I had been at work for over 12 hours and desperate to get home but reliant on one of the drivers to take me and Joe and Phil, we didn’t arrive back at our boarding house until 8:45pm. It had been a hard day so I decided to join Terry and Nikki who were having a quiet drink in the Royal Oak just down the road. It’s a very quiet pub (sometimes we are the only customers) with a pool table and a jukebox.
I ordered my gin and tonic and at the bar was a big fat man (Scott) who immediaitely started talking to me. It was the usual thing – what’s your name love, and making comments about what I was wearing and guessing details about my life. I made up a name for myself (Felicity) and then things started to deteriorate. He was clearly drunk and started accusing me of being a “Muff-diver” because I had earrings but no necklace! I took it all in good heart but because I wasn’t rising to the bait he got worse and worse. I left him and walked to the other end of the very small pub to where Terry and Nikki were waiting for me. Before departing the bar area I might have suggested that he could go forth and procreate (so to speak) and this was perhaps an error of judgement.
No sooner had I sat down with my friends than we could hear him getting louder and louder and threatening to come over and sort me out! It was clear that he was a local “This is my ****ing pub, why don’t you *** off” and was clearly looking for a fight. We realised that our exit route from the pub involved squeezing past this man at the bar and that wasn’t an option. Terry decided to have a look through the door to the toilets to see if there was another exit returned after a short time and beckoned us to follow him. He had found a door marked “private” leading out through the garage onto the road. We made haste, quickly crossed the road and put our best foot forward all the way home.
So our “quiet drink in the local pub” turned out to be a very unpleasant experience and we are unlikely to feel it safe to return. There is another pub in the village but it’s a bit of a walk away. Pity!