A (not so hard) Working Lunch at The Ibex

Morgan PR first wrote about The Ibex back in May last year, and rather poorly it has taken until today to actually get back to the Chaddleworth pub, which is run by Andy Jones and his wife Julia and has truly become the centre of the village, taking over as the Post Office and the village shop. Just think, a loaf of bread, some stamps and a pint of something other than milk!

Anyway I digress, I was actually meeting with Lucy Venables, erstwhile marketing guru and sometime chef from Red Prosper. Regular readers will recall I subbed for her at a recent BNI meeting. Anyway, The Ibex was determined to be the most equidistant venue for a lunch to explore the synergy between us and our respective businesses.

Focusing was tough though; the landlord Andy, is also a chef and was in the kitchen and we went with his recommendations for lunch and for me that was a mouth-watering and thoroughly meaty steak pie. A simple dish, but so easily abused, Andy had got it spot on.

Good food aside I am sure we shall be working together; some people blur PR and marketing and in some respects they are simply different locations on the same journey. However, there are serious if sometimes subtle differences which mean I hope Morgan PR can use Red Prosper sometime soon, and vice versa.

Incidentally, as a pub name The Ibex is unique and rumours abound over how it go its name, from escaped circus acts through to the landlord's favourite, that a local once had an Ibex as a pet. Even more intriguing, the website Berkshire History records:

There is a curious legal custom in Chaddleworth parish. If a copyholder’s widow remarried, she forfeited her rights to her husband’s lands. However, if she rode into court backwards on the back of a large black ram repeating certain ludicrous lines that end in a petition to give back her lands, the manor steward would be obliged to return them.

How bizarre?

Less surprising is my suspicion that Red Prosper and Morgan PR will find the need for another business meeting again soon, and most likely back at The Ibex.