Two Days Down
After the long and arduous journey from the office back to my hotel – all 100 yards of it, I decided to brave the recent unpredictability of my body, and actually eat something. Not just “something”, but something not available from the supermarket.
You might think that pre-cooked supermarket salads are the safer option, but when you have to cross seven lanes of traffic to get to the supermarket, you start to wonder if it might just be easier to turn 90 degrees, and walk to the pub adjoining the hotel – which is exactly what I did.
It turns out the pub is humungous. Huge. Cavernous. Pretty damn big. I wandered in and asked if they had a menu. The pretty girl with black hair behind the bar smiled and handed me a big piece of printed cardboard that looked exactly like the one on my bedside table in the hotel. The one I hadn't read.
There's this problem if you go into a bar on your own – that you might buy a drink, taking the menu with you – and then you have to go back to the bar to order food, and either leave your drink on your table, or take it with you and have somebody else steal your table. There's another problem if you have no money in your wallet (I had no money in my wallet) – you don't want to just buy a drink, because people who buy one drink on a bank card are idiots. That's why I asked to see a menu straight away – so I could order my food and drink, and pay for it straight away.
Although I often say that eating alone in a pub or restaurant while travelling with work is horrible, there is a pretty good side to it too – you can monkey with your phone without being told off, you don't have to make conversation for hours on end, and you can wolf your food down like a total pig without anybody noticing. Oh – I forgot – you can eat, leave, and get on with your life inside half an hour if you're eating alone. This all sounds like a tremendous novelty when I write about it, but you have to remember my normal life revolves around a family of five, one of which is a vegetarian, and another is a coeliac. Also, one of the little ones will say “Mmmm this is nice” while trying something new, which means she will never let another morsel of whatever it is ever pass her lips again – including the plate full of it you just paid for.
You get the idea. Eating alone is fun... in context.
I ordered beef pie with mashed potato and vegetables, and a pint of the local beer.
“Where are you sitting?”
“Over there...” (I pointed in the direction of a number of tables where nobody appeared to be sitting)
And that was the last conversation I had with anybody in the pub. Actually, no, that's a lie – I was in the middle of trying to get a mobile phone signal to find out what had happened in the Tour de France, when a lady came bombing out of the kitchen with a plate full of food.
“Beef pie ?”
“Wow! That was fast! Thankyou very much!”
“I'll just get you your bits and bobs”
I wondered what on earth she was on about for a moment, then realised I had no cutlery or salt and pepper. I didn't tell her that “bits and bobs” in a house with small children meant something entirely different.
While eating, my body started telling my brain that actually – after not really eating anything for the last 48 hours – food was a good idea after all, and actually the pie was pretty fantastic. I stopped dicking around with my phone and ate everything in front of me without looking up. If my other half had been with me I would probably have been told off for eating too fast – this was serious business though – this was a beef pie!
I now found myself in the difficult situation of having eaten all my food, but still having two thirds of a pint of beer to drink – while sitting on my own in the corner of a bar, with only my phone (which was receiving data slower than NASA seems to be from the Pluto space probe), and my paper notebook to amuse me. So I did what I have done countless times before – started writing. About people.
There was an old couple across the bar from me – they were dressed very smartly, sitting opposite each other at a round table near a fireplace. I wondered if this was a “date night” for them – except I didn't hear either of them say a word to the other the entire time I was there – they just seemed to stare into space and sip their drink now and again.
Next to me there was a number of elderly businessmen that were obviously travelling together. I didn't see their faces, but heard their conversation. One of them seemed to know everything about everything, and didn't mind expounding his universe of wisdom continually to his audience. He talked at great length about football players, football management, and all manner of political problems going on around the world. If only he was in charge of everything, I'm sure the world would be a better place – it certainly sounded like he thought so.
It turned out there were two girls behind the bar – both with black hair. One was small and fierce looking (and had served me), the other was bigger and fierce looking, and had an optional pony-tail attachment. They didn't so much talk to each other, or regular customers, as bark at them like a Velociraptor might.
Before I knew it, I had filled an entire side in the notebook, and finished my drink. I stretched, looked around, and left the building in the style Elvis might have if he too had been out for dinner at a pub in Lancashire wearing a polo shirt and scruffy jeans.
So here I am again. Sitting in the hotel room, listening to the traffic hurtle by on the nearby main road. Time to read a book I suppose.