Beer gardens are heavenly

Beer gardens are just the most beautiful, sensual, relaxing, celebratory places to be when the sun shines and the beer in your glass is equally sunny. I sit outside the Exmoor Forest Inn in Simonsbath (the so-called capital of Exmoor — blink and you have driven through it) after completing my 16 miles on the annual Exmoor Perambulation (you can do either 16 or 31, I always plump for the former), a fantastic trawl through the glorious uplands of Exmoor where deep valleys cut through the heather and tough grass of the high moors. The sun is out, I have a pint of Budvar Draught in front of me, and contemplation has to give way to refreshment. It’s perfect though — funny to think that out here in the middle of nowhere a Czech lager is served with such joy and class. Pub gardens: last Sunday evening I was also out in the one that stands in front of the Crown at Churchill, an unspoilt, rustic, take-us-as-you-find-us place in the village of Churchill. The view was over towards Wales, while behind me the solid 19th century building was as still as a stopped clock. Beer and cider was dispensed: a pint of RCH was followed by a Thatcher’s cider (they make the stuff down the road). I was warned by the proprietor of the guest house I was staying in (early start for Bristol airport the next morning) that the Mendip Twister (I think) was lethal. At 9pm when a guest in the guest house shouted ‘wrong room’ as I tried to put my key into his door was sufficient evidence of a certain confusion.
The picture is of the Crown in Churchill, very Joy Division meets Edward Thomas if there is such a thing…