MANICHAEAN
10-23-2017, 11:04 AM
An Introduction to Gods Alcoholic Waiting Room.
Monday 23rd October 2017. The location; the 16th Century inn " The Horse & Groom" in Old Hatfield , Hertfordshire at one o'clock in the afternoon.
The occasion. Just returned from the swirl of the London metropolis and justifiably in need of an injection of alcohol.
So alight from Hatfield Station, and its downhill all the way to the watering hole. Duck below the head of the door entrance and retire with an immediate flashback into the historical ambivalence of a dusty old English provincial public house.
Inglenook fireplace with polished brasses, sloped irregular ceilings, exposed oak beams and the warming ambiance of a wood fire. No busty wenches these days; more bordering on the threshold of obesity and adorned with unflattering leggings. The youthful lunchtime crowd has departed and those of a certain age numbering four, are left to ruminate over their "real ale" in the lumber room of the seventh age of man.
Yet it is not depressing, as old age is supposed to be. There is a calm, a tranquility and a cocky coziness that stares approaching mortality in the face, with the insolence of a barely suppressed smile.
All the current exteriorisation that lies outside these doors is for the moment put on hold. The trip to London to obtain a Vietnam visa was an ill prepared disaster, the London Underground was a fevered dream of confusion. If anything, the best thing to come out of the entire enterprise was that, being so pissed off, I put the dual Việt/ Thai trip in the bin. M'Hanh can come from Saigon to Bangkok under her own steam and we will then jointly indulge in the pleasures that the Peninsular Hotel and its environs has to offer. It has never disappointed in the past.
So, I can now put behind me the prospects of a forced vacation in the backwoods of the Mekong Delta, likely embellished with; hard beds, squat toilets and Ho Chi Minh's revenge in the genesis of loose bowel movements.
How shall we end this loose sally narrative into self pity / realisation/ reflection? Well, two pints of Abbots Ale went down well. Finish off with a Jameson's Irish whiskey and raise my glass to the spirits that still haunt this establishment!!!
Monday 23rd October 2017. The location; the 16th Century inn " The Horse & Groom" in Old Hatfield , Hertfordshire at one o'clock in the afternoon.
The occasion. Just returned from the swirl of the London metropolis and justifiably in need of an injection of alcohol.
So alight from Hatfield Station, and its downhill all the way to the watering hole. Duck below the head of the door entrance and retire with an immediate flashback into the historical ambivalence of a dusty old English provincial public house.
Inglenook fireplace with polished brasses, sloped irregular ceilings, exposed oak beams and the warming ambiance of a wood fire. No busty wenches these days; more bordering on the threshold of obesity and adorned with unflattering leggings. The youthful lunchtime crowd has departed and those of a certain age numbering four, are left to ruminate over their "real ale" in the lumber room of the seventh age of man.
Yet it is not depressing, as old age is supposed to be. There is a calm, a tranquility and a cocky coziness that stares approaching mortality in the face, with the insolence of a barely suppressed smile.
All the current exteriorisation that lies outside these doors is for the moment put on hold. The trip to London to obtain a Vietnam visa was an ill prepared disaster, the London Underground was a fevered dream of confusion. If anything, the best thing to come out of the entire enterprise was that, being so pissed off, I put the dual Việt/ Thai trip in the bin. M'Hanh can come from Saigon to Bangkok under her own steam and we will then jointly indulge in the pleasures that the Peninsular Hotel and its environs has to offer. It has never disappointed in the past.
So, I can now put behind me the prospects of a forced vacation in the backwoods of the Mekong Delta, likely embellished with; hard beds, squat toilets and Ho Chi Minh's revenge in the genesis of loose bowel movements.
How shall we end this loose sally narrative into self pity / realisation/ reflection? Well, two pints of Abbots Ale went down well. Finish off with a Jameson's Irish whiskey and raise my glass to the spirits that still haunt this establishment!!!