An Eventful Evening.

I felt angry and bored. Angry with the human race, politicians, the gods, Sarah’s mother, and my own nature. Bored because there was nothing on the TV, nothing I wanted to read, nobody to call or e-mail, and the computer was being cranky. So I decided to go to the village pub for a pint. I donned a pair of shoes and a coat, grabbed a torch and headed off to walk the 600 yards down the pitch-dark lane.

The village pub should have been heaving with light, laughter, conversation, and the energy of communal communication, right? Wrong. The village pub was empty apart from me, the landlord and a TV set in the corner showing some colourful programme in which very colourful, effete young men were behaving limply and talking in artificially high-pitched tones. What they were talking about, I have no idea. I managed to shut that bit out.

And so I stood by the bar and drank my pint of Marston’s Pedigree Ale. And talked to the landlord in short, stuttering sound bites, finding it ever more difficult to come up with some new topic of conversation. Not that it ever really attained the dizzy heights of what would ordinarily be considered ‘conversation.’

‘I hope things pick up for you,’ I said.

‘Oh, I expect they will,’ he replied.

End of stuttering sound byte.

So then I walked the 600 yards back up the pitch-dark lane, taking a short detour along the equally pitch-dark Church Lane, just for the hell of it. That was really exciting. I hoped I might bump into the odd demon, goblin or leprechaun, but there were none about. Or, if there were, they obviously weren’t inclined to indulge in communication either.

I’m still angry and bored. And bemused. I just spent £3 to stand in an empty pub consuming two units of alcohol. Empty pubs are depressing. Soon be time to bathe and then consume a few more units of alcohol, rather cheaper ones this time. In an empty house. Of course, if My Lady were here, I wouldn’t be bored, and probably not angry either. No chance of that, though.

Tomorrow, the power company will be switching off the electricity for seven hours. Nice one.