Friday was our
twenty-seventh wedding anniversary, Patricia and me. I posted an old photo on
Twitter and we got lots of lovely well-wishes over the social medias. It was all
very nice.
In the evening, we
went out for dinner to celebrate how damn lucky we were to find each other and
to eat some food as well, obviously.
A local restaurant was
having a French evening and we went there. If you know I live in a small town
on the west coast of Ireland, you may be tempted to think that a French evening
might be a bit of a joke but that was not the case. This local restaurant, Rua, (Irish for ‘red’) would take the Pepsi challenge with any restaurant I’ve ever
eaten in anywhere. Not only is it good, it’s damn good. On this particular
evening, it was actually très bien.
We had some moules and some canard and some crepe for
dessert as well as a big old Cotes du
Rhone. It was a very good meal. About half way through, a French couple
came in and there was perhaps a subtle worry that they may tear the place up, declaring
that this wasn’t ‘French’ at all but, no, they seemed to enjoy it too.
It all reminded me of
the first time I went to France and ate in a restaurant there. I was in
Grenoble for a week, working, and was brought out one evening by a work
colleague. It was just the two of us and it was a small intimate kind of a
place. The food was also very good, as I recall.
I remember two things
in particular from that evening. The first was that I had a very-late-night espresso
after my dinner and, although I’m well-accustomed to coffee, this one has me
pacing the floor for half the night before I could even think about sleeping.
Or maybe it wasn’t the
coffee. Maybe it was that second thing I remember from that evening.
Towards the end of
dinner, after the espresso, I decided I should visit the toilets. I had
identified that they were through a small door in the wall as I had seen people
come and go from there throughout the evening. I excused myself from the table
and made my way to that door, working my way through the tightly packed and busy tables.
Just as I got there, a woman stepped up in front of me and beat me to the door. Being the
eternal old fashioned gentleman, I held the door for her, allowed her to go in,
and then followed her through the door, closing it carefully after me.
I mean, how was I
supposed to know? I thought, not unreasonably, that the door led to a lobby
which would in turn lead to a male and female toilet. Nuh huh. I turned from
the door to find the lady standing beside the sole toilet in the room, looking
at me expectantly, no doubt wondering what it was, exactly, that I had in mind.
I don’t blush much. I
blushed then though, I reckon. I muttered a nervous ‘désolé’, hastily threw open the door, and rushed back out into the
restaurant. As I closed the door from the outside and leaned my head against it, the
refined, reserved, restaurant patrons all erupted in loud cheers and applause
for me. It was clear that everyone in the place knew the toilet arrangements. Everyone
except me.
Last night, I saved up
going to the loo until I got back home.
At least I know the
rules there.
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