Different Strokes
If I am away from home and by myself, after a days work I look for a nice quiet bar where I can sit in the corner, have a few beers and read a book. I'm happy enough to be left alone for a couple of hours until its time to go back to my digs. But sometimes it doesn't always work out. I will be sitting there engrossed in the latest spy tale when someone will come and sit right next to me; its always a man, never a female. "What are you reading?" or What's your book about?" and within minutes I am out of there looking for a new pub.
On holiday in Weston Super Mare with friends, Peter and I left our wives looking after the children (their jobs after all ) and went to a bar one night. We were sat at the bar drinking when another man came and sat next to me and started chatting me up. I looked around and noticed the lack of women; there were no women, and so I whispered to Peter that we should leave. "I'll just go to the loo" he said. "For Christs sake just wait until I've finished my pint and we'll go".
But Peter who isn't sensitive to these moments just got up and went to the loo. "Just me and you left" said my new friend. Peter couldn't understand why I kicked him out the pub thirty seconds later. That same holiday I fancied a game of tennis. Now Peter's idea of sport is bending his arm while drinking, but his wife Laura persuaded him to go with me to the local courts for an hour on the promise we would go to the bar later.
We arrived on a hot summers morning at the courts to find the couple ahead of us had finished ten minutes early, so the attendant let us go on. I don't think Peter quite grasped the fundamentals of the game. He plonked himself in the middle of the baseline with his batty thing in one hand and a ciggie in the other and waited for me to hit the ball to him.
The concept of moving to the left or right never occurred to him so in order to keep the game going I was running all over the court making sure I hit the ball to Peter in the middle who casually fed it back over the net. After ten minutes I was knackered and so before our hour's session was due to start I was carried off the court. "Canny that" said Peter "Better than I thought it would be" One night Peter, John and I caught a taxi from our caravan site into York for a few drinks.
We asked the taxi driver to drop us near the bars which he duly did. As we paid he pointed to the city gate and advised us not to go into the 2nd pub on the left as it was a well known gay bar. Off we went and had a couple of drinks in the first bar. On leaving that we looked in the window of the 2nd bar which looked fine to me, but heeding the advice went on to the next bar.
My round so I headed to the bar pushing past red indians and speed cops to order the beers. When I turned round with the drinks I saw John and Peter waving to me as they left. Bastard taxi driver.
Published: 19th May 2006 | Back to Watercolour Memories.
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