Friday 17 February 2012

Breakfast, betting and Bridesmaids

On Christmas Day, Christopher wrapped himself up in wrapping paper and lay down on the hall floor under the tree. This was a highly commended entry to the inventive wrapping competition and a unique way of saying that his Christmas present to me was a day out with him. 

Today was my present day! This is what we did:

Stage One: Super Sausage Cafe

Every time we drive to the rugby, we go past the Super Sausage Cafe and wonder what it’s like behind its dark brown exterior. There’s permanently a convoy of lorries in the car park so I’ve always assumed a band of truckers live inside. However, I’ve also heard that it serves up quality breakfasts. It ranks highly in a Google search so we assumed it has a good rep.* SO, we decided to try it.

We’ll admit, when we drove into the car park and saw the trucks, we got scared. We had visions of walking in, the diners pausing mid mouthful and turning to stare at the outsiders standing in the doorway, us making a swift exit and finding refuge in the familiarity of ‘Tea and Two Sugars’. But after a nervous wobble in the car, we plucked up the courage to go for it, and boy were we pleased that we did.

Inside, it absolutely is your stereotypical greasy spoon. (There’s definitely no acute accent on the e of this cafe.) There’s an American style diner menu on the wall, a pile of free copies of ‘Truckstop News’ next to the counter, and those plastic chairs that are screwed into the floor. There were only a couple of actual truckers and when they ignored our entry in favour of keeping their eyes fixed on their fry up, we decided to stay.

Forty a day Brenda served us with a smile. Chris ordered ‘The Fully Monty’, and as you can imagine, his plate was piled high with his weekly intake of calories. He began to devour it with ease. He only started to struggle near the end when he ran out of beans for moisture, and 'lubricant' (their word) aka tea. He started getting food sweats and accidentally wiped some bean juice onto his forehead so it looked like he was sweating the beans back out. He loved it.

I opted for ‘The Transit’ which comprised of one sausage, one bacon, one egg, beans and fried bread, except that I swapped the fried bread for toast.  It was the most amazing breakfast I have EVER had. Friggin delicious. It was very filling but not so large as to leave me feeling like I’d overdone it, and the toast option was definitely a better choice than fried bread (can’t stand that residue layer of fat which is left on the roof of your mouth after a grease fest fry up).

As we left, Christopher could feel his arteries clogging up but we both felt very satisfied and pleased with our bravery.

Stage Two: Rummikub Club 

Christopher has a weekly volunteering commitment to go to a local nursing home and play Rummikub with the residents. It’s only an hour of his time per week, but feeling concern for the impending inevitable crash after consuming so much food, on the way back from breakfast he stopped off at Sainsbury’s and bought a 473ml can of Red Bull to down before leaving. He said it was imperative for the increased mental exertion, concentration and vigilance needed for Rummikub Club. On the can it says that it also stimulates metabolism, which I think was probably the most beneficial effect after the morning’s excess. 

He knocked it back, feeling nervous for consuming 600% of his recommended daily allowance of vitamin B6. We checked the medical effects of this on Google, and B6 is needed for the conversion of glycogen to glucose – good – but overdosing can result in numbness of the arms – bad.

Anyway, he seemed alright. Mum was just pleased that he didn’t drink it to induce hyperactivity before we went to the casino.

Stage Three: Gala Casino

When Chris got back from the old people's home, we went to the casino.

We started with £10 and decided that we’d bet it until we were in profit and then keep the original £10 and place further bets with our winnings only. We played Roulette because it involves no skill whatsoever. We fluctuated between £8 and £11 for a bit but then suffered a losing streak. Our lowest point was £3.30 it felt BAD. A novice, Chris has thus far only enjoyed lucrative trips to the casino (beginner’s luck) and so in a losing position he was despairing slightly. We could hear mum’s voice in our heads: “that’s how casinos stay open you know – because people lose.” 

HOWEVER, we developed a highly successful strategy for slowly building back our money and we managed to build up to our highest point of £14 and it felt GOOD! Chris said he was buzzing out of his face. Our competitive spirit was definitely fuelled. So we then decided to ‘play big’ (£2 a spin) but were invariably less successful with this tactic. Once we’d lost our £4 profit, clawed it back and lost it again a few times, we decided to stop. 

But then we broke the rules and put all of our original £10 on black. If we lost we’d had such a good night that it’d definitely be worth £10, especially considering we’d had complimentary drinks.

It was red.

Stage Four: Bridesmaids

We went to Blockbuster on the way home, rented Bridesmaids for free (two week free trial when you join) and got ripped off with a £5.35 tub of Ben and Jerry’s.

The ice cream was lush, the movie was ace and it was an excellent end to an excellent day.
Thank you, Christopher! x


* Had we looked it up on Google today rather than yesterday, we would have found today’s Chronicle and Echo article about the cafe being fined £15,000 for neglecting to train its staff in any form of health and safety, resulting in an employee burning her hand in a deep fat fryer. Nice!