Isn’t It Amazing What You Can Find In A Hedge

Daughter is due at the Gym again this morning. Apparently she was pretty knackered last night so getting her up won't be easy. Daughter doesn’t do mornings at the best of times. So it proves. Today is not particularly a good morning. Hence we are later getting there. Although it’s not all her fault, we overindulged in a lie-in ourselves. Although it didn't have anything to do with sleeping.

While Daughter is at the gym we head off into battle with the Dalmatian again. We do our usual run but decide to go the other way around our circuit to hopefully come up behind the Dalmatian rather than run headlong into it. It doesn't work, they must do an out and back route and what with us being a little late we end up face to face with them again. However the Dalmatian has been muzzled. We survive the experience and head back home.

We have a fairly lazy afternoon. Son goes out to play with his soldiers (Warhammer) and Daughter spends most of the time upstairs. I earn a bit of pocket money doing surveys on the internet while L unwinds in the bath. After her bath, she chills out on the bed, which distracts me from my survey. I momentarily go back to my survey but it is too long and too dull, there is more fun to be had with L in the bedroom. And so it proves.

Later we all meet up with Son and put him and Daughter on the bus to Derby. They’re at their fathers tonight. Then we head off to celebrate our Anniversary. Today I have been with the wonderful L for 11 (long) years.

We don't head straight into town but instead end up in the Grove where the Broadside 4.7% is rather good. We split four and a half pints between us. Then we head up to Scruffys where we've booked a table.

When we arrive a Scruffys there's a girl wearing roller blades at the bar. I wonder if she's a member of staff and whether Scruffys have branched out into that Americanised waitresses on skates sort of thing. I experienced that when I was in the USA once, wasn't a positive experience, I recall them half filling everything so nothing got spilt. Was all a bit of a rip off. At least those girls wore very short skirts to compensate; this girl's got her jeans on. Hope she doesn't spill my chilli.

We have a combo starter thing to share which is ok but nothing special. Then L is a very bad girl and has some very unhealthy pasta smothered in blue cheese and I have chilli burritos. Both meals are very good. L is still being a bad girl and we decadently have dessert. Don't tell Daughter. I have Dime bar cheesecake; L has sticky toffee pudding. We wash it all down with a rather nice bottle of Rioja and finish off with a dark Leffe each. Thankfully no sign of waitresses on skates.

That is until we head home and find one clinging to a hedge. Isn’t it amazing what you can find in a hedge? It's the same girl and she's not a waitress. Apparently she only popped into Scruffys for a drink, just the one drink and was now making her way home. I know all this because L did her waifs and strays rescue mission again.

It's probably two hours since we first saw her in Scruffys, that's a long time for one drink. So I wonder how long she's been clinging to that hedge. Scruffys is at the top of Derby Road which is a rather steep hill. Seems she's been clinging on because she daren't let go. Probably waiting for someone to rescue her. You'd have thought lads would have been queueing up to pull her from that hedge, well they would have been in my day.

Turns out that her name is Emma and she says she's taken to going out on rollerblades to take her mind off the fact that she's given up smoking. No I couldn't quite work that one out either.

When she falls over for the third time and lies spread-eagled on the floor at my feet I ponder on what would have happened if this scenario had occurred on Thursday night instead, when I was walking home from the Brakes gig on my own. 'Why are you home late dear' L would ask when I got home. Hmmm not sure how my reply that 'I found a girl on roller blades clinging to a hedge and I rescued her and helped her get home' would go down.

Hope she's got someone to tend to those bruises for her. Not sure I'm allowed to post my phone number on here.