Mahinda’s Little World

Wednesday 1st Feb, and it was time for the year’s first Manchester Ceilidh at Jabez.

Housemate Helen (the smaller), my regular partner in crime, couldn’t make it, so I headed off on my own, with the plan being to meet Alsion, Melissa and Pete downstairs, plus possibly Howell, Rick and Antony.

Found Alsion and Melissa, which was nice, and got a round in. I was served be a cute brunette barmaid…cute, but possibly a bit shy of competent! The poor thing failed miserably at pulling a pint of Robinson’s Old Stockport, leaving it on the counter with a gathering mountain of head while she pours the other drinks (Carling for Alsion, a mudslide for Melissa). At this point, the other cute barmaid, this one blonde, comes over to pull a pint of the same for another customer…and berates Brunette for pulling a rubbish pint!

“It’s okay,” says I, “I’ll get her to top it up.”

Blondey and I get chatting, and she mutters about Brunette never having worked in a village pub, with each regular expecting a different (but exact) amount of head on their pint. To be fair to Brunette, it was pretty lively from the pump…and Blondey herself was having a bit of trouble. Still, she managed to rescue it impressively.

Brunette returns with the rest of the drinks, and tops up my pint. I try to give her a bit of moral support.

Now, I said that Blondey was cute. Well, that’s not strictly true. She would be very cute…if only she smiled every so often. In the whole exchange, and afterwards, I never saw her break into a grin once. Okay, so she may have been having a hard time of things, but the grumpy demeanour really didn’t do the rest of her any justice at all.

But anyway, that’s quite enough about the bar staff.

Pete and John turn up, closely followed by Jennifer and Kathryn (”Little Alison” and “Big Alison”). The girls head upstairs quickly due to the three of us talking too much about football - well, Arsenal had just gone 0-2 down against West Ham, so my little world was a happy place!

A few minutes later, we headed upstairs ourselves…where we found Howell and Rick (plus the usual MUGSS crowd and ceilidh regulars), who’d gone straight upstairs. They’d not danced as they couldn’t find partners. Things got a bit easier once they got assimilated into the group.

So, with whom did I dance? Think I managed to grab Alsion, both her sisters, Sarah, Becky, Melissa, Housemate Lynda (who turned up a little later) and, of course, Zenobia. No randoms at all, for a change, except of course for the progressive dances, etc. This was partly due to Pif calling for the whole of the second half - he doesn’t usually give you any time to change between dances, so I just ended up dancing with Zenobia for ages…which, of course, is no bad thing!

Took Zen around the dancefloor at the end for the usual mad spin…we were pretty knackered when it all ended.

“So, see you next month?” says she.

Now, as you might have gathered, I quite like the girl, so I plucked up the necessary courage…

“What would you say if I asked you out for a drink?”

She paused, looked a bit uncertain.

“Erm, a friendly drink?”

“Sure.”

Bugger.

I didn’t know whether or not she was single. I still didn’t know, but had a better idea! Swapped numbers anyway, and I went back to my little group.

Howell, Rick and Lynda had really enjoyed their first ceilidh, and it wasn’t what any of them were expecting. To be honest, they didn’t really know what to expect!

Shuffle out of Jabez, and we all get into our various buses. The MUGSS types go for a curry - it was Jordan’s birthday, after all. Pete, Lynda and I catch a Magic Bus, and I get a txt from Zenobia.

“Hey, it’d be v cool to meet up 4 a drink, but just to let u know I have a boyfriend. Zen “

Or words to that effect. Well, that’s confirmed then

Get home, put Sky Sports on, and settle down on the sofa to watch some goals. Also get the laptop out and start typing all this up. A few txts between me and Pete*, and a couple with Zenobia. Think I will meet up with her, but I don’t know when - I’m pretty booked up this next week or so.

* He was also watching the footy. “Rio, Alonso and Campbell…what were they thinking?! Ledley for England!”

We shall see. Here’s where I find out that her boyfriend is some behemoth of a prop forward (in the truest “big bloke, tiny girlfriend” tradition)…and the highly jealous type to boot.