My Evening With Reginald

Last night I had a date with a gentleman by the name of Reginald, Reginald Derby Wright to give him his full name.

We met via an internet dating site I've been subscribed to for the past month; it's called Intellectual Pursuits and of course, shouldn't be confused with its near-namesake the excellent Horn Abbott International outdated trivia-based board game Trivial Pursuit.  It was £5.99 for the first three months and then £22.99 thereafter - it's run from the spare room of self-proclaimed 'internet zillionnaire' Chuck Peters who moved to Bracknell after a successful career in Silicon Valley.

Anyway, I digress, as ever.  I have had a few 'matches', but nobody has really interested me enough after the first flourish of email exchanges has petered out, however all of that changed last week when I first encountered a man called Reginald.  He has his own business as a peripatetic key and shoe repair agent and moved out of his parents' house into his own studio flat last February.  His picture showed a balding, bespectacled slightly overweight man wearing fawn cords, a ZZ Top t-shirt and a battered velvet jacket.  He had twinkly blue eyes and a cheeky grin though and he was able to use the correct punctuation and grammar in his emails, which made me warm to him immediately.

We went to a licenced cafe for dinner which offered free corkage, so Reginald brought along a bottle of Hardy's Chardonnay.  Unfortunately it had already been opened, but I trusted that he hadn't necked the wine out of the bottle and accepted a glass.  We both ordered the 'neverending dinner' which was a choice of potato chips; potato waffles; beefburgers; lamb chops; sausages; pork steaks; chicken nuggets, tinned carrots, tinned peas and tinned sweetcorn.  I'll admit that my palate is slightly damaged after a childhood spent eating convenience foods in the 1970s and 1980s, but it was a splendid repast and you'll never guess what was on the dessert trolley?  Yes, Bird's Trifle, Fruits of The Forest Mousse and Butterscotch Angel Delight.

He paid the bill in full.  We had a splendid time and I've agreed to go out with him again on Saturday night.  I am so happy!