Keeping the positive mental attitude I promised myself recently I decided to plan our first meal out. Yay! Happy days! Lets call it a date night. I checked out a couple of local places that we haven’t been to before. There is a recently opened Italian or an Indian. One is walking distance the other requires transport but it is on the bus route. We go through the menus online and husband picks Indian. Secretly I am happy as I love Indian.
We plan it for Sunday night as its usually a quieter night so I book the Monday off. I planned on making it a relaxing evening with no panic to get home early so I can get up for work. Sunday arrives and hubby is not having a great day but he is determined we are going out. Bus times: check. They are only one an hour but we decide on an earlier dinner to give us plenty of time to catch the last one back as they stop early.
Husband suggested having a drink first in the pub. Ok we can do that. We walk into town letting husband have his usual stops on the way. Get settled in the pub and we are enjoying a drink and we start seeing people we haven’t seen for over a year. One comes up and says how he had been only saying the other day he was worried…….what that we had popped our cloggs? Well yes he chuckled. A few others from that group come over and say hi. Its lovely to see them. Husband looks happy too. He is back people watching.
I check the app for the bus on my phone; its running late! Shocker! We walk outside and go to cross the road to the bus stop. Its closed. This does not bode well. Checking the app again and the bus has not moved in the last ten minutes. Now do we walk to the next bus stop and hope the bus turns up or just jump into one of the waiting cabs. Cab wins as I know how unreliable the buses are. Part of me thinks we should go home and order take out.
We get to the restaurant and get a table. As we were hoping it was quiet. Us and one other table of eight people. Perfect. We are sat by the window so I am keeping an eye out to see if the bus goes past. It doesn’t. We order and sit back, enjoying being out. The starter arrives and everything is good. We are chatting and enjoying the evening. The atmosphere in the place is good. The staff are interacting with the other table who I am sure were regulars. No issue. We are in no hurry.
I order a bottle of wine, pretty sure the waitress isn’t listening as she is glancing to the other table. I walk to the ladies and speak to the waiter. Yep he was about to pour one glass. They only have one large wine glass left. I eye roll internally but laugh and say to the waiter you are going to get me into trouble but give the small glass to my husband and it was a bottle I ordered. Yeah hubby wasn’t impressed. I fear the evening is about to go downhill.
Our mains are served. You know when you look at a dish and instantly you know it has been sat about and you guess it isn’t warm. Yep. I could put the metal dish in the palm of my hand and not flinch. It was barely warm. Call the waitress and send it back. Two minutes later a new dish which is obviously not the same one arrives. It was not great but I wasn’t going to send it back again. I can’t believe I am seeing the funny side of this. Usually I would complain. Our first night out is not going well. What have we done to deserve this?
Neither of us are enjoying the meal so decide to doggy bag what is left of the mains and catch the earlier bus. We have to chuckle. We are home early, the night wasn’t perfect but we had been out. A silver lining: hubby works his magic on the left overs and the following night we have a lovely meal. Can’t have it all. Next time will be better: I hope E x