I tucked into a welcome plate of perfectly cooked fish and chips served with mushy peas. Grimsby Fisheries couldn’t hold a fishhook to this version. Chatting up the barmaid/server, Siggy asked her about the upcoming bottle kicking. Seemed this would be the pub to catch the spillover of a hungry and thirsty crowd who followed this wacky annual event in the countryside on Easter Monday. The Mister and I were lucky to experience it two years ago. It involves beer and hare pie and a rivalry between Hallaton and the neighboring village of Medbourne that goes back to, oh, Pagan times; halted only once, from what I’ve read, by a scare of foot and mouth disease in 2001. Quite an impressive event all started over a bit of looted beer. Feuds die hard in the countryside. The barmaid was looking forward to the celebration, cheerily declaring it would be “…all hands to the pump.