Blog - Beers and Curry with Andrea and Gimmer (2008-03-01)

Other feeds

What's New

Previous blog Next blog Archive

Beers and Curry with Andrea and Gimmer (2008-03-01)

Category: Diary. Posted: 2008-03-02 22:39:51 GMT. Updated: 2008-03-04 07:52:00 GMT.

I woke up at about half-seven. Unfortunately, I couldn't remember what time my brother said he wanted to wake up, but assumed he'd set an alarm anyway, so left him sleeping, made a cuppa, and started burning some CDs that I needed to send to customers. My brother woke up as I finished my cuppa, so I offered him one. Controversially, he said no to tea, but did want some toast. He didn't want to use the last bit of my homemade olive oil spread, so had butter instead. He was going to go to the gym before going out on the beers in the afternoon, so was going to burn off some calories.

Looking out of the window, it was sunny, and windy. I really am getting old, I immediately thought, "Excellent. Good drying weather.", and put my sheets into the washing machine (with its newly repaired switch), and then cycled into Slough Scuba to pay for my cylinders. It was hard work cycling there against the strong wind. Before leaving, I'd called Andrea to check that she was still OK for this afternoon, and Scary to see if he'd be around for a cuppa. Neither answered, but the phone rang while I was cycling, so I stopped - if no other reason, I wanted a break from cycling against the wind. It was Scary - he had supposed to be watching Newcastle play rugby, but the goalposts had been blown down, so the match had been postponed. I also noticed a text message from Andrea saying that she was on the train, and that she'd meet me later if I hadn't had a better offer. As if I could!

Last time I went to Slough Scuba there was a dive bag where I normally park my bike, but there was nothing in my way this time. I had a quick chat, paid my money, and then cycled home. I wondered whether I would cycle past Gimmer, but didn't see him. As I was leaving, I called Bird to see if she was up for a quickie (and then a cuppa!), but she didn't answer. My journey back was quite impressive - I managed to cycle the whole way back without stopping once (although I was tempted to take a picture of all the gimmers queuing to get into Tesco). [To be continued (my train leaves Paddington in 4 minutes).....]

[Continued.....]I was impressed to see that the washing had dried in the hour-and-a-half that I'd been cycling, so hung the next lot of washing outside as well. I then sat down to watch Click, and found out that BBCNews24 was just whittering on about some ginger coming back from Afghanistan. I got bored of the coverage fairly quickly, so went upstairs to reply to some more e-mails, and do a bit of tidying up. About an hour-and-a-half later, I turned onto BBCNews24 again, and they were still whittering on about the ginger. Granted he's a Royal ginger, but I still don't really care. They were showing pictures of an empty car, and a plane landing, over and over again.

Eventually, they had something worthwhile to show when Prince Charles, Prince William, and Price Ginger walked out of the building, put Prince Ginger's bags into the car, and then drove off. Was that really worth missing Click for? I don't think so. They then showed an interview with Price Charles when he said that he was "relieved" about his son's return. Some fool at the BBC wrote "Prince Charles relieved at sons return" on the screen. It was probably the same bloke who wrote "Princes Charles and Prince William". I can't believe my license fee is paying for such nonsense! I would get around to complaining, but my complaint about the bad apostrophe usage on the BBC Weather site still hasn't been acted on, so there's not much point. Anyway, the mistake was corrected after less than two minutes.

[I'm writing this up while having a drink at a hotel in Basingstoke, and have just noticed a sign that says "Easter Sunday. Three course Sunday Lunch. Children half price.". OK, I'll have a roast child if they're half price]. I couldn't remember what station I needed to get off at to go to Arsenal, so had to look at the picture that Gimmer took when we went a few months ago. According to TfL, I could catch the 16:00 train from Langley, and get to Highbury and Islington by 17:00. I did this, and was impressed to find that I arrived almost on time. I walked to the pub (past some top-drawer Police totty), ordered a Stella and some crisps, and then sat down to wait for Gimmer and Andrea.

They'd never met each other before. I showed Gimmer a picture of Andrea on Thursday. When I spoke to Andrea, I suggested that she looked at BlokeInPub to find out what Gimmer looks like. Having not seen the website before, she asked which one he was, so I told her that there were only two pictures, and he was the one that didn't look like a pint of Stella! While I was waiting for them, I thought I'd surf t'internet to find out what had happened at the match, so I could try to talk about football for a bit. While doing this, I noticed that there was lots of totty walking past. Why was there no totty at the game that I went to? That's about as unfair as Scary being interviewed by the Police totty instead of me!

[I do hope the waitress totty is working again tomorrow] Anyway, I didn't have to wait too long before I looked up to perve at totty, and realised that I actually knew the totty. Andrea was looking as gorgeous as always, and she came over to join me while Gimmer got the drinks in. It seems that they had no problems meeting each other at St. Pancras (soon to be called Agincourt) - Andrea had said to meet by the Champagne Bar, and they did. Once we'd finished the drinks, we caught the Tube (no Police totty his time, but, of course, I'd only got eyes for Andrea) to King's Cross to go for a curry (with Gimmer managing not to use an old ticket this time!).

[Two drunk lesbians have just walked in, ordered a bottle of wine, and then asked how much the rooms are. They decided to go back home when they found out how much the rooms are, and how early they finish serving breakfast] I'd reliably informed Andrea and Gimmer that there were some good curry houses around King's Cross. When we got there, I realised that I wasn't sure exactly where (I'm going to have to get around to coding my Dickson's Good Currry Guide). I reckoned that walking towards Euston would be the best idea, since every time I'd had a curry near King's Cross, I'd been getting the sleeper to Scotland, so was probably nearer to Euston. Obviously we had the fall-back plan of calling Sarah for advice, which Andrea soon began to think was a good idea - so little faith!

We followed the signs to Euston, and saw a promising sign on a side road, and walked towards it. When we got there, I realised that it was the Chinese that Sarah and I went to about a year ago. Andrea doesn't like Chinese, and I definitely fancied an Indian, so we continued walking towards Euston. I knew there was a Nepali restaurant right next to Euston, but when we got there, I couldn't see it. I had faith (although Gimmer and Andrea seemed to have lost their faith in me by now), but we walked along the road. While waiting for Andrea to get cash, I noticed that there was a strip club. I couldn't remember walking past a strip club before, but it was about five years ago. Having got her cash, Andrea said she could see a sign that said "Indian", so we carried on walking. We soon came upon the Nepali restaurant, and we never figured out how she'd seen a sign that said "Indian", but went in.

[They've decided to stay, just as I was about to offer to let them stay with me] Before looking at the menu, I remembered to turn my phone onto silent, and noticed that I had received a text message that I hadn't seen before., It was from Sarah, telling me about the "total bounce control" of her new sports bra! The service and food were really good, but the mattar panner only deserves a 1 or 2 out of 5. After eating all we could, we paid the bill, and then walked back to St. Pancras. I haven't seen St. Pancras since the Eurostar started running from there, and I was really impressed at the station (with the biggest Champagne Bar in Europe). I checked on t'internet to find out when Andrea's train would arrive, made sure that she got onto the platform OK, and then Gimmer and I went for a quick pint at the O'Neil's pub opposite. It served Stella, had some very nice totty. and had a quiz machine that didn't want to pay out. [3/3/08 22:52 - to be continued......]

[4/3/08 7:43 continued.....]We managed to get a table, and Gimmer had a quick look at some of his ten football related text messages. He also sent a text message to Dennis to see whether he was up for some Mad Bishop action. While he did that, I replied to Sarah's text message about her bra (trying not to be too pervy!). After wasting a few quid, we caught the Tube to Paddington, and had a quick pint in the Mad Bishop. We tried putting money in the quiz machine, but it wouldn't accept it - this was probably a good thing. Gimmer wanted to get the fast train to Slough, so I caught the slow train on my own.

There was totty sitting near me on the train, and it looked like she might be splitting up from her boyfriend because he didn't drink enough, and wanted to leave early. If only she got off at Langley without him. Not only did the slow train get into Slough before Gimmer's fast train, but Gimmer's train had pokiness on it, instead of my top totty!

My second load of washing was dry when I got back, so I took it off the line before going to bed. As I was going to sleep, I smiled to myself as I remembered the cyclist this morning, who was cycling in the strong winds with a rucksack that had something sticking a long way out of the top, looking very precarious. I took a picture of him, which made me realise why having a simple phone is a good idea - I'd never have been able to take a picture with my digital camera with one hand while cycling along.

Please feel free to post comments about my blog here, but please keep to these rules:

• Write in English, preferably with good grammar, spelling, and punctuation.
• Keep it clean.
• Be constructive.

When you click on the Next button below, your comment will be displayed, so that you can check you're happy with it, but it won't actually be entered. You will then need to click on the Submit Comment button, before your comment is actually submitted.

Previous blog Next blog Archive

Bookmark with: