Dear Mr. Darling,

Please find below our suggestion for fixing Britain's economy. Instead of giving billions of pounds to banks that will squander the money on lavish parties and unearned bonuses, use the following plan:

There are about 20 million people over 50 in the work force. - Pay them £1 million apiece severance for early retirement with the following stipulations:

1) They MUST retire. Twenty million job openings - Unemployment fixed.

2) They MUST buy a new British CAR. Twenty million cars ordered - Auto Industry fixed.

3) They MUST either buy a house or pay off their mortgage - Housing Crisis fixed.

4) They must send their kids to school / college /university - Crime rate fixed

5) Buy £50 of alcohol / tobacco / petrol a week .....

there's your money back in duty / tax etc It can't get any easier than that!

P.S. If more money is needed, have all dishonourable members of parliament pay back there falsely claimed expenses and second home allowances.

I can't believe it, can you, our Darling Chancellor did it again?  It seems ludicrous to put up alcohol duty when year on year revenue into the exchequer from beer, wine & spirits has decreased to the treasury each time they have done it!

Sorry, but we'll have to put our prices up when the first deliveries at the new prices come through.  So thats 2% on duty, 15% VAT on that and not forgetting the duty he just put up on fuel to get the ingredients to the brewers, process the beer and then transport it to us and of course VAT on that too!

Did you know that The Chancellor now makes 50 times more from a pint of beer than the brewer — that is the stunning news from London brewer Fuller's here. 

The Budget has shown that the Government does not give a XXXX about Britain's pubs. That is the view of Association of Licensed Multiple Retailers chief executive Nick Bish following the Chancellor's 2% duty rise, more here . 

If that Darling man and the rest of the government drops in, let them know they aren't welcome would you?

There is an Alastair Darling: Your Barred facebook group here if you fancy shouting at him too and if you feel like emailing him try his address here This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it .

I've had just about enough of this hopeless government, try this petition here asking the Prime Minister to resign.It's time for a change, it might not be any better but can it be any worse?

Geocaching is a high-tech treasure hunting game played throughout the world by adventure seekers equipped with GPS devices (like the iPhone, Nokia N95 or N96, Garmin and other GPS devices). The basic idea is to locate hidden containers, called geocaches, outdoors and then share your experiences online (there's an introductory leaflet here). Geocaching is enjoyed by people from all age groups, with a strong sense of community and support for the environment.

Halkyn Mountain supports a number of Geocaches and if you join geocaching.com you will be able to start to partake in this up and coming sport / past-time / hobby while getting out into the fresh air and enjoying yourself.  Here is a great link to help get you started.

We would welcome you at the Blue Bell Inn to use the facilities, park up and start your search. Note that we are supporters of Cache In Trash Out which is an ongoing environmental initiative supported by the worldwide geocaching community. Since 2002, geocachers have been dedicated to cleaning up parks and other cache-friendly places around the world.

If you are a member of geocaching.com (it's free) you can get a list of all the geocaches in our patch by clicking this link or in map form here.

Halkyn Mountain is an urban common which means you can walk freely across it. However, please take great care near old mine workings as the common is covered with vertical mineshafts in various stages of repair. Please report any re-opened shafts to the Grosvenor Estate Office at 01244 684400.

Try different search criteria for the Electronics or Books box below, e.g. GPS, geocache, N96, iPhone, etc.

The first & second of our new leaflets are ready to test! Check out Walk Two - Woods, Buffalo and Hill Forts and Walk Three - Limekilns and Quarries now!

As you know we produced our first walk leaflets with very welcome help from The Ramblers Association (Holywell Ramblers), , Walkabout Flintshire and other groups to help you take your own self-guided walks on Halkyn Mountain. The first leaflet is available now so press the image to the right to see our first route which is a circular walk of up to 5.75 miles in PDF format. This walk gained the prestigous title of one of the top ten walks in the UK with MyFavouritePubWalks.com !

Click to go to My Favourite Pub Walks

One of the interesting things about these walks is that they share the common feature of the Hill Fort of Moel-y-Gaer. This provides the option to string more than one walk together, for intance, Walk Two + Walk Three is about 12 miles as they share a part of the route in common. Each of the maps will be to scale and list as much inforation as we can of the flora, fauna, geology and anything else we can find of interest.

We have lots of ideas for other walks and the exciting prospect of providing postcards and prints of features, sights and views found on the walks.We've five prints for sale in the pub at the moment.

Watch this space! In the meantime, the maps are available by clicking he icons if you click READ MORE, we'll add the basic text and bird lists as soon as we can. We'll also try to include as much of interest as we can & make the leaflets available online & in hardcopy from the Blue Bell Inn.