Week 14 - Greg + Helen

I met Helen in Lindley, just outside of Huddersfield, and we headed to the pub for a pint before dinner. I’ve known Helen since university and she generally goes by the name Mulan amongst our uni pals, a nickname which was awarded by my friend Stuart and seems to have stuck ever since. 

It was a pleasant evening and I mentioned to Mulan how beautiful the scenery was from the M62. Apparently it’s England’s highest motorway which means you are afforded an excellent view across the Pennines. The eastbound and westbound carriageways also split at one point and there is a farm between them, complete with grazing sheep. Some claim that the farmer refused to sell the land so they had to build around it, but it was in fact easier to split the construction and it’s happenstance that the farm avoided the chop. 

It’s always nice to meet up with someone who you share a lot of mutual friends with as you get a chance to catch up on everyone’s news, albeit indirectly. Mulan had recently attended a daytime disco in London with our friends Linda and Elisa. She said it was great as it’s over 25s only and the whole thing is done by 8pm which means you’re hope well before bedtime.

We discussed our families and I mentioned that my mum had recently had her knee replaced. According to doctor friends it’s one of the most painful operations you can have. My mother is notoriously stubborn when it comes to taking pain killers and was clearly in a lot of pain with her knee prior to the operation. She is making good progress post surgery and I think not being in pain will almost be a bigger win than having a fully working knee. 

We wandered down to Eric’s restaurant where I have actually eaten before when I was working for Mamas & Papas who are based in Huddersfield. Mamas & Papas had originally been a family owned business and Mulan went to school with one of the founder’s children. I worked there after they’d been bought by a private equity firm and spent a couple of days a week in Huddersfield. I initially stayed in a Premier Inn just around the corner from the office. I love a Premier Inn - they are clean, the beds are always comfortable and they have good water pressure. There’s really not much else you need from somewhere to crash for the night. My room was normally on the ground or first floor, but one week I was assigned a room on the second floor which was like stepping back in time - the decor was dated, the furniture had seen better days, it was all a little odd. When I enquired at reception why it was so different, they informed me that the hotel has flooded and that the refurb budget had only extended to the ground and first floor. I guess there’s something to be said for mending and making do. After a few weeks at the Premier Inn I decided to venture a little further afield and started booking B&Bs near good restaurants, hence my previous trip to Eric’s.

Upon arriving at Eric’s I was told (somewhat unceremoniously) that our table wasn’t ready and we would need to wait in the bar, so we ordered a couple of drinks and took a seat. We asked a couple of times whether our table was ready, and were told each time that it nearly was. We were eventually seated at 7.45pm, 45 minutes after our original booking and wrote the wait off to bad luck. 

We somehow got onto the subject of Eurovision, which I don’t mind watching once a year but can’t ever take too seriously. It would be fair to say that some of my friends consider Eurovision a serious global geopolitical phenomenon, uniting the world in song. I on the other hand see it as a bit of fun, camp nonsense from a bygone era. That said, I do regret not going to see it live when it was hosted in Liverpool. I have a feeling the UK aren’t likely to host it again in the near future, particularly if this year’s song is anything to go by. Mulan recalled a Eurovision party I hosted at my flat in Stoke Newington, complete with themed party food, after which she returned home to discover she’d lost her house keys. An emergency locksmith was summoned who proceeded to drill a series of seemingly random holes in her front door, eventually gaining access. Let’s just say not much of Mulan’s security deposit was refunded when she vacated the flat a year or so later. 

We ordered our food, an arancini to start for me, followed by braised beef cheek and scallops followed by lamb for Mulan. Given our wait in the bar, we were surprised by how quickly our food arrived. As is customary, we each offered the other a taste of our meal. I don’t mind sharing food and will happily let anyone have a taste of my dish. It is however rare for me to accept a reciprocal offer to taste what others are consuming. I think my reluctance probably stems from a fear of missing out - just imagine if there was something better on the menu that you neglected to order! I tend to skim read a menu and select the first thing that takes my fancy, so don’t normally concern myself with whether I could have selected a tastier alternative. Apparently this makes me a satisficer, as opposed to a maximiser who always seeks the absolute best option. Research suggests that satisficers tend to be happier than maximisers as they aren’t constantly haunted with the notion that they might have chosen the wrong thing. 

Mulan and I discussed holidays and she mentioned that they had recently started going to Butlin’s as a family as was pleasantly surprised by the experience. I’m sorry to say that I’ve never set foot in a Butlin’s, but know that my mother spent many a summer there as a child. Her father was a professional footballer and cricketer and coached kids at Butlin’s later in his career. It would seem that being a professional sportsperson in the 1930s and 1940s wasn’t quite as lucrative as it is today. I’m also sorry to say that none of my grandfather’s athletic prowess has been handed down to me. 

I mentioned that my parents often spend their holidays aboard a cruise ship, an obsession that began when they spent the winters in Florida and would get a boat home to the UK at the end of the season. The great thing about travelling by boat is you can take as much luggage as you can fit in your cabin. The idea of going on a cruise has never really floated my boat. Mulan said she had been on a cruise around the Norwegian Fjords and it was actually very nice, but the mega ships on which most cruises take place really don’t appeal to me. I’m not sure what fills me with more dread; bopping around in a giant shopping mall, or having to participate in trips ashore with the very people you’ve been trying to avoid whilst at sea. Mulan and her husband Jimmy booked a trip around India for their honeymoon, not quite realising how much of it would be spent in a minibus with fellow holidaymakers in a slightly later stage of life. One couple were delightful, but their main travelling companions seemed to delight in criticising every element of the trip, which does somewhat take the lustre off of one’s holiday. 

We finished our meal, both feeling particularity full and paid the bill noting that Eric’s had kindly excluded the two drinks we had consumed in the bar while waiting for our table, presumably as a gesture of goodwill for the long wait. Or had they? I offered Mulan a lift to her parents house, where she was spending the night, and we had only just set of when her phone rang. It was Eric’s explaining that they had forgotten to add our drinks from the bar to the bill and demanding credit card details so they could right their wrong. Mulan complied, presumably out of shock. It’s one thing to forget to add something to someone’s bill, but another entirely to then chase them down for payment, especially when you’ve made them wait 45 minutes for their table. You’ll note from my other blog entries that I don’t normally comment on the venue, other than to pass compliment on particularly good food, but felt this was worth a mention. 

Thank you Mulan for a great Greg Plus One!