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Saturday 27th March 2010
What a lovely little boy!
   
So, anyway . . . after a walk around Newby Bridge (okay, High Dam if you want to be exact) we decided to drop in at the Beetham Garden centre café. It would have been around 3pm-ish, and I was starting to get that mid-afternoon lull, where I could really do with a little sleep, but hey . . . The café was pretty busy with only one or two tables free. We got our coffees, a slice of chocolate cake for the boys and sat down at our table. With the coffee almost drunk and my energy levels gradually picking up, I was like, "M****, you know, I think I could really do with a, erm . . . soft drink, you know?" and M**** was like, "Okay. Well, could you get the boys a carton of orange juice or something and did you want some cake?" but I didn't. Just the soft drink. So I went to the fridge to choose my drink. Now, at this point you gotta get a feel for the layout of this café. It's not a big café - perhaps about 8 tables crammed into a small space with not much room to swing a cat or . . . much, really. The afore-mentioned fridge was about a metre tall, sitting on the floor, close to the entrance. Facing the fridge, immediately to the right is a pile of trays and, to the right of that, the counter. So I'm there, crouched down, trying to decide what drink to get. Do I want coke? Diet coke? Dandelion and Burdock? Ginger Beer? Christ! So hard to choose. I glance to my left, towards the entrance and spot about 6 or 7 old ladies ambling gently towards the café. It doesn't take a genius to work out that these kinds of people ain't in any kind of hurry. I'm still not sure what drink to get but, before I know what's going on, there's a hand on my right shoulder and I'm like, "Erm . . . hello?" I look look towards the source of the hand and it's one of the afore-mentioned ladies and she's like, "Oh, don't mind me, don't mind me." I don't know what to do, what to say, so I smile, I laugh and say, "Oh, it's fine. I'm just here providing support." And then she ruffles my hair and says, "You're a lovely little boy!" I'm not quite sure how I reacted to that but, erm (well, let's call her Ethel), Ethel went to sit at one of the free tables and I grabbed a bottle of ginger beer and began queuing. Seemingly an eternity later I had moved forward in the queue about 40cm. My friend Ethel returned, accompanied by one of her posse. I was blocking their path. Ethel needed a tray. Sorry, Ethel. So I moved aside and they joined the queue behind me. End of story, you might think. But no! Ethel tried to initiate a conversation, "Did you choose a drink then?" and I was like, "Yeah. I went for the ginger beer?" "The WHAT?!" and I repeated, showing her the bottle, "GINGER BEER!" and she was like, "Oh. Okay." And I wish the story could end at this point but no . . . Ethel reached up (Ethel must have been well under 5 foot) and ruffled my hair AGAIN, repeating the line, "You're a lovely little boy!" and perhaps I smiled and laughed again . . . I've no idea. Perhaps Ethel and her friend were trying to queue jump (I know what these types are like), perhaps I couldn't take any more hair ruffling, but for whatever the reason I kind of gave up at that point, tired of queuing. I returned the ginger beer to the fridge and sat down at the table. M**** had not witnessed any of this, her back being to the counter. I asked M**** if we could leave now and so we did. It was all just a bit too . . . weird. Ethel seemed like a lovely lady but I can hardly be classed as a little boy, standing at 6 foot tall, with over a week's worth of beard growth.
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March 2010
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