We don’t eat out!

But you were recommended to us, by our holiday host, as serving the best Sunday lunch around. So I guess we had to take the risk!

And you didn’t disappoint, with my son being in agreement, when he was served four sausages on a plate. No veg, no chips, no bread or butter!

Just four sausages which were consumed as he wandered around your pub. Sitting at one empty table and then locating to another. It was exactly what we had asked for. You met our requirement with no question, just a smile and as many sausages that he wanted.

I loved your barman’s smile as my son removed a bar mat from the counter. It’s coarse texture providing the perfect sensory input for his little fingers. The non verbal gesture told me you had no issue with the rearrangement of your bar accessories. You just smiled at his calmness and acceptance in your environment.

You made no comment about my boy’s constant movement around the bar area, you were happy that he was happy and comfortable, and it didn’t need words to show your acceptance, by happily letting him sneak behind the bar. There were no comments of “No kids behind here” or the face of dissatisfaction, as I have seen in other venues, you just smiled and joked about him helping out, offering him a job as long as he could manage to pour a good pint!

I am not sure he passed that interview requirement

You let me eat my Sunday dinner at the outside table, the table in the corner, at the bar from a tall bar stool, and then watched it as I had to dash after my boy before he disappeared up the stairs. My food was always waiting where I had left it, never cleared away or questioned as to its constant transportation around your restaurant.

My son was happy, he had his connection to Netflix, from your free WiFi (code displayed so I didn’t even have to ask!). This was the ultimate settler for him, the ability for him to shut out the new smells, sounds and sights while his body regulated and then allowed him to ditch the phone and investigate the new feels and places.

You didn’t even blink an eyelid at our uniqueness as a family, maybe it is because you get more trouble from the bloke down the road after a couple of Stella’s, but I didn’t know that. We did however not start any pub brawls, so I guess we made a reasonably good impression?

We don’t eat out as a family. We don’t because every trip out is a gamble. It is a risk because of how society sees my son. Of how triggers, which are a result of societies ways, can so easily result in meltdown.

Thank you for being a place of acceptance.

Oh and thanks for the larger than normal glass of wine… I think you realised I needed it.

Thanks for the hospitality Red Lion, Llandyfaelog . We will pop in again if we pass