After battling my way to the end of an unexpectedly lengthy day at work, my other half wandered into the dark of the junk room and suggested “shall we go out for dinner? I have a voucher for the pub…”
Twenty minutes later we were all walking into town together.
It’s interesting – how the dynamic of family life has changed since my other half stopped working at the school. She’s now back to working office hours, so doesn’t get home much before 6:30pm most nights. I “officially” finish an hour earlier, but that rarely happens – as was the story tonight.
On the subject of work, she now works for a company involved in movie and television production – this part of the world is littered with studios. They are involved in, and have been involved in numerous huge projects that you would probably shout “NO WAY!” about. Yesterday after work she wandered into the junk room and handed me a t-shirt. A crew t-shirt, with the code-name of a star-wars production on it. And no, I’m not going to tell you the code-name, or the real name of the project 🙂
I can tell you a story about a little boy at the infant school when she worked there. His mum had to arrange some time off in term-time – and all she could say while talking in reception was the project was called “Red Cup”. Behind closed doors we found out he was one of the lead child characters in Solo – the Star Wars prequel.
We have another friend that runs circus skills workshops for kids, and performs at all the town fates and galas. For a couple of years we knew she had landed something big work-wise, but she couldn’t tell a soul what it was. And then one day – while watching the making-of documentary for “The Force Awakens”, there she was – suiting up as a giant robot in the middle of the creature shop at Industrial Light and Magic.
A couple of years ago, several farmers fields across the way from where we live were turned into a huge wooden village of some sort. Nobody got to see what was beyond the tall screen of plywood barricades until Andor arrived on TV screens all over the world.
Anyway. I got sidetracked.
We met our daughter – who was working a shift at the pub – and she sat down with us for dinner. Given that the “festive” menu was available, I tried out some kind of special turkey burger (I forget it’s name) – which turned out to be a roast dinner re-arranged into a burger. It was amazing. I doubt I’ll have to eat again until tomorrow evening.
For pudding, I went with “jam roly-poly”. I’ve known it was on the menu for weeks, but this was the first chance to actually try it. I didn’t really need it, but the temptation was huge. If you’ve never heard of it, it’s a suet pudding – a bit like a swiss roll, but with jam, served hot with custard. The last time I saw or tasted it was at junior school – 41 years ago.
Oh my word. You know that scene in Rataouille, where the food critic tastes the ratatouille in the restaurant and is taken back to his childhood? I had that exact moment. Such a simple thing, but it brought all sorts of memories flooding back.
After dinner I stayed on at the pub with my eldest daughter – waiting for my middle daughter to finish her shift. While waiting we watched television in the bar, and happened to spot an actor I recognised.
“He was in West Side Story!”
I showed my daughter a photo of him in the movie, and she suddenly realised what I was talking about (she has a memory so poor even a goldfish would laugh). Of course then I had the music from West Side Story stuck in my head.
While leaving the pub I quietly walked through the bar and found myself singing the opening bars of “Maria” – only in my state of tiredness, and being full of food, the notes came out in a rather wonderful baritone for once:
“The most beautiful sound I ever heard…”
A woman sat across from the bar span around in her seat to see where the singing came from, and I didn’t know what to do – so kept walking, and singing. She must have thought I was mad.
That was all a couple of hours ago now. Somehow we’re already past 1am AGAIN, and here I am, writing like mad to avoid the blog sliding past yet another day with no post.
Time for bed.
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