The Jane Genie

We went out for dinner last night because it was Mum's birthday on Wednesday and we couldn't go out on Wednesday because Neil had football and football is too important to cancel for a birthday meal. Anyway, we went to Cafe Rouge, somewhere I'd never been before, and it was really nice. I had a crab cake starter, then mussels and a herb mash and then blackcurrant sorbet for pudding. I drew a picture of Mum and Dad on a napkin because we didn't have a camera and Neil and I kept saying things like "the food was cold, the plate was cold, the meat was cold, the cardigan was cold..." in a northern accent and miming for the bill like Lee Evans.

The group on the table next to us, however, were a proper bunch of weirdos. The woman closest to us sat with her hand in the ice bucket all evening, occasionally bringing it out to check on her fingers. Mum and I overheard her say at one point "...yeah, and he just tripped over and cracked his head open and that was it..." and I caught Mum's eye and we giggled loudly into our mains. Then she started talking about fundraiser where Jude Law turned up with his kids. When their puddings arrived, the man opposite her (husband?) said nothing and the woman said "...you ordered the apple tart, didn't you BABE?" and ended the evening by nodding to the waitress and saying "...that poor woman isn't going to want me back, I've just sat here with my hand in a bucket of ice all evening".

On Thursday night/early Friday morning, there was a massive argument going on across the road from our house. I cracked the curtain open, and saw a girl (drunk) and 2 guys standing and yelling at each other. The girl kept shouting "I'M NOT A FUCKING POODLE!" at the top of her voice, "SHUT UP! SHUT UP!" and occasionally slapping her male friends who were trying to get her to shut up and win the argument at the same time by saying things like "...be quiet, you call me worse things than 'poodle', you call me fat and a minger...". Eventually, our neighbour stuck his head out of the window and shouted "Could you take your argument somewhere else please? The whole street doesn't want to hear it!" To which the girl shouted back: "But he called me a POODLE!"

Eventually they went up to the top of the street where there is a small bench. I had crept into Neil's room by this point, and we were both watching the proceedings with childish excitement. We almost died laughing when we heard the girl screech "...I'm not a DOG, I'm a GIRL!" and when she walked back down the street with a girl friend who'd managed to calm her down, Neil asked me if it would be a good idea to shout "OI! POODLE!" out of the window and see if she responded.

My life isn't usually this exciting and I'm not used to it.