And the mountain continues to rise……

Partner walked in last night and looked at the soul-destroying mountain of dishes.

‘I think we’ll eat out tonight.’

I dropped on the floor with shock.

‘There’s a lot of dishes there,’ he said, stating the mind-blowingly obvious.

I picked myself up, and dusted off the dog hairs and everything else on the floor that had transferred itself to me, because clearly the floor is also part of the great unwashed.

‘We haven’t been out for a long time,’ he said.

‘Eighteen months to the day,’ I pointed out, telling him what my blog readers had learned much earlier in the day. ‘For the silver wedding – we went to the Maharajah.’ I thought I had better remind him in case he got any details wrong about one of the most romantic dates in our married life.

I thought it would be rather nice to go out on the 23rd, on our 26 and a half year anniversary.

‘What about Quattro Stagioni?’ I suggested.

It’s a decent Italian restaurant about ten minutes pleasant walk away.

He agreed.

I never remember what times they open as they change the opening time in the evening depending on the day and the season. But they probably wouldn’t be open at six.

The last time we went up there for six it was one of the nights they opened at seven. So we wandered back into town and called at a pub for a couple of drinks to kill an hour. Except we didn’t have any money, we’d only taken a card for the meal.

We looked at the two beers we’d ordered, and at each other, discovered neither of us had any cash, each having thought the other had taken some – and then we looked at a mate who was drinking in there. Fortunately. ‘Steve – can you buy these two beers for us please?’

He did. And when we’d finished he offered us another. And another. (We declined the third). So never let it be said that Yorkshire people are not generous.

We’re a bit more savvy these days, so I handed Partner a cold beer from the fridge while we waited for seven o’clock.

I was tantalising myself with what I should have and thinking how nice it would be to not cook, be waited on, and not add to the ever-increasing mountain of dishes.

Out of nowhere, ‘I don’t think we will go out tonight,’ he said suddenly.

‘I don’t feel like it anymore. I can wash up the dishes when the water comes back on.’

‘Why don’t we wash up in cold water?’ I asked unhelpfully. This was based on the fact that we wash up in cold water in Spain, although on the rare occasions I do it, I do boil some hot water.

Partner looked at me sympathetically, realising I was losing the plot. ‘It’s not just hot water we don’t have, we don’t have ANY water.’

Ah, that’s right. Totally forgotten in the excitement of thinking about going out, and then suddenly having it snatched away from me again.

‘OK, I’m not bothered about going out anyway.’ Flexible me, you see.

I got some potatoes out to bake in the oven (minimum washing up there), some broccoli – using a not too dirty pan, and then made matters worse by using a whole new clean pan for my fave lemon butter sauce.

And no – the water didn’t come back on. Still hasn’t. I wonder if we will eat out tonight?

Tree-lined promenade - where we didn't get to stroll yesterday evening

ETA: The quote that came up when I published this was:

The best time for planning a book is while you’re doing the dishes.
Agatha Christie

Very clever WordPress :D