“And you may pook and you may shove but a Sussex pig he wunt be druv” old regional saying

Today I was to get a day to myself as we had agreed that mum would stay in Tottenham to rest while I ventured out on my own to Lewes in Sussex to tour Harvey’s. We rose early and I took mum out in search of a full English before leaving her. We went first to a community café in a park. Unfortunately, although Google proclaimed it open the business didn’t really look like it existed anymore. We pushed on and found a Turkish greasy spoon a couple of blocks further on. After loading up on the fat of the land we wandered back to Mary’s where I left mum in front of the telly and jumped on a bus and then two tubes to get to London Victoria. I ended up a little early, so I popped into the station Wetherspoons for a pint. I sat with a Green King Abbot and refreshed the departure page on my phone till I knew what platform my train was to leave from.
I found my train and soon it was sliding through the Victorian brick expanse of London. The back gardens slowly got bigger until we were flying through fields, the place where London ends  as H. V. Morton put it.
I wandered out from Lewes Station along a wee lane towards the high street. I spent a day here with Stu McKinlay in 2019 so I knew my way around. I was to meet Henry in The John Harvey Tavern which is a converted stable block and serves as Harvey’s brewery tap.
I ordered a pint of Old Ale and took a seat in a settle formed from an old barrel next to the fire.
Henry joined me on his lunch break from across the road and got himself a pint. When I was last in the UK Henry was brewing at Fullers and took me for a tour just after the sale to Asahi had gone through. Since he did a stint as head brewer at Dark Star before that brewery was closed and now has his own contract brand but is also working as senior brewer at Harvey’s. Two pints later we crossed the high street and wandered through the Victorian tower brewery. Harvey’s was designed by William Bradford who also designed Hook Norton who I visited in 2019.
We toured the brewery up and down ladders , we smelt the very characteristic funky yeast fermenting in the open squares and we exited through the cellar door where I was loaded up with beer.
I then wandered down to the Gardeners Arms where a buxom bar woman almost out of a period drama (apart from some nice tattooed arms) was holding court over a handful of middle aged male drinkers.
I ordered a pint of Burning Sky Old Ale and quietly drank it while listening to the locals. After a while a middle aged chap vaguely dressed in some homage to a teddy boy came in from smoking on the street and proceeded to watch some terrible reality TV show on his phone with the volume up full. Watching devices in public without airphones is an epidemic in this country. The bar woman gave him a withering side eye but that was the extent to the admonishment.
After I walked up to The Brewers Arms. Stu and myself dined here last time and I did the same this time. The Brewers Arms is my sort of boozer, plush carpets, separate drinking rooms, a menu of classics like scampi and chips.
I ordered a pint of Sussex Best and a fish finger sandwich and a bowl of white bait. English white bait are much larger than ours, the size of children’s fingers.
Henry finished work after a while and came up to join me, We talked over several more pints and then wandered to the train station where we caught trains in opposite directions him to Worthing , me to London.