Sunday 20 September 2015

#122 Hey, the Queen's back

About two years ago now, after the worst of the economic crisis had passed, our team at work started organising socials again. Being a business recovery team, we remained profitable throughout the crisis but I think maybe some other teams were feeling the strain a bit and so we cut back on some things for a while. This week, our team decided to go rock climbing. At around five o'clock, my colleagues packed up their stuff, flocked southward in their comfortably stretchy clothes and started doing some dodgy looking hand-clenching exercises to warm up. At the same sort of time, I put my own pen down, sneaked off down the stairwell and headed several miles in the opposite direction to a small restaurant, up the north end of Farringdon Road.

During the walk there, my friend and I had gotten rained on at least a medium amount but the place was incredibly warm on the inside, which created an almost sauna-like experience. As the waitress tried to light the candle, it broke off from its holder so she dripped some of the wax onto the stump and did some DIY candle-making whilst leaning across the table. It wobbled precariously for the rest of the evening. 

It was almost two years since the events of #44 The fellowship of the ring, which I noticed sat on her finger. She was down in the city for a VAT seminar. I somewhat rudely didn't ask her much about the seminar itself. In fact there were a few things I didn't really cover off all that much. The fact that I'd been happier lately. That girl on the edge of Peckham that I'd dated briefly. The house gossip (there's always some). Anyway she'd made it through the train journies, the seminar and the rush hour tube traffic. Was she a tiny bit out of her comfort zone here? Possibly although you could never tell with her, unless she told you.

We both ordered steak and chips, which was actually pretty good. Little Bay is a chain of quirky restaurants with annoyingy red, inca-style interior decor. At one point, I'm pretty sure it was actually the cheapest restaurant in London as I realised that I'd been there with my housemates before. I remember the desserts being something ridiculous like £1.50 at the time although the place and the menu had changed a bit since then.

So we chatted and had some laughs... harking back to some of the appauling non-endings at the bottom of the blog posts when I first started writin them, this one doesn't really go anywhere and just sort of drops off. I'm sorry it wasn't about rock-climbing but meeting up with my friend again had been long overdue!

6 comments

Anonymous said...

Hi Dan, train Dave here. I just wondered, when you went to Farringdon road, what mode of transport did you use?

Profound Familiarity said...

Train Dave, you never called me bro, what up?

Running on empty said...

Haha, I had an lol at the line where you snuck off into the stairwell and off to a restaurant.

Running on empty said...

Haha, I had an lol at the line where you snuck off into the stairwell and off to a restaurant.

Profound Familiarity said...

Darn tootin'

Running on empty said...

Ok, I'm Aussie, what does that mean?