It’s hard to keep romance alive these days, because of our busy lives, balancing the demands of children and of course with me being generally unattractive. However, I’m here to share the solution – lockdown!
Thanks to the dubious pleasures of homeworking, no longer do I just see Mrs Rad for a few minutes in the morning before it gets light and a few minutes in the dark after work. We get to see each other in the day. I admit daylight doesnt really help the attractiveness thing, but working from home allows us to spend a litlle more time with each other. And sometimes we even get to go on little dates at lunchtime. Which is what we did today – and the location of choice for this date? Tesco’s Cafe.
Tesco is a modern marvel. The most ubiquitous supermarket in the UK, it thrives on it’s general ok-ness. The prices are ok, not the cheapest but not too bad. The decor – uninspiring. The produce? Unremarkable. The staff? Would do anything not to be there.
But it’s available, and it’s close to my house. And they have a little cafe that is the perfect home for my little date with Mrs Rad. She ordered the food while I did a bit of shopping. She sent me a photo of the menu for me to choose what I wanted. When we sat down, I discovered we’d ordered the same thing – Fish and Chips – proving that true love never dies. The only difference was that Mrs Rad had pushed the boat out and had mushy peas, whereas I had garden peas. Psychologists will have a field day analysing what that means about us – two peas in a pod? One squished tho.
The chips were chonky – hom nom nom, but the fish not so much. I was impressed by the amound of care that had gone in to finding one that was as thin and tasteless as the one I had today.
And the best thing about dates in supermarkets – you can go and get large bags of special offer chocolates for pudding.
Its been roughly 3 years since COVID started, and yet it’s legacy lives on in my life in the form of my mini lunchtime dates.