It's A Long Way To Southampton

Let's weigh events against each other. Yesterday afternoon - terrible. Silly questions doing laps around my silly mind. I kept having to get my driver's license out to check I am actually a forty-six year old bloke. What if she didn't ring? Does it mean she never wants to see me again? Or does it mean she hasn't checked her messages? Or that her phone is out of charge and she forgot to bring a charger all the way up from Southampton? Which would mean she couldn't ring. Unless she used a different phone. But then what if my phone number was stored on her battery-dead phone and she had no other way of accessing it? Why hadn't she written my number down elsewhere? Does that mean I really don't mean anything to her? Let's face it, she must have been pretty desperate for a bit of company being away from her friends and family. Perhaps I was just a one-night respite from boredom. And I ended up being so uninspiring and boring she didn't want to repeat the experience. Or maybe immediately after our date a group of aliens fresh from the third planet orbiting Proxima Centauri swooped down in their FTL pod and snatched Sarah from the Earth, and have since crudely and painfully dissected her. Perhaps it was all a delusion, and Sarah doesn't exist, and I spent an hour talking to myself in the pub on Tuesday? Perhaps I *am* Sarah, a cross-gender delusional scitzophrenic?

Yesterday evening - brilliant (until the end). Because she *did* eventually ring.

And as for yesterday night, well. Heh heh heh. Let's just say my performance in bed was magnificient. I went to sleep, straight away.

As suggested, I could not concentrate at all during yesterday afternoon. All my figures didn't add up, all my code ducked into infinite loops and none of my emails made the slightest modicum of sense. So I gave up (and hence gave up looking at my phone, which I had set beside my work phone (it's usually secreted deeply in my bag, forgotten by myself and the few people who actually know me)), shut down my computer and went home, taking the slight advantage of Peter Handyman having the afternoon off to attend a funeral (sadly, not his).

Arrived home to a houseful of boisterous males. Andrew and Gabriel appeared embroiled in some heated discussion regarding a can of Coke Zero that I had no intention of become involved within. Lukas and Danny seemed at odds with each other over a deal of explosions and noises emanating from the PS2, whilst Colin attempted to negociate all this carnage and cook himself a toasted bacon sandwich. I suceeded in surveying all this in a microsecond. Indeed the microsecond before my phone went off.

Yey! Sarah! She immediately launched into an apology for not returning my call earlier, explaining that her sister had rung to tell her Ruth has been sick at school and they'd been a few dealings that needed dealing with. I told her I hoped Ruth was okay, to which Sarah said yeah, it was a lot of fuss that didn't really need fussing about. Then she paused, and asked So, where are you taking me then?

So I told her about Indigo, the vegetarian restaurant, and by the sound of her approval I'd just scored several goodie points for remembering that she was a vegetarian. She asked if I was sure I'd be all right, eating a meal that contained no meat, to which I said I'm actually a vegetarian at the moment as I've given up meat for Lent. There was a further pause, but I didn't know if I'd just added to or subtracted from by brownie-point total. She asked for directions but I said we may as well share a cab, so I asked for directions to her hotel. Sarah told me it wasn't a hotel, it was one of those god-awful soul-sucking Travelodge affairs, but gave me directions anyhow. I told her I'd pick her up at half-seven, and the call ended.

I went upstairs and scrubbed off the 'work' me, replacing it with a slightly more polished version. Back downstairs I suffered a grumpy Gabriel, moaning that Colin was taking him to kick-boxing but "he doesn't know where it is". I pointed out that Gabe himself knew where it was, to which he said yes, he knew where it was, but he had no idea how to get there. I told him I'm sure it'd come back to him. Further grumpiness was interupted by Lukas, who with improper timing wanted to know how he was going to get to basketball once he was fit, if - as seemed likely - Gabriel continued with the kick-boxing. I told Lukas we'd find a solution when the time came, but that time was not now. This answer failed to satisfy both of them, so now I had two moaning kids on my tail. I ignored them and phoned a taxi.

Taxi came at seven and conveyed me to the Travelodge, where Sarah was waiting for me outside. She immediately passed me a present: A very genuine-looking pleased-to-see-you-smile. It took the whole journey to Indigo for my heart-beat to find a healthy equilibrium again.

Indigo provided exactly the kind of dining experience I'd hoped it would. I won't go into the dull details, but the food was exquisitely prepared and undeniably satisfying. Sarah offered to share a bottle of red with me, but I declined, saying I'd given up drinking for Lent as well. She said I seemed to be taking this Lent thing pretty seriously; and that she hadn't taken me for a Christian. I nodded and swiftly changed the subject; just in case Jesus Loved Sarah.

The hours in that afternoon that had become days received their revenge when the two hours I was with Sarah became minutes, and all too soon we were back at the Travelodge.

Sarah asked me to step out of the cab with her, whilst telling the cabbie to wait. I'd no expectation of the evening prolonging beyond the meal, so wondering what was coming. Sarah took my hand and led me almost to the door to the Travelodge. Then she said: You're very sweet, Bryn, and you're fun. So you're going to think I'm a right bitch now when I tell you I'm not going to ask you in.

I laughed and said that wasn't the case at all. Sarah smiled and continued. You do understand the only reason I'm not asking you in is because I live in Southampton, don't you? This I found a bit odd, as I've never been to Southampton so didn't see it as being relative. I told her I didn't see the connection.

Then she said a few further things I didn't really understand, kissed me fleetingly on the lips and was gone.

I returned to the cab a very puzzled boy. I feel into a zombie-state, hardly even complaining when the cab-fare came to £35. Then I went to bed, and fell into a confused and dis-satisfied sleep.