It probably didn’t escape most peoples attentions that yesterday was St Valentine’s Day (yes, there was a saint, several in fact. It’s probably Chaucer we have to thank for the beginnings of the plastic pink pastiche of a celebration we have now). Many people hate it for one reason or another, although it’s usually being single or mass commercialism, and some people get totally rolled up in it. I fall somewhere in between, but for me it has special significance because it marks the anniversary of getting together with my better half. That probably sounds more romantic than it really is, because in all actuality it just happened to fall on a Friday, and a Friday back then meant only one thing – a night out at the local club! I think half the couples in the surrounding area can trace their meeting back to a night at ‘The Berkeley’.
So for our anniversary I decided to take us out for a meal, while I’m still earning and able to. I booked a table at a nearby restaurant we’ve never been to before, one called Gurkha in Falmouth. We’ve had Nepalese food before so it was a safe bet. The restaurant was lovely, and the staff were really friendly, but shortly after we arrived something inside me twigged as a couple walked past us to sit down. My weirdo sonar was pinging like a submarine movie. In fairness, at the time there really wasn’t that much to trigger it to be honest; sure, the guy was a bit loud and carrying a box of sealed chocolates (which weren’t for his partner, he just kept them on the table and was quite insistent that no-one touch them) for some reason, but that’s no reason to suspect hidden nutterdom, is it?
It turns out it was a very good reason indeed. The guy gradually got louder, and seemingly more and more irritated at his wife. We (everyone in the restaurant) knew she was his wife because at one point he exclaimed ‘This is my wife and it’s our wedding anniversary’, and then in what must’ve seemed like a whisper to him but was a dull roar to the rest of us, said ‘If we keep saying it we might get a bottle of wine’. The moment when the alarms really started ringing in my head was when he suddenly shouted ‘BLUE!’ for no apparent reason. Shortly after is when the fun began.
For some reason he seemed to take a real dislike to his dining partner, and made sure in no uncertain terms that everyone else knew all about it. Highlights included ‘Don’t you talk over me when he’s taking our order, don’t you EVER do that again’, ‘Stop effing contradicting me, do you hear, NEVER effing contradict me for eff’s sake’, ‘We can’t go on holiday because you won’t go on an EFFING plane will you?? I’d pay a million pounds to get on a plane away from you now’ and ‘If you don’t stop it I’m walking out of here to go to the pub where I can have an effing drink in peace’. This was after their starters arrived and he had commanded her to open a small plastic bag and put a piece of every different piece of food in it to take away. I’m not sure why, maybe they have a hideous mutant locked away at home that needs feeding, it was all very ‘Edward and Tubbs’.
Other than the batsh*t crazy couple who were clearly as mad as trousers, it was a nice evening. The food was amazing, and I can say I’ve had traditional Nepalese dessert now too. I have no idea what it was, but I’ve had it all the same. I think maybe we’ll try somewhere different next year, somewhere with an ‘Are you actually a mad weirdo?’ qualifier on the door.