A Night At the Harp

Scenes from The Harp, a great place to be - warm fire, good conversation and a mighty fine steak as well!

Folks in America probably won't know what I'm talking about when I say I went to the local the other night; the local pub, that is. In my case the local is called The Harp and it is a wonderful little place with the kind of ambiance that money simply can't buy. You need giant (about 3 foot square) thick Welsh flagstones covering the floor. You need a sort of dark seafoam green coat of paint on the walls, the walls that aren't 400-year-old timbers, that is. You need pieces of leather harness decorated with horse brasses and a hunting horn, a big crackling fire in a nice old stone hearth and some proper Welsh settles with nice cushions on them. You need some "locals" to spice up the place with their unique regional country retired farmer kind of accents and maybe a missing tooth and an eye that doesn't see anymore. You need a few guys in worn tweed wool coats and flat caps and you need the kind of taps you have to pull - and pull hard. You need proper British pints (a good deal larger than 16 American fluid ounces) and you need some time. Yeah, time might be the most important thing.

You need to be a bit laid back and prepared to sit around old oak pub tables in worn wooden chairs and wait for the next slyly told joke and the looks that pass between the folks that have known each other all their lives.

Well, really what you need to do is just get out and visit some really good old English (or Welsh) pubs and have a few pints with the neighbors and learn about everything from what Carp said last night to when John's funeral will be held to the latest football scores to the unusual lack of winter weather we're having....you learn it all right there at the Harp. Just grab a seat, take a deep breath, have a couple good gulps of your Guinness (on tap!) and listen, listen, listen!

Here's to the Harp, a mighty fine pub! And to all the locals everywhere.

David and Jenny, new owners of the Harp.