Avril was meeting up in Stratford-upon-Avon with some work colleagues for an evening out and there was no point in me returning back home. As such, I had a good four or five hours to occupy myself with and so decided to try a couple of pubs and a bag of fish and chips too. After dropping Avril off, I decided to park the car in the south of the town, near to the church where Shakespeare is buried, and go for a wander. Nearby is the West End. This is a backstreet pub, and is very smart, but not pretentious. It was pretty busy inside, but I managed to get a place to stand near the bar. They had about 3 or 4 beers on, and they were very well kept. As pubs go, this is well up there, as long as it does not get too busy, and is a good place to spend a few hours on comfortable seats drinking good beer.

Venturing further away, I went to the Lamplighters which is reasonably close to the station. This was a quiet and not overly characterful pub, but it did have Banks's which was served at a moderate price. There were a couple of old soaks in there having quiet pints, and I think this really is a useful summation of this pub. In contrast, the Old Thatch Tavern just up the road was very busy, but I did manage to get a seat near the gents'. They had a few Purity ales and the one I had was pretty good, but it looked like the sort of place that might get too noisy later on, which would have been a shame, so I left. Definitely worth a repeat visit. Food seemed also to be one of the main themes.

After some fish and chips, I headed back for the main part of the town as there was time for a couple of weak halves before a period of abstinence prior to collecting Avril. The Falcon was selected for this purpose. Although this is really just an hotel bar, the building is full of characterful and most probably very old wooden panelling, and the bar area is a very place indeed to drink in. They also had purity and fortunately the weak one, so I laboured over a half for about a while whilst watching some one day cricket on the TV. A very pleasant place to kill some time although it is probably too quiet for most people's tastes. Immaculate service (at prices which reflected that) from a suited man at the bar.

Just up the road is the Garrick which is the oldest pub in Stratford. This is a very nice place to drink indeed. The pub is divided up into sections and the best part is definitely the bit as you first go in which is a cosy wooden panelled room with three or four rustic tables and a short lengthy of bar. Immediately round the back bar is quite good too but the history does peter out a bit as you go further back into the foody area although having said that it is still a good area in which to dine. The beer didn't quite measure up in terms of choice, being mainly Greene King fayre, but the IPA was a perfectly pleasant pint. The array of bar snacks was also above average.

After a bit of a doze in the car, it was time to collect Avril, and there was just room to squeeze in a very weak half at the Queen's Head. As it stood, we didn't leave here for a little while longer which worked out well. This pub is less refined than the other ones that I had been to but had an excellent atmosphere with some sort of themed party going on. This made up for the lack of decent ale and lack of decent non-alcoholic beer too, so I had to have a couple of Cokes :(