An Odd Pub Crawl - The Lord Dudley

We went out drink driving last night. That's where Darren does the drinking and I do the driving. I usually regret this, but by then it's always too late. Five pints in, Darren starts his drunken passenger act, which involves helpful hints on reverse parking, vague directions and pissed musings on life the universe and everything. You know the type of thing, you're sober and everyone else is drunk.

We've not yet got to the stage in our marriage where I lay clothes out on the bed for Darren to wear. However, left to his own devices, he will somehow always manage to dress Ella in the hand-me-downs I reserve for sending her to nursery (where everything gets ruined anyway). Thus far he's managed to co-ordinate his own attire without my help but we might just have reached a downhill point. Tonight he came out of the bedroom in turned-up jeans suggesting he wear his "good shoes" rather than his walking boots. By "good shoes" he means the ones he wore for our wedding. They are in Sydney because they match the suit he wore on his first day at work. They most certainly don't match turned-up jeans. I managed to convince him not to wear them but can see I'm going to regret confiscating the heavy Campers for the next ten months.

We are fortunate to live in the age of the internet as this means we can research the places we want to go. First off we headed to the Lord Dudley in Paddington/Woollahra. Actually this had been recommended to us by a man in a park, though he had also recommended we eat Basa fish, which, as you know, treads water in the sewage pipe that is the Mekong delta. Anyway, his recommendation turned out to be a good one.

The Lord Dudley is an "English pub" on Jersey Road. The current owner has been restoring it for almost thirty years. It's full of English pub paraphernalia like Bass mirrors and Boddington's beer mats, and they serve pints in the sort of dimpled pint jugs that Len Fairclough used to hold in the Rovers Return. The beer includes Kilkenny, Guinness and bottles of Newcastle Brown. We felt nostalgic for England. Okay, we felt homesick. It was cold outside, it felt like home.

"I miss my friends" I said. "I was thinking yesterday that if we emigrated to Australia then I'd miss some of them getting married and having kids".

"Aww..you want the chance to play Auntie to their offspring?" asked Darren. "Oh God no, I just want to see them go through the hell we've been through. As soon as the last of them hits three, we can book the flights".

Woollahra is the sort of neighbourhood we couldn't really afford to rent, let alone buy. It's all stucco-fronted houses, florist shops, wide black front doors and ornamental bay trees. I wouldn't be surprised if they employ people specifically to polish their (ornamentally tiled) paths. It reminds me of Belsize Park with narrower streets.

The Easter meet had just finished at Randwick Racecourse, so there were a few hats and feather hairpieces on display. We felt a bit under-dressed, which is nothing new. I'm married to a man who holds the dubious honour of having been heckled by a singer on board the P & O "Pride of Cherbourg" for being a "scruffy bastard". He was wearing a long Arran cardigan with two buttons missing and eating ham sandwiches from a used bread bag, so the guy had a point. Still, it's usually the punters doing the heckling, so this was something of a novelty.

Anyway, I think he took it as a compliment because he's been perfecting the look ever since, though these days, since a long stint down south, he does at least wrap his butties in foil.