DATE 13 – THE INCOMPETENT ONE
Updated: Feb 25, 2020
St Paul’s Cathedral; a pretty big building by all accounts. An iconic monument some might even say.
So it is pretty inexplicable as to why my date was waiting at Chancery Lane as we had confirmed St Paul’s that morning. I was close to frozen when he arrived nearly 30 minutes late.
He’d been to the gym after work but had forgotten to get dressed properly (or appropriately) for a date. He was wearing his work trousers with a tatty pair of running trainers, a fleece-style hoody and a giant rucksack; he also didn’t look much like his picture so again I didn’t recognise him.
We had planned on going to the Christmas markets outside Tate Modern but he lead us in the wrong direction. After some awkward faffing around, I took the initiative and consulted a map on the street (thank you London) and eventually we crossed the beautiful Millennium Bridge and into the festive wonderland of the Christmas Markets outside the Gallery. We looked around the market stalls and then my eyes fell upon the tastiest, most succulent looking shredded duck and duck fat potatoes. NOM. I went to get some but my date said I should wait because there were some even better stalls a bit further down.
Begrudgingly, I left duck fat heaven as he walked us out of the loveliness of the Tate Christmas Markets and into the darkness of a stall-less, mile-long river walk all the way to Waterloo Bridge. Thankfully there were some stalls there but there was no decent food without a 15 person queue. And so we walked the mile back to the loveliness of the Tate Christmas Markets…
…only to find that all the stalls were closing. I got the last serving of the crispy shredded duck (no potatoes were left) which was more a sad, soggy, scrapped up, duck gristle impostor. He had forgotten to bring any money and so he made us walk…. all the way back to Waterloo.
When we got there he decided that actually he didn’t want any food but instead desired waffles.
His waffles were so under-cooked that he didn’t even eat them in the end (admittedly not his fault). At this point I couldn’t take any more incompetence so I headed us in the direction of Waterloo station. Unfortunately he was going the same way so we had to get the same tube together. I got off to change at Finchely Road, as did he.
Then he realised that he had got off at the wrong stop.
8 December 2016