“Too much milk and honey…”

Yet another splendid Monday morning rears its ugly head. To keep it short- I got soaked again this morning, I sit here at work with crap ‘rain hair’ (as opposed to my regular crap hair) and my trousers are damp around their seat…well damper (is that a word?) than unusual.

The weekend went as quick as ever and was enjoyed by myself to the max. As per my last post, Friday was a work night out and went considerably better than I had expected it to, the small amount of work conversation mostly involved the slagging off of colleagues- at last a conversation I could join in with. Little of worth for me note down here, though it confirmed some less than dignified traits to my personality, which I had been in denial about for some time. Firstly, I appear to be tight with my money. A shock to me, I had always thought of myself as a generous soul, happy to spend it way too readily. Yet after a meal on Friday my true Yorkshire colours were all too clear to see. I’ll attempt to explain:

Firstly, there were eleven of us out enjoying the meal and all 11 of us chose from the very reasonable and tasty set menu - £9.50 for two courses or £11.50 for three courses. Anyhow, I just had the starter and main and only drank one glass of wine. When the bill arrived, it was decided for me that we should all pay equal at £21 each. Now at the this juncture I wish it to be noted that nearly everyone else had a desert or coffee or both and everyone else was knocking back the beers and wine, so everyone was remarking how cheap it was, yet I was the only one who seemed miffed. I half jokingly mentioned that it seemed a tad unfair and it was then insisted that I only pay £15. This, although meant well, meant that everyone else would have to pay more. I couldn’t live with myself and had to argue to make sure that they accepted my other £6, which made me feel even worse. After 10 minutes of polite arguing they reluctantly accepted much to my embarrassment.

We then hit the first bar and a kitty was started up. I suggested £10 and about four of us entered, yet the remainder of the group only chipped in £5 ( I only discovered this an hour or so later) Some of the people who chipped in weren’t drink so that’s fair enough, but the other cheeky sods had at least 3 drinks from it? Now happily on my way to being tanked upon Guinness and Staropramen I thought “sod it”.

As fate would have it, most people left at around 11ish just, leaving me with three other surprised colleagues and £45 of the remaining of the kitty- which paid for several more drinks my taxi and (this is my second alarming self discovery) pizza. Yes despite going out for a meal only four hours earlier I devoured another great Pizza creation from Santa Lucia.

So, for the record; I am a tight fisted miser who is a walking dustbin when it comes to food. My entire team was in shock when I told them of my ‘snack’ and gave me that look like “hey, you’ve got a problem”. I half expecting an intervention when I’m eating my lunch “step away from the sandwich…”

Anyway- to improve my spending issues and fitness levels I spent £50 on records (including the King Cresote album –excellent- will mention in detail no next ramble) and actually got a smile from the usually ultra grumpy Probe Records staff. Perhaps they only approve vinyl sales? I also got a bizarre 12” called “do they know it’s Halloween” featuring members from pretty much every American indie band you can think of. Also Lisa and I purchased a PS2 and I have now no reason to leave the flat.