People always have that notion of 'summer is the best time for going to the pub', as if pub's cease to exist in the other seasons / just can't accommodate for any weather apart from sunshine. This may be a fair assumption if all the pubs you know are 'city pubs', ie during the summer put tables and chairs out on pavements / on roof terraces and go bananas. Country pubs, or even town pubs, have a whole different set-up. Town pubs generally have beer gardens, and during the summer, it's like a fight for seats. I have, many times, been known to sit on people's laps because there were no more chairs. Of course, you have to know the person / be smaller than the person you are sitting on. Otherwise things get awkward.
In the winter, however, all the local pubs round here have this different feeling. Like, instead of smelling cider and fruity things, you smell mulled wine and pints of heavy ales and stouts. And the kitchens (they all have kitchens) are cooking vegetables, and pies, and lots of meat, instead of baguettes and burgers in the summer (which either don't smell or stink) - the whole pub is taken over by this mouth-watering smell of onions and beef, pastry, steamed vegetables and crispy potatoes. You didn't even think you were hungry and suddenly you're salivating, impatient for a nice roast meal. Such a great way to get bums on seats.
Of course, Christmas changes pubs, but not in the tacky way it changes city pubs. They'll put up some holly, or get a small (real) tree, or whatever, which will add to the smell. They might but up some decor, but not much. And most of the pubs have no music, or that that they do have is so quiet you don't notice it, so you don't have Slade, Wet Wet Wet and Wham! shoved down your ear holes every second of the day.
Last night, for the first time in over a month, I went to the pub, and I had some shandies, (not too many), and we walked through Bungay in the freezing cold to the kebaby, where Ben and Luke got some foul looking food, and we walked to Ben's, sat in the warm kitchen, on the new sofas, Luke and I had a weird drink (concoction of Morgan's Spiced and Caribbean Juice) and all night we just chatted, laughed, tried to recount all 150 original pokemon (aided by three other drunk guys who got into massive arguments about whether or not Onyx evolves), failed / gave up at 80 and tried to google them, but to do so I had to stand just outside the pub doors, because signal is just that bad; all in all it was such a chilled, lovely evening. It was pub-in-winter, which is actually the most warming thing. Being out in the freezing cold and huddling by a bar, in the warm, near a blazing fire, with all the other town drunks laughing merrily around you, is such a warming sensation.
I'm really fancying a pub roast now, but its a Saturday, so will just have to wait 'til tomorrow.
So, for those of you cynics who think every pub is like a Weatherspoons, and every winter is for staying indoors - I urge you to go out and embrace the Winter Pub. Its a fail-safe way of getting you in the mood for the festive season!
Happy December everyone!