Plan B

This evening, I was hoping to meet my cousin, Richard, for dinner, which would have been pretty special as I don't think I've seen him for twenty, if not thirty, years. However, work got in the way, and I found myself with a free evening on my hands.

So, yesterday, I sent a text to my old friend, Ric, whom I haven't seen for yonks: "All right, mate? Bit of a longshot but a) are you free tomorrow evening and b) do you have a spare bed? F" And, happily, it turned out that the answer to both questions was yes. Hooray!

I arrived at his house in Worthing at around six-thirty and after a quick lager in the garden we walked down to the seafront. We had another beer in a pub before deciding on an Italian restaurant with a sea-facing garden, where we drank wine and ate pizza. It was lovely. 

There was a dash of excitement when the waiter dropped my credit card through the gap between the planks of their decking, and Ric and I had an enjoyable couple of minutes while we watched this young fellow retrieve my card by means of two knives and some blu-tack. I'd given it up for lost but he was determined to rescue it and I think that's the best bit of customer service I've had this year.

After that, we headed back to Ric's and sat in the kitchen with the doors open while we listened to some music, drank a bottle of wine and then laid waste to his whisky. It was a very splendid evening and much I was disappointed not to see Richard, I was very happy to have spent some time with Ric. I must make an effort to see him more often!