As you know the Bulls Head enjoys a number of doggie regulars of the four legged variety!! We even get them visiting on their own!! (See shaggy dog story below).

On our ‘Bulls Head birthday’ a rather handsome ‘Harlequin’ Great Dane puppy arrived with its owners just at the right time!!

A large bone from our ‘wild boar roast’ had become available and was duly served to our special guest!! His lucky day!!

A pint with your dog is a special occasion indeed and a great excuse to enjoy the Bulls Head!! Bones and all!!

We seem to be the pub of choice for cyclists on their way from Land’s End to John ‘O’ Groats. Pictured are Paul, Andy, Paul H and Mark who were staying at the Hinton Guest House, Knutsford (the best guest house for many a mile!!) overnight following a day of 92 miles of cycling!!

All four of them enjoyed our Wild Boar Roast dinner with all the trimmings, then posed for the photo and enjoyed a pint each of Bulls Head Bitter on the house. The lads were raising money for The Stroke Foundation and look to complete the whole journey over 10 days of tough cycling.

We wish them the very best of luck in reaching the far north safely.

This is the second crew on their way to John ‘O’ Groats to enjoy dinner and Ale with us!!!

Anyone else doing the trip call in and see us!!

After a great first year of the Bulls Head pub Shane, our quirky Landlord, has managed to ‘sign up’ more members for his ‘Goodfellas’ car club than ‘Porsche nut’ Tim with his superb 3p Club!!!

So as you can see from the photos there is a miserable looking Tim with a rather over enthusiastic Shane!!!

Tim, as the loser, is paying, as promised, £100 to Shanes selected Charity………….. C.A.F.T. which is the Children’s Adventure Farm Trust in Cheshire which looks out for children disadvantaged by illness, disability and/or Poverty.

Well done Shane but year two will show Tim coming back to thrash you!! So £100 is on the second year of the Bulls Heads car club memberships!!!

Tim successfully gained 18 Porsches in the 3p club and Shane managed 27 members from the Goodfellas club!! A clear 9 members more!!!

I want to ‘skim over’ the fact that yours truly has reached the half century!!

One thing I did want to do however is thank our Bulls Head team for making my birthday so special.

The wine, the ‘signed team (Bulls Head team no less) photo’ and Lloyds fantastic Ox Casserole and ‘naughty but nice’ birthday cake are so appreciated and treasured too. To all the regulars of the Bulls Head that ‘rocked up’ a massive thanks and of course thanks to Shane and Jen for putting on  the usual great atmosphere. I hope everyone there enjoyed it and thanks for coming and for the great cards and gifts. There is another birthday to come I wonder who’s that will be??

As my wine diary continues I must let you know about another wonderful Bodega in the island of Mallorca.

Having travelled by car from Palma (the Capital) to the beautiful town Validemossa, which I have to say is well worth a visit, we took the scenic road then towards Port Andratx/Andratx and arrived in the attractive town of Banyalbufar which is equally worth a visit too. Once through the town we arrived at a vineyard/bodega named Son Vives.

We met with Tony the proprietor who is a passionate ‘wine man’. It was a hot day and we favoured tasting chilled whites. Two very clean, crisp wines were on offer one made from 100% Malvasia the local grape which we enjoyed………. but our ‘pick of the bunch’ was the ‘Fusio De Blancs’ which was 65% Malvasia grape and 35% Chardonnay grape.

This wine really was quaffable and we would seriously recommend anyone making the same tremendously scenic journey to stop off and enjoy a glass or two with Tony and the team at Son Vives. We will be venturing back to try their reds this autumn and will be bringing a bottle or two back for our wine lovers to enjoy at the Bulls Head.

Visit www.sonvives.com for more details. Thank you to Tony for his hospitality.

IN THE NORTH SEA HALF OF ALL FISH CAUGHT ARE THROWN BACK OVER BOARD DEAD!!

The ocean is a source of food, a place for recreation, and its beauty has inspired countless artists. But, it’s under threat – from over-fishing and poor fishing practices.

The Bulls Head supports Oceanic conservation groups that celebrate the beauty of the ocean, highlight the issue of over-fishing, help us all understand the threats to the ocean and make positive choices about the right fish to buy and eat.

We support Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall (who we saw in London recently. Nice haircut Hugh!!) and his Fish fight campaign!!!!

We are featuring a Wild Boar Roast as well as cool music from the dynamic duo ‘Smoooth’ all starting at 4pm in the afternoon.

Look forward to seeing you at the Birthday party and ………Our normal Sunday Menu will be available with our lovely Roast Sirloin of Beef and we will be Roasting a Wild Boar which is being served with all the trimmings in the pub as well as more casually as a hot hog bap too!!

Individual birthday cup cakes will be on the bar, as were enjoyed on Mothers Day (see below). We cannot believe a year has gone by. We have enjoyed it immensely thank you to everyone for your support!! Here’s to year two which incorporates the Bulls Heads 200th Anniversary!! See you Sunday!!

Customers thoroughly enjoyed our ‘alternative cheese and wine week’ where we gave wine (with our compliments) to taste with both special dishes for the week as well as ‘resident’ dishes from our spring menu where cheese was a key ingredient.

Such starters as ‘warm bread crumbed Brie with our Tomato and Caramelised onion Chutney’ was served with a Macia Batle Anada, superb Mallorcan Red with a light ‘caramel’ taste our most popular ‘shipped in’ red

Twice baked Goats Cheese Souffle with roasted beetroot and dressed leaf salad served with our shipped in Italian Bottega Vinai Sauvignon Blanc went down very well.

Vernaccia di San Gimignano is Tuscany’s first DOCG before the likes of Chianti, etc. A Pinot Grigio in style but with more weight was served with our ‘celery and stilton’ soup and is our ‘shipped in white’ for May.

Such mains as our Cumberland Pie with a Lancashire Cheddar top served with Carrot and celeriac mash and a glass of our shipped in  Chianti Classico, Villa la Pagliaia, this is a proper old school version of Tuscany’s most famous red wine and is still available as a ‘guest wine’ in May and Veal Chop with Blue Cheese Dauphinoise potato, green beans and a red wine gravy served with a glass of Macia Batle Mallorcan Rosado from our list.

Finally from our menu we selected ‘Our famous Pork Chop’ and served it with a glass of Vouvray demi-sec which is a medium French wine that suits the flavour of the Pork, cheese and apples wonderfully and is on our list all summer by the bottle. Then we featured ‘Lloyds Cauliflower cheese’ served with a glass of our French Pasquiers crisp dry rose a favourite from our list.

Our wonderful Cheese board was served with two 50 ml glasses of Antique PX from Spain. This prune/Balsamic coloured dessert wine offers an alternative to port and has a fruity/nutty sweetness that works with the Cheeses particularly the Bowland fruit Cheese and is available all year round and has become a ‘niche’ favourite since we opened a year ago.

Thank you to all the customers that visited on different days and enjoyed the experience of wine and food matching.

Yes from today Monday 9th May 2011 ‘til the 16th May 2011 we will be featuring delicious dishes that, in one way or another, will have a variation of cheese as a key ingredient.

This will include various starters, mains and desserts throughout our special week.

That’s not all…………. we will be including a taster glass of a wine with each dish that we believe is the perfect accompaniment. Hence ‘Cheese and Wine week’!!

As an additional ‘bonus’ for the week, we will also be selecting different dishes on a daily basis from the main Bulls Head menu that include cheese as a main ingredient and offering you a free glass of  wine we believe you will  enjoy with the chosen dishes.

So if you love tasting different new wines while enjoying fresh home cooked dishes of the cheesy variety then call in and see us here at the Bulls Head!!!