To celebrate the visit of one our mates from Australia, we decided to go on a pub crawl...surprise surprise !. Looking for something different and trying to avoid city centre pubs, we opted for trip up Weardale.
So the weekend just gone we caught a bus from Durham to Crook, had a Spoons breakfast then another bus to Stanhope, then retraced our steps via Frosterley on the bus and then Wolsingham on the Weardale Railway.
One of ours guys had compiled a quiz, which we took part in in Stanhope ( Grey Bull) and Frosterley (Black Bull). All very gentile and civilised. Thinking the same we got of the train at Wolsingham and strolled up the the Black Lion, a back street local I had visited before - see the tranquil scene above. Despite a rainy start it was nice and sunny so I thought a few beers in the pub garden out the back would be great.
We walked in to be confronted by a group of lads on a stag do ...there was about 15 of them. As i was getting the beers in Mr Quizmaster challenged the aforesaid half drunk guys to a quiz !
So we retired to the garden, although on reflection retired is the wrong word. At the start there was 6 of us in our team and 5 of them ined up against each other. One of their party was flat out on a bench just inside the pub giving it the zzzz's.
As the quiz began, there number swelled by ones and twos till eventually there was the whole 15, taking on us 6. By now it was all rather raucous, but with good humour. The lads were from London, in their 30s and staying in a farmhouse somewhere, Despite the booze they were reasonably sensible and entered into the spirit of the occasion. Then their mate on the bench woke up and he staggered in to join the throng. On his bald head his so called mates had written in black ink some very descriptive words. When it was his question he took so long to answer everyone gave up on him!
Then the stag subject appeared -he was the soberest of the lot, He looked like he was bricking it and had realised what he had let himself in for.
I went to the gents and one of them said to me they were planning on going 2 hours ago but the beer and the pub were so good they stayed.
Despite the overwhelming odds stacked against us we won by one point.
This was one of the questions - in the Monty Python Dead Parrot sketch, which creature did Michael Palin offer to sell John Cleese as a replacement to the parrot *
We left after about 90 mins to get our bus home reflecting on a riotous but good natured time we had. I only hope the future groom cheered up !
* A slug .
