The Death of Me

Well, we spent another afternoon drinking and in the process, placed my name one step higher on the liver donor list. I am convinced that if I ever lived over here, I would die early from liver failure. Granted I spread my bitter out over the afternoon, but geezz.

This afternoon, we met another one of Zoe's old schoolmates, Tash, and her boyfriend, Anthony, and daughter, Kadie. Anthony drove us to The Dairyman's Daughter, a pub in the small town of Arreton. We have been there a number of times before and have been usually impressed. Today was no different. The Dairyman's Daughter had about 5 local ales and 2 guest ales. For this trip, I had my first pint of Badger's Tangle Foot which was quite nice. It seems that the portions of food over here have increased ten fold. Take my lunch for instance, a simple burger with Chili (Yes, I know I went American) and a side of chips. It was huge! Of course, I finished it, but it was still huge.

Seeing that it was only 2 PM and we still had drinking to do, we headed to the Crown Inn. I have shared many a beer at the Crown in the past. It is a truly local pub. The pub is one of the few pubs in Ryde that have extended licensing hours. Up until the first of this years, all pubs in the UK used to close at 11 PM. Pubs, through proper licensing, can now stay open 24 hours if they choose. The Crown stays open until about 2 AM, much like back home. It was at the Crown 2 years ago that Zoe left me for a little while and came back to find me "hanging out" with a bunch of hooligans. Although she was concerned, I felt quite at home.

We spent the next three hours talking about island life. Both Tash and Anthony have spent their entire lives on the island. Just looking out the window, both were able to identify people walking by and were able to bring Zoe uptodate on the goings on with old friends.

As a side note, I am feeling somewhat like a German must have felt like in London in the early 1940's. It seems that if I talk too loud, which I know I tend to do, I start getting stares. Hell, I had a whole work crew stare at me as we left the pub. I feel sympathy for Zoe whenever I order something. Fortunately, I know the lingo, but more often than not, I have to repeat myself because of how I say it. I am about two days from putting on my fake accent and embarrassing everybody.