Ice Cold In Addison

A couple of trains took me to Seaforth for a third visit this year, and I started today's ticks at the Railway:

The interior is knocked through into one room, but retaining a lounge end and a bar end, differentiated by carpet vs. lino, and with a pool table in the bar side.  There's also a small raised seating area off the bar side.  The entrance features a well preserved Threlfall's floor mosaic.

It's nicely decorated and generally well cared for throughout, although perhaps looking a little threadbare in places.

Only two other customers and me to keep the place going on a Tuesday afternoon, more came in while I drank.

It's not so common nowadays to see the "peddlers" but two came in, the first offering perfume and the second instant coffee.

On to the Stockwell Mount:

When I visited back in 2003 this was called Ma Kent's, and the rather fine interior featured the most amazing collection of bric-a-brac.  I particularly remember a Darth Vader helmet, and a tram control desk, but the whole place was packed with fascinating artefacts.  Sadly, it's now a residential hotel, so I'm guessing the collection is long gone.

The Saltbox:

I wonder how much it costs to care for the outside of a building like they've done so well here.  I bet it's not cheap.

The interior of this enormous pub is split into a large knocked through lounge side and a smaller plainer bar side.

I found the back of the lounge side to be cooler than outside, so I settled there and enjoyed another pint of fizz.

Again, a very few customers were keeping the place ticking over, they were a lot noisier than those in the Railway, although actually most of the noise was the bar staff, I think!

Suddenly there was a lot of noisy fussing from customers and staff over something out of sight at the other end of the room.  I couldn't work out if it was a dog or a baby until, eventually, it made some baby noises in response!

Next, the Pacific Hotel:

Inside, another plain well looked after boozer, this one all knocked through into one open room.

Once again a handful of regulars were keeping the place going, not as noisily as in the previous tick.

World cup football was on multiple tellies, I could also see two racing channels.  No-one seemed to be watching any of them.

Spotted!  The landlady came over, "Are you doing a survey or something?"  She seemed to lose interest when I showed her the book.

On to what was Qudos:

This was a very tatty snooker hall, but with lots of non-playing drinkers whwn I visited in '99 and '04.  Nowadays, the signage outside is all about membership rates, which lead me to the possibly premature conclusion that it no longer counts as a pub.

Should I have gone in?  Bearing in mind how bad it was when I was here before, I'm happy with my decision.

I took a little deviation to check out the former Madigan's Lighthouse, now a dance school:

As I trudged on in the blazing sun it occurred to me that I should finish this trip on the hottest day of the year so far in the Alexandra, so I could title it "Ice Cold In Alex".  On the other hand, organising my ticks just to get a witty blog title is probably not the best way to plan, and I was there only a month ago.

So I carried on to Bootle's town centre, and the Addison Arms which used to be Yates' but now belongs to the Stonegate chain:

What a surprise:  The place was packed!  Almost every table (I managed to find one eventually.) was occupied by Bootlonians (Bootlers?), enjoying the footie or just chattering.  All were my age or older.

I selected Robinson's Dizzy Blonde from the range of "standard" real ales with a little trepidation, but it was, to sum up in two words, spot on.  And not ice cold, just pleasantly cool.  A scan round once I'd sat down failed to spot anyone else on real ale.

They don't seem to have made any major changes since this was a Yates', but they've certainly done a good job of the general maintenance, the place is very well cared for.

I couldn't get over how busy this pub was at half three on a Tuesday, goodness knows what it's like on a Friday evening.

I had a look at the menu, it seems to be very good value, but I couldn't see anyone eating so perhaps Wetherspoon's, almost next door, is getting all the diners.

By the way, I saw no evidence of the much-reported shortage of CO2 on today's trip.

Coming soon.... Wallasey.