Extended

And so it snowed again last night, causing havoc throughout the south, including here. This meant Nicktor was unable to go home this morning. With great joy he is staying with me again tonight.

Last night we went down to the Six Bells for, I thought, dinner and some beer. Dinner was a pathetic pork and apple sandwich because Nicktor wasn’t very hungry! The beer was good though. And, of course, the company. It wasn’t a very busy night at the pub so we almost had the place to ourselves.

Nicktor takes great delight in beating me at virtually everything. So we played darts. Of course, my maths is so abysmal, he has to do the adding up, subtracting and scoring. I won the first game! Highly unusual. “Best out of three,” chirps Nicktor, knowing my skills are extremely limited. I won the second game! He went back to the bar to return the darts, his shoulders starting to droop a bit.

He returned to our table with a crib board and cards. Like me, he grew up playing crib (though he doesn’t know the rhymes which help me in the maths) and plays very fast which, sometimes, takes a bit of the fun out of it. He would have loved playing with my grandad who was just as serious. Well…I WON! So, darts, crib…there was a quoits set on a table near us but we didn’t bother.

We sat and watched Eastenders because the barmaid wanted to watch it and we were the only customers by then. When it ended she was generous enough to put the snooker on.

At 10pm she told us she was closing at 10:30 because we were the only ones there. We did think of going outside and trying to tout for business but, instead, as 10:30 rolled around, we went back to the house where Nicktor wanted a cup of tea! Weird. I had a port.

I managed to convince him to watch Pulp Fiction, which I think he liked. Well, most of it. I think it was a bit too wordy for him. We finally went to bed at about 2am.

Tonight we’re back down to the Six Bells for (a real) dinner and beer and then back to watch Sid and Nancy which is far more up his alley.