(Speed) Dating

Wine: at least 3/4 bottle of Shiraz
Steak: 1. Explains the Shiraz
Temporary labrador in residence: 1. Quite smelly too.
Dates since last post: 2
Potential points on driving licence: 3

That dreaded letter finally came in the post: 4 years and 11 months after passing my driving test, I was caught doing 36mph in a 30 zone, down a little country road on the way back from Sainsbugs. 'Oh, there was a speeding van there,' my mother pointed out oh-so-helpfully after I'd driven past it.  'I think it was pointing the other way,' I replied, keeping my knickers, fingers and toes crossed.  To no avail.  OH THE SHAME. I've elected to go the to the driving awareness course at the cost of £90 and 4 hours of my time, instead of a £60 fine and 3 points on my licence. Let's hope they allow me to.

Last week I had my first date with Plenty of Fish Man #1. I was looking forward to it.  On paper he was perfect; 28 years old ('an older man, very good', said Mum) went to a good school in Guildford, then won a choral scholarship to Oxford (hooray, he'll understand my love of choral music!) youngest of 4 siblings (very good, I like a big family) works at Southampton Uni and owns his own house. Hurrah!

In reality...

SO DISAPPOINTING.

He wasn't as good looking as his pictures, and he talked out of the side of his mouth, giving the impression he'd had a mini-stroke. We met at a pub by the river, and I sat for 2 hours trying not to be bored out of my socks.  It didn't help that ever now and then he'd pepper his sentence with, "When I was your age...."  Not cool.  Eventually my tiredness and boredom got the better of me and a tiny, weeny little yawn slipped out. I'm judging by the fact that I haven't heard from him since (a blessing in disguise..) that he had taken offence. So that was the end of that.

Last night I had another date.  Plenty of Fish Man #2 appeared a bit too cool and a bit too good-looking for my taste, so it took me a while to agree to a date with him. This time, we met for dinner at a pub full of pigs in the New Forest.  Overall, it was better than date #1. Maybe there wasn't an age gap getting in the way. But I wasn't too impressed when he went to order food and came back with a drink for him and had forgotten all about my empty glass of water.  Whether this was down to stinginess or absent-mindedness I'll never know, but he allowed me to buy my own glass of wine, and was happy enough to show me his BMW Series 1 (whatever that means) sitting sleekly in the pub car park.
I wasn't expecting to hear back from this guy, since a little yawn slipped out again at 10.20pm- this time due to tiredness rather than absolute boredom, but 24 hours later I've received a text. Maybe our date was better than I'd perceived.

Tomorrow is date with Plenty of Fish Man #3.  We've rearranged it for Sunday lunch rather than Monday evening, mostly because then there will hopefully be no little yawns slipping out to cause offense, and also we can take the black labrador we're looking after this weekend for a walk too. Oh- and cos I read somewhere the other day that the best time to take a photo of someone is at lunchtime, so that they're over the morning puffiness, and the fatigue hasn't yet set in.  I guess the same goes for how you look on a date.  Well, fingers crossed, because I like Man # 3.  Let's hope I'm not left disappointed.

On another note, I came back from my date with Man #2 last night and my mother said, 'your legs look chunky, Chunky Monkey, like tree trunks.' Bloody charming. If she doesn't like my legs, how can I expect any man to?   Fingers crossed long skirts come back into fashion soon.