dark, we head home, and eat a huge, elaborate dinner at eight, followed by a few hours of cards before breaking up after midnight.

Last night, New Years Eve, dad took us to Inn on the Hill, a nice country pub. Please note that many country pubs double as restaurants, and many of them are quite nice. This was one of them. For dinner, I ordered butternut squash gnocchi, followed by roasted duck. For dessert, I ordered a quite delicious apple-pear crumble served with maple whipped cream.

The demographics of this area are really revealed by the pubs. Let's start with who I see there: lots of middle age to late middle age, sprinkled through with a few families. Perhaps not too surprising. However, these folks don't look like the agrarian sort. A peek into the typical parking lot yields a surprising number of BMWs, Land Rovers and Audis. London is an hour's drive time away.

The pubs themselves tell me volumes now that I think about it. The typical pub out here was usually built out of an existing barn or house. They're ancient structures, some of the original architecture built 600 years ago. We're in the middle of pastureland. If we were in the US, the pub should be like the country bar in rural Kentucky, complete with neon bud light signs in the window, broken juke box, and the scratched and filthy tables stolen from the long-closed restaurant down the way.

However, I've never been to ANY 'English' or 'Irish' pub in the US which was half as nice as the country pubs out here. The chimneys are cracked, the building leans, and the old tile roof sags, but there's a sleek and quiet modernization that gets lost as you're dazzled by the quaintness. You're looking at the old harnesses on the ancient beams and you totally miss the discreet, modern lighting fixtures recessed into the plaster ceiling. All the wiring for the inconspicous speakers and electrified old fixtures is recessed. The door and walk off mat is too nice. Everything is a little too clean and polished, and the wait staff are a little too polite. The menus are professionally done, on quality paper, in leather folios. The light levels are appropriate. The bathrooms are very nice.

I get a sneaking suspicion that these country pubs are essentially as themed and carefully contrived as the "Rielley O'Finnegan's Irish Pub" in the Oklahoma City mall. Another give-away- the building's history is often displayed- either writ large on the wall by the bar or on the backs of the menus. Locals, regulars, farmers. I'm guessing they're not going to give a toasted teabag, especially once they've read it the first time.

I really took for granted that I was the only tourist here, enjoying the pubs for their ancient histories, and quaint, country pubby feeling. My hypothesis- These pubs don't exist for the local farmers (which makes me wonder- who works these fields? Do they live farther away and commute from where property values are lower?) These pubs are here for the upper class commuters, who use Surrey as a bedroom community for Guildford or London. Guildford, which I read somewhere is one of the most expensive places to live in England outside of London, is in the heart of the area, and the heart of London itself only 45 minutes away by the many express trains.

Of course, I could be wrong about the exclusivity of the area. It does seem like there's a lot of these upscale pubs. However, it could be that the area is very mixed economically, and that the poorer people go to less visible pubs. Or, more likely, echoing the historic patterns, perhaps most of the middle and lower classes who live out here reside in the larger villages and towns, and go to less fancy neighbourhood pubs, while people with the country houses (which are, incidentaly, extremely expensive) drive to the more remote country pubs. 

So, ultimately, its good for me to remember that very likely, these pubs are the playground of the wealthy Brits seeking a bit of the lordly country life, or to pretend to be shepherds or something.

Anyway, where was I? Oh, right, after dinner at the nice pub-
We played cards until midnight, and then watched the London fireworks on the big screen TV. A year ago, we were actually there, on the banks of the Thames river among the millions, so the home theatre experience is somewhat lacking.