Kelly and Rutger were married in Kent two days ago, while Chloe and Logan drove from Essex for two nights in Hampshire. Both couples decided to see in the new year at the Chesil in Winchester and they were sat either side of us, upstairs. We made a jolly sextet.
We’ve been going for dinner at the Chesil on New Year’s Eve since 2016 and, I think, only missed one year. It’s become a tradition that would be hard to break. Mind you, tonight was almost disastrous enough to make us change our minds about that.
Of course, there was no guarantee we’d be going with my foot the size of the Hindenburg and still quite sore. But I was determined to do the seemingly impossible and squeeze it into a shoe. Normally, when wearing my suit, I’d don proper shoes but, given the circumstances, I figured my runners would be easier. Even so, it was a bit of a tussle squeezing them in.
It also took me an age to walk the short distance from Max to the restaurant, clinging desperately to Mirinda for support. I felt quite pathetic. Mind you, once I dragged myself upstairs and collapsed into a chair, all was good.
While physically things improved, it was after we’d been seated that things started to fall apart. Not for us, I hasten to add. No, it was the staff.
Normally the service is excellent – excluding the year that the wine flight was scribbled on a bit of used paper sitting next to the cash register and the waiting staff had trouble deciphering it – but tonight, for some reason, it was as if the entire staff had never worked in a restaurant before.
I’m not going to outline all the problems because we still had an excellent time and the food was superb (“The courses were too big, though,” said Rutger) but I’ll just mention a couple.
When we were sat down, the waiter (of which we had many) vaguely indicated the wine flight while asking if we wanted water. Mirinda asked for sparkling (she does that for me) and, before I could ask if I could have the wine flight, he’d vanished. I figured he’d be back with the water and I’d ask then.
He never came back with the water. Instead, the canapés arrived, delivered by a young fellow who was shaking with a fear of getting everything wrong. He returned to our table a few times and, it felt, managed to grow more nervous with every visit. It was he whom I asked for the wine flight. With shaking hands, he delivered a couple of the wines.
The sommelier, whose name was on the wine flight menu, appeared a couple of times but firstly didn’t really tell me a lot about the wines and, secondly, gave one glass to Mirinda. It was only because we recognised the name of the vineyard. Naturally, we tried to tell him but he seemed rather busy and preoccupied.
All in all, the wines matched the foods really well (as usual for the Chesil and its excellent cellar) but it would have been nice to have the usual wine chat and to have the wine just before the relevant course arrived. I’ve always thought that was the way to do it. Maybe I’m wrong and haphazard is more the standard these days. I’m not that bothered but, had I known, I’d have just bought a bottle of something nice and had that instead.
Enough brickbats though. The evening itself was great fun.
Sitting to my left was Rutger. I overheard a conversation he was having with, to my mind, a very annoying chap next to him. It turned out that Rutger found him so annoying he wanted to shove his serviette down his throat. The fact that Rutger claimed he’s a bit of a Viking would only help to confirm he would have done that. At one point, Rutger got up to go to the loo. He told us, later that he hadn’t wanted to go to the loo but needed a bit of a time out before doing something regretful.
He’s also an ex-rugby player so I wouldn’t want to argue with him.
Anyway, the chap who was annoying him had something of an issue with the Swiss. He hated them, likening them to the Nazis. There was even a Swiss motorway he hated. With a passion. And Rolex watches. I could go on with the other petty things he had a problem with but I won’t. I have no idea who he was but, for clarity, let’s call him Marjorie Dawes.
Next to Marjorie Dawes was his, it seemed, long suffering second wife and sitting opposite was a couple who may have been friends of either of them. It was hard to tell. They seemed to be suffering just as much as the rest of us.
While I couldn’t see Marjorie Dawes, I could see the friends opposite and Kelly, Rutger’s recent wife. I thought she was being particularly nice. I told her so later. She was pleased it looked that way because, inside she was being anything but pleasant.
Marjorie Dawes and his three poor companions left and there was a noticeable change of atmosphere in our part of the restaurant. Everyone suddenly started talking about Marjorie Dawes and what a prick he was. It proves once again that there’s nothing for creating social cohesion than a good dose of prickishness.
And, personally, I’d like to thank Marjorie Dawes. Had it not been for him, we would probably have not seen the new year in with such pleasant dining companions. And see it in we did.
Normally we finish up at the Chesil at around 10:30 and head home to spend the midnight bongs with the girls but, when I glanced at Rutger’s watch, I realised it was already 11:45pm. He turned to Kelly and said they now had a choice. Leave immediately and join the party at the pub they were staying in or stay at the Chesil and toast the new year with us.
While there was no firm decision, Rutger said we should order cocktails and some fizz, so we dragged the non-gender specific staff member over and told them what we wanted. We were soon all loaded up with cocktails, apart from, Logan, who doesn’t drink. By that time, of course, it was a few minutes before midnight.
We started our own little countdown and toasted each other to a new year just as someone downstairs started their own countdown. We toasted with them as well.
All round, it was a wonderful night spent in the company of four splendid strangers.
By the time we arrived home it was too late to watch an entire zombie movie. I watched about 20 minutes of the excellent Spanish movie called Malnazidos (Valley of the Dead).
