More from the Dolphin

I wish everyone could understand pubs… it’s so nice to leave home, and whether you saunter down the village high street as we do, or have to travel by car/taxi/bus, on a bike/motorbike/scooter, to get to your local, to YOUR local, you wander in to what is effectively your second home.

By home I mean:

• a place where something flourishes, is most typically found, or from which it originate – Oxford English living dictionary
• the place in which one’s domestic affections are centred – dictionary.com
• a place where something normally or naturally lives or is located – Merriam Webster

You go into your local, (your local) and you feel comfortable and at ease; you know the people behind the bar – and actually even if you don’t because they are new, you sort of do know them because the person who has employed them has employed people who fit, who are sort of family. You might look round and see familiar faces, or if you don’t, you look at them because they have come into your place – you look at them in a friendly interested way, and you may engage them in conversation. There may be other people who you vaguely know, or don’t know at all but are obviously ‘regulars’ who just come in at a different time from you.

You may have your favourite place to sit, stand be in the pub – or various different places – you might have a quiz night place, a meeting friends place, a watching sport on the TV place, an engaging in pub activities place – poker/crib/darts for example. You may be a leaner on the bar person, a sitting at the bar person, a sitting at a particular place sort of person, or you may wander around and sit where you fancy. You have actual friends, pub friends, or just be happy to be in your own space.

If you are a pub person, it’s sort of like a club; you go into a pub you have never been in before and you walk in full of interest – what beers are one, what’s it like, who’s in, what’s the menu (even if you don’t want to eat), what’s going on, what’s the craic?

We’re so fortunate to have a great pub in our village… if we ever move, and one day, you never know, we might… one of our priorities will be to have a proper pub near where we live.

You may think it strange that my featured pic is not of the Dolphin; the Trevor Arms was ‘our’ pub for many years when I lived in Chorlton in Manchester.  When we first went there we were students, it saw us through our various first jobs until we settled into our life pattern. It might have had different landlords, but it was ‘our’ pub, just as the Dolphin is ‘our’ pub!

Here’s an interesting article:

http://www.thelongestwayhome.com/blog/how-to-live-overseas/what-is-the-definition-of-home-2012-edition/