Reading Before A Saturday Night Out

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

A "Saturday night out" conjures up images doesn't it. Of forgetting for a few hours the cares the world has thrown at you and just having a good time. You return to the perpetual hangover that is life on Sunday morning this is Saturday night....and you're out.

But I'm fifty three. Saturday nights have often been spent working and when I am free nodding off in front of the TV seems to be the most wildest things I've done. Times of wine (other alcoholic beverages are available),women (another gender could be available should you wish) and song (other leisure pursuits are available) are long since past. Then again I don't drink, am not a good singer and as for the opposite sex I'll leave that to your imagination.......as well as my own.

Yesterday however we were as a family going out. To ironically enough Penarth (given that's the area where we're moving to) and a restaurant there to celebrate the twenty first birthday of a friend's son. There are few things that make you realise the passage of time and how ancient and decrepit you've become than watching someone who you have known since birth move permanently into adulthood. There was a moment that I could carry him as you would any fragile object. Now he is a job, a girlfriend and that look of hope that only the young can carry off for a while. To him, we are probably fond memories of the past but his future he can start moving on for himself without the help of us relics.

The thing about going out for the evening is that there comes a moment where you have nothing to do because in half hour/forty five minutes it'll be time to get ready. That moment where the TV has been taken over by your daughter and the wife in the same position as you has decided to take a nap. Of course she will need greater time to get ready, having double my wardrobe space and yet apparently never having "a thing to wear".

So the Kindle is taken and I start reading H Rider Haggard's King Solomon's Mines. A book by a reputation and the half hour session I had with it is a "manly" read. Indeed if King Solomon's Mines was a person it would be having a few pre party lagers before we left and mocking me for my teetotalism and indeed the fact that I've a Kia Picanto and not some 4x4 "all terrain" thing.

Still it was (with reservations which I'll chat about when I've finished it) an entertaining read. You can see that this is the sort of book where the writer sort out to create a bestseller. Sort of a James Patterson (plus one other) of his day.

And I must admit it put my mind off the evening for the short period of time. Reading can do that. It can immerse you.

But eventually reality had to bite. It was time to throw on the aftershave (had to be one the wife had bought "Blue Water" by Davidoff. Not on an endorsement. As long as you don't smell like a dung heap I'm no judge of smells). Put on clothing that I've already laid out. In particular a blue shirt that has the magic ability to hide my body circumference no matter how wide it's turning out. And finally proceed to wait for half hour whilst wife/daughter get themselves "just" right whilst never feeling completely happy.

As for the dinner the company was nice and the artistically placed food (not a fan) was good but not worth the wait. It could almost be described as a quiet night out. Which at my age is probably as good as it gets.

Until the next time.