The Swan - Family lunch

Sitting in The Swan on a rainy Sunday afternoon, surrounded by the chatter of families and friends having lunch, feeling a bit lonely - sniff sniff, poor wickle me.

I seem to spend most of my time in pubs and coffee shops solo, ah well, no big deal.
At least I have people to chat with back at the house and when work starts, people at the office. Things will pick up once I get a few socials going, but what to choose ?

Joining a hiking club is a given, I need to try my hand (or at least my feet) at clambering over stiles and tramping through mud and bogs. Hiking folk are usually fairly eccentric, so I should be in good company. Instead of veldt skoene, khaki shorts and lager, it'll be stout boots, rain macs and bitter. Instead of snakes and spiders, er, sheep and rabbits ? Seems a bit tame. Then again, hiking in the moors in a gale force wind on a rainy day is anything but tame. The way I see it, you do this in order to more fully appreciate a nice pint of bitter in a cosy pub afterward.

Then there's the possibility of starting to play squash, do I really want to lunge around 4 white walls chasing a bouncy ball ? - possibly.

How about taking up the pottery lessons again ? - hmmm, nah. Too damn messy for my liking. I don't mind the creative bit, it's all the cleaning up after that gets me.

Amateur dramatics ? - I've had a lot of practice with a certain member of my family, so I may find myself reasonably good at it. But do I really want to lark about with a bunch of am-dram egos and get legless on red wine after ? - yeah, could be fun.

Guitar ? - I do need to get back into that again, as I really did enjoy being part of a band all those years ago. Guitar lessons may be a good break into the pub band scene. Perhaps I'll finally learn to play something, instead of noodling around with ideas of guitar grandeur while trying my best to ignore the fact that I actually need to learn the tough bits, like playing songs.

Travel ? - definately, but that'll be a solo pursuit. I fully intend to head into Europe in the summer time for a week or two, just me, my laptop and a camera. No ties, no discussing where to go next, just a free wheeling loner on well trodden paths.

In the interum, reality bites. A long cold winter stretches ahead with plenty to get sorted. Jan and Feb in the UK are foul months. Dark, wet and cold. The bright side is as usual, the pub.

I could wax lyrical about my love of pubs, the fact that they are an essential part of life in Blighty. To take the pubs away, would be to rip the very soul out of this country, just ask all the Saffas here. In fact, there's a table of them just across from me.

The other day, I had the "pleasure" of hearing a South African girl discussing her maid back in South Africa. In her mind, the maid had a great life - she was lucky - only working half day, getting loads of freebies from her Mom, but oh my, she was a terrible cleaner, doll !
"I mean, what would they do without us ?"
"We treat our maid very lekker, but she can't cook to save her lyf !"
"Ya, they jus don't appreciate things laaik we do, doll."

Some things just never change, however, on the whole, saffas are a good bunch and have a great time here. Heck, I'm one myself, sort of ...