No.51 - The Plough, Wangford, Suffolk

Saturday 10th November, 2012.
Strider - One who strides.
This was F.I.C.C.'s (Felixstowe & Ipswich Chaps and Chapesses) 4th year of going away together and this year Wangford was our destination. There were 3 pubs on the blogging list, but unfortunately only 2 were 'blogable', as one of them was closed on this Saturday afternoon while we were out with our passes.
The first was The Plough, which was just a stone throw from where we were staying, so armed with a scrabble board, myself, Andy, Ade and Damo headed on in to be greeted by a beautiful Labrador puppy and an empty pub, although a very warm one. There were 2 open fires with one of them roaring and crackling away. We grabbed a decent square table, designed for scrabble, and got the beers in.
It's not one of Adnams older pubs with records showing that it dates back to around the late 1800's, and the building itself has always been a beer house. With it's quirky wallpaper of stacked up books on shelves it kind of gives the feeling that your having a pint in a grand library! Being situated just off the A12 there is ample parking and I would imagine the place could get very busy as there is a lovely restaurant area now adjoined to the bar, and also a quite sizeable accommodation building.
There was a nice selection of beers available and I was straight in with a pint of Old, my first of the winter. Broadside & Bitter of course were available, and it looked like Fishermans had been on, but alas we were too late on this occasion as the barrel had run dry.

Although we had decided to seat ourselves in the main bar area on nice, decent wooden furniture, there was another side of the bar which looked far to cosy, and could have seen us staying put all afternoon.  Big cushions, soft leather chair's, Adnams beer and a warm fire...beautiful.
Meanwhile on the Scrabble front, which was a kind of speed version where myself, Andy and Damo were given 1 minute to get your tiles down, and Ade was given 2 minutes(!!!), I managed to somehow take an early aggregate lead, and that was despite not being allowed to have 'strider' on a triple!  It was far too early to start celebrating mind you as there were still another couple of legs to be played, so we supped up and moved on.