By Ruby
Most people come to Newick on the way to somewhere else. The point of this post is to argue you should make it the destination.
Friday. Arrive in time for the bar. Sussex Best on cask, a window seat, the pub dog (his name is Wallace) asleep by the fire. Dinner in the restaurant. Order the steak. Sleep upstairs in one of the rooms.
Saturday morning. Full Sussex breakfast at 9 (you booked the late one, sensible). After breakfast, walk five minutes down the road to Sheffield Park Gardens. National Trust, properly grand. Lakes, autumn colour if you are in October, bluebells in April. Two hours is enough.
Saturday afternoon. Bluebell Railway from Sheffield Park station. Steam engines. Tea on the train. You will text someone "I am on a steam train" and they will reply with too many exclamation marks. That is the correct reaction.
Saturday evening. Sunday roast prep means the kitchen has its best mood on Saturdays. Order the fish or the seasonal special. Sit late.
Sunday. Sunday roast at noon. By 2pm the room is full and the volume has come up. Walk it off on the Ashdown Forest (twenty minutes drive) before driving home.
You will not have left a five-mile radius of the pub the entire weekend. That is the point.
