For the past couple of weeks the weather has really lifted, it's been warm with little breeze. This is not unusual - it happens at some point in late April/early May every year. Every year everybody in the UK gets totally over excited by it and forgets it doesn't last.
Well today the temperature has dropped significantly and it's raining - I'm at fault - as I am every year. Every year I hold out switching my summer and winter wardrobe for as long as I can. There are two reasons for this one of them is that I SIGNIFICANTLY prefer winter clothes to summer clothes. The other reason is that I KNOW that the weather isn't going to last and I don't want to get caught out.
On Saturday I was sick and tired of being over hot and having to wear the same clothes constantly because they were the only warm weather clothes I had out. So I did the switch. Almost within an hour the weather changed. Same thing happens every single year, I am definitely a winter god. The winter gets upset when I put it away and wants to come back to keep me cold. It's the only possible explanation.
It was a reasonably quiet week, but on Friday husband and I headed for Witchez in Brighton. It's a fantastic restaurant, inside it's a bit like being in a Harry Potter set, very quirky with old black and white films being played on the walls, moons and skeletons etc. The food is also great, but a strange mix from all over the world. It's probably not the sort of place you'd choose to go to all the time, but great if you're meeting friends for supper who haven't been there before.
This time I had a tuna dish called Quarantuna - it was absolutely delicious. Tuna and peach, not a mix I'd have decided to go with normally - but it really worked. Anyway, as previously mentioned I have no desire to be a food critic so I'm not going to bang on about it but yummy.
Though you may think that I'm lying when I talk about being a food critic as this post goes on.....
The friends we met at Witchez have been friends for absolutely years. Originally I was friends with just one of them, we used to go out clubbing together. He was my rhythm, although we went as friends, when he had failed with his opportunities to pull he'd come and grab my hands and dance for me - as the rest of the time I'd be flailing around like an idiot.
He used to go travelling a lot and usually his girlfriends had a huge problem with me because they couldn't get their heads around the fact that we were just friends. In fact some of them would very vocally tell me to chuff off. I didn't though because we really were just friends and what they didn't know was that the reason they got decent Valentines and birthday presents was because I'd force him to go and buy them and help him choose them.
However, one day he got a new girlfriend and we got on really well. He went off travelling and whilst he was off travelling his new girlfriend and I would go out regularly, drinking copious bottles of wine and eating a small bowl of pitta to line our stomach (it got very messy). By the time he got back from travelling he was quite thrown by what good friends his girlfriend and I had become. Anyway, eventually they got married.
They used to live really close to us and we'd see a lot of them, but they moved away to Leamington and so slowly we drifted apart. But it's always great to catch up with them and when we do it's one of those friendships where there's no struggle with conversation and we just catch up from where we left off. Once we finished at Witchez we went next door to the Bath Arms, which was odd - it was somewhere we'd go a lot about 25 years ago. Literally nothing had changed in there except the fact that instead of standing room only there was barely anybody in there.
In fact Brighton was spookily quiet. Everybody had obviously heard I'd be out in town and had sensibly kept away. Anyway, it was lovely to see them and hopefully we'll not leave it so long next time.
At the bus stop heading home there a was a woman screaming at two guys. She didn't seem particularly drunk, but she must have been. At first I thought she was calling them out because they'd been following her or something and because there were people around she felt brave enough to 'out' them. But as the shouting at them continued it became clear that it was actually a racist rant. She was accusing them of loads of horrible things like child trafficking and threatening to call the police (to which they were saying 'please do').
I felt terrible, every bit of me knew I should go in and interject, but I stayed close in case it started to get violent, but didn't have the gumption to put a stop to it. Eventually the womans bus turned up and she got onto it still shouting at them until the last minute. The best I could achieve was to go up to them both and say I was sorry they had to go through that. Husband also had a chat to them. But I felt so guilty and weak that I hadn't got involved.
It's played on my mind a lot since then - that guilt - I think I've come up with a plan of action should it happen again. To go up and start a conversation with the person about something completely different eg. Do you know when the next number 15 bus is due to turn up because I've been waiting ages - hopefully this will distract them from their nasty train of thought.
I hope that the two men that she was screaming at are ok. As I say the guilt that I didn't stop it is enormous. I'm a coward and I don't feel like that often. Getting older makes you feel more vulnerable in many different ways.
Anyway, I'm doing enough dwelling on that in my head so let's not do it in the post as well.
On the subject of getting older, it's husbands birthday on Wednesday. I booked the day off to do something nice with him and then son's school arranged a leavers assembly for the same day. So now during the day I'm sitting in a hall in Lewes watching lots of other people's kids get awards (mine is unlikely too, perfect as he is).
To make up for not being around on his birthday, on Sunday (as it's a bank holiday Monday) we booked a table at a restaurant we've been meaning to go to for ages. Mowgli - it's an Indian restaurant that specialises in street food. I was a little thrown on arrival to discover it was a small plate restaurant. As you know I absolutely hate those - as far as I'm concerned small plate restaurants are stressful when you order - have you ordered too much or too little (particularly stressful if it's the first time you've been) and on the whole each small plate is the same price as a normal sized meal at another restaurant. As a result the bill at the end is about twice the price you expect.
Anyway, that aside there was loads on the menu that we fancied (WE included son this time), so we ordered and waited. We'd heard the food was yum and we were not disappointed, every single dish we ordered was really amazing. What was even better was when the bill turned up it was about £10 more than I anticipated rather than twice the price.
We're definitely going back there.
That was the week. My stomach is even bigger than it was at the beginning. Somehow I'm going to have to work out how to lose all the weight I'm putting on. I seem to get bigger every week. I think the only answer is to give up carbs again. It was much easier during lockdown when I had more time to plan what I was eating. When you're working and grabbing a quick bite it's much harder. Still I'm going to have to bite the bullet. Doubtless I'll bore you with how it's going. That said, I've been promising myself to give up carbs since before Christmas......................
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