A trek down to town

After an early morning discussion following breakfast and with due regard to the weather, we decided to walk down to town and enjoy a lunch at Wetherspoons. It had been raining earlier so we erred on the safe side and wrapped ourselves in our raincoats just in case. We set off at about 11.30, and were in no particular hurry to arrive at our intended destination, hence the rather long chat with one of our acquaintances on the way. We journeyed in a rather haphazard fashion, not walking directly down to town, but taking in our local library so that I could take some photos of the building and the surrounding gardens.

We paid a quick visit to my adopted son who manages the only independent game shop in the town. K had asked him to lend her some videos of one of her favourite TV programs, she often borrows his videos and he willingly lends them to her. Continuing on to our intended destination, we were rather taken aback to find that Wetherspoons was closed. A notice pinned to the door announced that ‘Owing to unforeseen circumstances we are closed’ As we came away we bumped into one of K’s acquaintances who, despite being blind, had no problem in recognising K via her voice which did not go unnoticed nor unremarked upon by myself to much amusement.

We chattered about this and that, and then parted company and continued on to our chosen replacement venue around the corner, The Calder. It was absolutely jam packed with people either just there for a drink or for a meal. I sat down and waited for K to choose something from the Menu and then made my way to the bar. There was only one girl serving and I braced myself for quite a long wait. She came down to serve a man stood next to me, and as she finished serving him I asked if I could order two meals. “We aren’t serving any more meals” she informed me, so I quickly made my way back to table seventeen, told K the disappointing news, and we picked up our coats and retreated outside. Well! Where to now?

We had a quick discussion and decided to try the The Old Ship Inn. On entering the Ship, I was rather glad that there weren’t all that many people in there, and after scrutinizing the Menu I ordered a Tuna Salad and a sweet white wine and K ordered the Chicken Fajitas and her new favourite tipple, a WKD blue. We sat down in a corner to wait for our meals. I have always liked the Ship Inn and the building has been the subject of many of my photos over a period of time. It used to be one of our ports of call a long time ago when I was in my teens and out with my friends on a Friday night when we used to try and do a ‘pub crawl’ and attempt (not always successfully!) to have a drink in every pub in town. As at that time, there was a pub on every corner and one in-between, you can probably imagine the state we used to be in by the time we landed at the last pub, or stumbled over to the Chinese restaurant, now no longer there unfortunately, for something to eat. It wasn’t called ‘The Old Ship Inn’ in those days it was then called the Prince of Wales though in hindsight, the The Old Ship Inn suits it better.

A group of rather noisy people entered and sat down at the opposite side of the room. They were all laughing at various photos on their respective mobiles, and it looked to any casual observer as if they were all couples. Another lady with a girl aged about seven or eight joined them later, and it was pretty obvious that they were all regulars and often met up in the Ship. I had presumed that they were couples, and had unconsciously pared them off with their respective partners, so I was rather surprised when the females suddenly departed from the group leaving the boisterous males to themselves. The pub tended to quieten down somewhat once the females had departed. Males trying to impress the ladies, and were the females simply off to do some shopping, leaving their respective partners to loiter their time away in the pub?

We finished our meal, in my case I simply couldn’t eat it all, whilst K not only emptied her plate but then ordered a chocolate indulgence as well which she also devoured. I have never, in all of her thirty one years, yet figured out how she does it and where it all goes. We exited the Ship Inn in glorious sunshine and made our way to the bus station to catch the bus home. I really like ‘The Old Ship Inn’ and I ended up being thankful that Witherspoon’s turned out to be closed and that we couldn’t get a meal at the Calder either.

TG

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