Sushi Wars and Sunsets

Now. In my last entry, born of the trauma of tress-tugging, I mentioned that I gave KIB/IHP a wide berth for quite some time.
 
That time frame was two weeks. For two weeks I was able to find reasons to avoid meeting up with his ever-tugging self, which given the Events of Our Last Date gave me enough time to – ahem – MULLET over.

Don't break my heart, my achy breaky heart...via here

(Get me and my poor, poor hair jokes...)

In that time I was able to persuade myself that while hair-pulling re-hea-ally wasn't my bag (baby), I’d perhaps been a little hasty in putting up the barriers and perhaps I ought to give KIB, who had been a great First Date, a second chance. But this time play it differently. Approach him as a Potential Friend.

Play it cool.

Agree to no riverside walks with their heinous capacity for cliché and subsequent Poor Snoggage.

And Other Refinements.

Admittedly, I’d never been brave enough to say explicitly to KIB that the hair-pulling had – ahem – wigged me out. I was so thrown by it, and so dog-tired, that maybe, just maybe, I’d overreacted, so by the time we’d made plans for meeting again, I’d pretty much shelved it in my annal of ‘anecdates’ and was all prepared to Move On. As long as he didn’t try it again. And we did OK. We chatted well, crossing the bridge from Embankment. I made light of my fatigue last time we met. We discussed what books we were reading. It was fine. It was all good.

I'd suggested we go for sushi, thinking we’d rock up to the chain sushi place on the South Bank. We did sushi not at Hi! Sushi* as I’d hoped but at a small sushi restaurant down the side of the Festival Hall that he led me to despite my dropping hints that the place I wanted to go to was just around the corner. Meh.

We ordered miso soup and got some strange looks from the staff when we asked for cutlery (how else do you eat miso soup?! Oh, you can just drink it, apparently...) and ordered salads – mine was seaweed, his was noodles. Admittedly these salads were basically plates of, respectively, seaweed (and nowt else) and noodles (and nowt else) but while I happily chowed down on mine KIB ended up probing his and commenting a couple of times that it was just a plate of noodles. (This never would have happened if he’d let us go to Hi! Sushi where he could have had a more varied platter but neeeever mind. I didn't mention this and just stayed as beatific and non-vocal as possible, choosing to seethe inwardly instead.)

We went to the South Bank Centre after that, just to see what was on. He parked in front of the leaflets bank and picked up several for the upcoming vintage event, and insinuating, as he did, that we could take in these events, or we could go to this secret gallery or that secret gig and I smiled, considered, didn't commit to anything, and wondered whether it was bad form to get more excited that Moby (one of my crushes once upon a time) was appearing at Foyles in a week or so to sign his new book…

Moby. Sigh.
via here

Then, we found and wandered around the Museum of 1951, the excellent free exhibit detailing the anniversary of the Festival of Britain.

And yes, He Narrated.

Ah, those are the programmes.
(he stated in front of a frame full of Festival of Britain events programmes)
I love the design and typography, I ventured. (Because while the Narration was Annoying as billy-o I wasn’t so mean as to not validate his attempts to Make Conversation.)

Ah, that’s a 1950s room.
(he stated in front of a set-up of a 1950s sitting room complete with period furniture and books)
It actually looks quite contemporary, I ventured, noting the current fad for retro furniture.

Ah, they’re steel drums.
(he stated in front of a set of steel drums)
Yep. (I had nothing else to say about steel drums.)

I took a few deep breaths, decided to Let the Annoyances Wash Over Me, but noted that gosh it was getting late. And I’m not at my best when I’m tired.

As we know.

But we decided to check out the view from the fifth-floor bar and balcony before we left and, well, I like a good view.

And it was a magnificent sunset. (Was it a Waterloo Sunset? Couldn't possibly say.)

I yanked my compact camera out of my bag and snapped away.

“See, I knew you’d like the sunset and I knew you had your camera,” he said, as if somehow he had personally engineered the workings of the universe to my liking. But I don’t recall ever having told him I had my camera with me. He was bluffing.

At some point as I snapped I spotted the Houses of Parliament and may have dropped the name ‘Westminster’ into the conversation. Purely by accident.

“Do you want to go back to Westmins—” he began.

“Nope.”

Nope, I was not about to re-enact the Tug of War. Or the All-You-Can-Eat-of-my-Face Buffet.

So we returned to Embankment and went our separate ways.

I’d survived! And to his credit he hadn’t tried anything so he had redeemed himself a little, at least for the time being. Perhaps we could try being friends.

...And then came The Day of the Broiling Bowling Session...

*not its real name – betcha can’t guess which chain of sushi restaurants I’m possibly referring to!