So , for the unfamiliar, let me start this post with a little scene setting. My name is Gav and I am single in fact I believe that the correct term is ‘confirmed bachelor’. Don’t worry I am not about to launch into some online advertisement for a partner I am just making things clear.
So this week I was asked, by a concerned customer, why I ‘don’t have a woman’ after all, apparently, I “deserve” a good woman. My answer, which took some consideration, I think was fair. I need a relationship like I need cancer and the reason that you are enjoying your time in my pub is precisely because I do not have a woman.
OK so the analogy may be a little harsh but the theory is sound. It was gone midnight when I started to write this and I was exhausted but still up for work at 7 am. I am driven by the pub and its needs there is no space for any other demands, other than my beloved children, and frankly we (me and the pub) have no time for relationshits*.
I need to point out that this is not a sexist thing for I am sure that there are as many woman saying this as there are men. The simple truth of the matter is that in a very complicated world I am as likely to have a successful relationship as I am to solve a Rubik’s cube underwater in the dark. In all of these conversations, they are reasonably frequent, there is a constant and that is that the person espousing the benefits of a relationship is not overly happy with their own.
There are some wonderful exceptions to the rule, I am privileged to know some of them, but as a rule the sexes are not designed to play well together. So when you next visit the pub and tell me that I need a lady think on, at least for a minute, and wonder would it be the same place if I was off out kowtowing to the irrational demands of a ‘partner’?
We have ditched the old adage of ‘behind every good man there is a strong woman’ so can we also now drop the idea that men need women like they are physically and emotionally bereft without this contract, we are grown up now and this is way down the needs list.
In other news this week has raced past and I feel as if I am slamming into the weekend bereft of ether planning or energy. In fairness this is the usual consequence of a week of achievement so all is normal. The start of the season has brought some repeat visitors over the week, some who know the pub of old and some who know the pub since I have been here and all have been pleasantly surprised by the changes.
My battle to evict the spider who has taken up residence on one of the external cameras continues. I remove every trace of web every day and will then only spot the occasional incursion by the little fella as he prepares his lair. It would seem that the infrared night-light always spurs him into a spurt of energy resulting in a full web at the most inconvenient of times. Quite why the spider is so attached to the camera I cannot understand and would have expected that the constant destruction of hard built webs would have caused him to move on but he is nothing if not determined.
*I am forever grateful to Davina for this excellent word