It’s not often we go out, and even more seldom we go out in the evening together in some sort of synchronised child escape mission, yearning for the normality of adult conversation and the absence of Duplo* that a trip to the cinema or out for dinner brings.
Friday was one such day however, thanks to the generosity of Radio Verulam, our local community radio station. Wifey won a phone (or text) in competition before Christmas that almost saw her swear on local radio. The problem was we’d been playing games with the kids and when the very nice Danny Smith phoned, Wifey was straight on the air. After being told she’d won a prize, Danny asked for a Christmas request and Wifey’s mind immediately went blanker than usual. She ended up opting for Last Christmas by Wham!, convinced that this was probably the 5th request for the song in the last hour and the radio station would black list us forever more for having the temerity to win a prize whilst not actively listening to the radio.
Anyway, we ended up at the Speckled Hen on Hatfield Road on Friday night, armed with an email that got us a free meal. Being a shameless cheapskate, I had a 14oz rib eye steak that was the most expensive thing on the menu. It was nice to go out for a pub meal where they actually understood the concept of a rare steak too. We chatted about all sorts of stuff and managed to eat a meal together without getting terrible indigestion, itself a rarity. I had to stop Wifey cutting my steak up for me, she’s just programmed to do it for the kids nowadays and almost did it on autopilot**.
We were only out for a couple of hours all told, we didn’t want to over exploit my brother who kindly came to babysit, which turned out to be just as well really. When we left the boy was in bed asleep. When we got back he was awake and reading a book in our bed with his uncle sitting next to him. Boy radar apparently detected we had gone shortly after we left…
*nothing against Duplo, especially if used to build a 2001 style Monolith
**this is an exaggeration for comic effect