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It’s the Friday before Xmas and we plan to go into town for some last minute shopping then a drink and a meal. Obviously, we are going into town on the bus, driving is out of the question today.
We set off to catch a bus into town and it seems everyone else has had the same idea as the queue is very long. This changes when the first bus arrives but its destination is the university not the city centre. Half the queue board it so halving the length. Ten minutes later the town bus arrives and we all board it. I overhear comments that it is very late and so it transpires because the driver asked if anyone needs the first stop at the car park. Silence; the driver skips the loop to the car park and so catches up on time by a few minutes. Soon we are stepping off the bus in The Stonebow and walking with the throng into Pavement, (the original 1000 year old name, the only paved street in York then) and decide to go to the bank first, it didn’t take long and then we headed for the Christmas Market that was made up of many wood cabins each with a small business settled in for the Christmas season. All Cabins and traders will have vanished by January. There is a jigsaw cabin that sells mostly; what else? Jigsaws. A handbag cabin also, a Danish pastry cabin, a Christmas decoration cabin plus many others.

A shower clears the street of revellers

After much wandering about we finally decide to have a Christmas drink but the first hostelry we went in was full of groups of blokes enjoying them selves but very few couples so we spun on our heels and went to the next pub that catered more for diners and that was more suitable to our wants. I got a drink each and we then moved outside to the covered area with the heaters. A table opposite the door was vacant so we sat down and enjoyed a good view of the comings and goings of other merrymakers. A hiatus in our conversation made us aware of an argument two tables away between a couple of men although only one was complaining. A quick glance sideways and I saw the agitated one had a large mop of curly blond hair and was very animated in saying how he was put on and used and he was fed up and wasn’t going to stand for it any longer. Bloke number two wasn’t saying a word but simply listening with an occasional sip of his beer. Everyone in the enclosed garden was listening in by now. It was then that I noticed a pile of coins on the table. It had been cleared but I now saw that it wasn’t wiped clean. A waiter had just served food to a couple so I beckoned him over and pointed to the uncollected tip. He swept up the cash in his hands and smiling he said, “I’m surprised you didn’t put it to your drinks bill.” He then turned slightly to look at the argument table then back to us and began to wipe the table, “It’s Black Friday today, That’s when hordes finish work for Christmas and celebrate with a drink before going home.”
“Well they’ll be home for seven o’clock.” I replied.
“A lot won’t,” he added “and by then the one’s who went home from work will be heading back in again for the evening.”
“We plan to home for eight.” Penny told him.
“Yer do right.” was his response, and he headed back indoors to the bar area.
We sat quite again, like most customers in the garden we were listening to the row at table 13. We only caught the loud parts not the mutterings but there were some frictions between them from the past so it was no longer making any sense unless they were a gay couple but even that didn’t ring true.
“You have never appreciated me.” said curly loudly. “You’ve used me you bastard. I’ve done everything for you. You have treated me like dirt. You only came back because you wanted to duck me didn’t you. You could have if you had been honest, you could have had everything you wanted but you couldn’t be honest could you.”
The cowering one muttered something inaudible and curly snapped back.
“Don’t start that you have as much power as me.”
Penny then leaned into me and said the last repost was about children.
Curly stood up and walked out of the place and all was revealed to me. It was a woman with long curly hair and the figure of a Bluebell Girl, she was wearing a short skirt and high heels and apart from her present demeanour was lovely. A few seconds later the cowering one got up and followed her out.
After a few seconds a guy on anther table said to his companions, “He didn’t have much to say did he.” and laughter spread around the garden like a Mexican Wave.
We two then chatted about where to go to for a meal later and what presents we still needed to buy and what was still needed for Christmas dinner.
To our surprise Bluebell returned followed by the cowering one and sat once again at their table. I reasoned that they must have been outside for a cigarette. She continued with the prosecution of her case but not as loudly and we were able to ignore it until a few minutes later they left the pub, he following her to go to duck knows where.
Sometime later we finished our drinks and meandered around the corner into a new crome-and-glass pub where all the self appointed beautiful people congregate. A lot are very beautiful but many others were simply prosperous and well turned out.
The barman came over with straight lips neither smiling nor scowling. He was about 6 foot tall with muscular arms and shoulders but with an incredibly narrow waist; he wore a gold chain around his neck that always looks good against brown skin. He asked what we wanted to drink and in doing so flashed a perfect arch of white teeth. Penny doesn’t really drink a lot and after one wine usually changes to a small lager on the principle of ‘not too strong and lasts long’. I ordered a Beck’s for Penny and a Cafferies’ for me and when he returned with my change he gave me a rare smile but with his head tilted slightly back in a haughty pose. His next customer, a prosperous and well turned out lady stood at the other side of the island bar ordered a cocktail of some sort and he made a great display of mixing it; a performance perfected, bottle flipping, high drop pouring and dexter/sinister shaking. It was finally poured with confident aplomb and served to the lady without breaking eye contact. She loved it as we are wont to say.
Stood next to me was a sort of Beryl Cooke model who carelessly dropped a letter on the floor beside her. I gave her two gentle taps on the forearm and as she turned I pointed down then squatted bar-bell style to the floor and returned on the bounce with the letter and handed it to her. I received an unemotional “Thank you” and she stuffed it back into her open handbag where no doubt it would escape from yet again very soon.
Penny remarked about how the Beck’s was a nice lager so I asked her if she wanted another one but she said, “not here”.
I suppose as we only go together on a genteel pub crawl once a year, and as she doesn’t drink very much she needs a drink in four places in order to feel that she’s done the journey.
Not long after that we left and walked to St Sampson’s Square but the first pub was once again full of rowdy blokes so we moved on and found a friendlier place and fought our way through the crowed bar of older revellers and couples and got the drinks. It was sort of ‘wild west country’ but without the threats. Perhaps they were mainly market traders on a long break. We enjoyed the talk and laughter and bragging going on; there were big blousey ladies, men in leather waistcoats, men with medallions and fedoras all talking at once. The landlord was smiling throughout because his tills were ringing continuously. The place was full of life and happiness and smiles; lots and lots of smiles.
Leaving there we passed once more through the market and to our return bus stop but opposite the stop is the most haunted pub in England so I leaned on Penny to have just one more in there before heading home. She agreed and we went in but after buying some drinks we realised that the main part of the place at the back was hired out to a private party. We were confined to the front bar. It seemed a bit flat and tired, more drinkers than merrymakers. It didn’t help that we could hear the laughter from the annexed back area. Returning once again to the bus stop Penny weighed the situation and suggested that we cross the road again and go to the pizza restaurant for the meal we had not had. I acquiesced as it did seem sensible so to the pizza restaurant we went. I sat and ate in almost silence only giving monosyllabic responses. Penny seemed to be enjoying my diminished state and I did afterwards wonder what effect Bluebell had had on the females who witnessed the fire in her soul. Without doubt they would have sympathised with her but for most of us men; well, we never got a clue as to the other side of the tale did we. It may not have been the received wisdom from the argument that was the truth.
I did enjoy my self-imposed Trappist-Monk meal and by the time we had arrived back in Huntington I was feeling normal again, the tiredness having melted away.
It all boded well for a wonderful Christmas. I didn’t know then that the garden fence would be blown down and that the central heating boiler would pack in on Christmas Eve and stay that way all holiday.