Kiss.
Simples.
I think that makes it a successful second date. I don't know. I'm no expert at this type of thing, but it's usually a good indicator.
One indicator that it was going to be a good date was that it had already been upgraded from 'drinks' to 'pub-grub'. Not a full, formal 'meal' but more than just booze. Slightly concerningly, as one hand gave, the other took away and I was warned that second date may be postponed depending on 'laser eye surgery'. Hmmm. Does that mean that he couldn't actually see me properly on the first date? Ah well, we must take our advantages where they are presented to us, and if that means dating someone half-blind on the basis they can't see that you're not beautiful, I'll take it. That and he repeatedly refers to me as 'mate' still.
As it was, he chickened out of the laser eye surgery, preferring instead to stick his fingers in his eye on a daily basis. So he was at least wearing contacts. Or 'does' wear contacts - he may not necessarily have had them in.
Pub-grub was burger. He was tempted by bangers and mash, but as I pointed out, that is really rather simple to do at home yourself, why pay a cook in a pub to make it for you. It obviously wasn't just bangers and mash. It was hand-reared free-range Lincolnshire pork sausages on a bed of creamy wholegrain mustard mashed King Edward potatoes with a rich spiced pork jus and ground rock salt seasoned, pan-fried parsnip crisps. Whatever happened to bangers and mash? The adjective and adverb marketing bodies have been working full-pelt to ensure that we don't just get served our nouns any more, they themselves have to be dressed with obviously superfluous words so that even if your meal is tiny, you still think you're getting more for your money because there are an extra dozen or so words peppered about on the menu. In my experience less is more - the smaller the meal, the longer the description. It's not just the sausages that come with a 'jus' to moisten them up.
Wednesday nights are a peculiar night at the moment, both in terms of the economic cycle and the annual cycle. Economically, people are tightening their belts and not going out at weekends; however I feel this may have shifted the focus point of the week. They may not be going out at the expensive weekends, but they still want to go out. They have been working very hard to keep their job, putting in more hours for less pay in real terms; and so need to reward themselves. So they seek out the mid-week bargain. Beer and a burger for £8, say. It is also past the mid-week moment, for those that work ordinary hours - there are just two days left to get through. That, of itself, is worth celebrating. So the hard-worker forgoes the traditional Friday night meal out with wine and a babysitter, instead opting for a quick Wednesday night bistro meal.
And the struggling pub has capitalised on this. Realising that Wednesday is the new Friday, and that pub is the new restaurant, they are doing all they can to get you in during the week. They have to make sure that if their burger isn't better than anyone else's, it is at least cheaper. Or the beer is warmer or colder. Or the service is quicker or friendlier. Or the experience is better. Or the menu has more adjectives. They do still need to convince you to step out, rather than order in a Chinese takeaway and a crate of lager to celebrate that most middling of days.
And that is where the time of the year comes into play as well. It's the end of October. Unless you have children who revel in Halloween or Bonfire night, there is absolutely nothing to look forward to aside from the weather deteriorating, the closest thing to sunlight being the artificial light in the office for the entire duration of daylight hours, and - eventually - the expense and discomfort of spending time and money on people that you see once a year. With months and months of nothingness, yes - you can go out on a Wednesday.
Factor in also that the students are still giddy with loan cheques still floating (just) their heads above water, and you will see why we failed to find a nice little snug to ourselves. The first bar, where we ate, was bouyed by students lapping up burgers and babysitting pints for well over an hour each. This was quite a nice bar, but at a busy accumulation of roads surrounded by flats. It was one of those segregated into various open-plan 'rooms', each styled slightly differently and yet still in the brewery's distinctive corporate taste on chic. Despite the brewery attempt to individualise each of the bars, using black-and-white photographs of the area from years gone by, because every bar in the chain has black-and-white photos they could be the identical photos in pretty near identical bars around the country.
The second bar was a nice, properly open-plan bar, very definitely tailored to the building. The bar was surrounded by tables and chairs, with a couple of sofas dotted around the edge of the room as has become the fashion of late as they try to blur the line between hostelry and coffee-shop. I don't know if they buy the sofas from shops that specialise in the 'lived-in-yet-still-brand-new' look, but that is how it is. The sofas are the Mayfair and Park Lane of the pub. They are what you aim for - if you don't get those, you have to sit bolt-upright on a rickety wooden chair. They are such hot property that the English will override their usual discomfort of sitting with strangers, for the comfort of sitting. And so, although we managed to steal a nice corner of the pub, it wasn't long before we had company; not that we had privacy anyway.
So we moved on to the oldest pub in the world. Well, in England at least, and one of them. There is a slight debate about which pub is the oldest pub, but both of the pubs with the best claim are in Nottingham. I have to say I prefer the claim of the Trip to Jerusalem" if for no other reason than it is set into the caves. This means that Hardy and Hansen have struggled to corporate it, and it is decorated throughout with course wooden benches and tables. Unfortunately the claim and the quirk have lead to it being a very popular pub and despite the various snugs and caves that you can sit in, it is rare to be alone.
And so I got invited back for a cup of tea. Well, I had a Bishop's Finger. It's a beer. I still wasn't quite sure what motive or agenda there was to inviting me back. Was it to obtain absolute privacy to chat away? Was it just to spend a little more time? Was it so that we could snog or even bonk? Or was it just to show off the flat. At least when I invite people back the latter is well off the cards. And so we chatted, me with my Finger in hand, he with mug of tea. It took the introduction of a rather large instrument to quicken the pace. For some reason he had a nice brass telescope in the doorway to the balcony. We went over to discuss the placement and for him to show me that it wasn't pointing at anything inappropriate, and I used the opportunity of the moment to kiss. There is something very romantic about standing on a balcony in the moonlight with the stars twinkling up above through a gentle shuffling, rustling tree, disturbed only by the dull, muffled screeches of the girls vomitting outside the bar down the road. And so we continued for the rest of the evening. Well, in fact we overran. I set a deadline for when I should be going home, and missed it by around three quarters of an hour, having to finish off my Finger very quickly. That surely is a good sign.
The only thing is that I don't know what job he does. In our online messaging he may have told me, but I have forgotten and cannot check up on the history as the site deletes it. I have tried to work it into conversation - asking how his day has been, what his team is like, how he came to be in Nottingham, even what degree he did, but to no avail. It may be one of those very indescript jobs without a proper title (or worse still with a title that is actual nonsense and means nothing to anyone), or - more likely - he may have told me and I have just forgotten. But I shall have to keep digging around on that one.
And then this morning I got a text again using the word 'mate'.
No comments:
Post a Comment