I have been entertaining Tracy for the past five days, I did have some things planned that I normally did at the weekend, I thought she wouldn’t object to me still doing them with her in tow – I was wrong.

I wanted to go to The New Den and watch Millwall take on Leeds in undoubtedly the biggest clash of the season for both clubs. A friend had some spare tickets but Tracy hates football (despite being a Man Utd fan) and wouldn’t let me go with her, let alone on my own.

I thought I could do what I normally do on a Saturday afternoon, attend football training with the lads at Custom House FC, I’m past playing these days but I enjoy training, she didn’t want to stand around waiting for me so I had to cancel.

All we did was sit in the flat all day and then go to The Hare or The Marquis Of Cornwallis (both pubs), two pubs that I would only venture into once a month at the most. Nice pubs but boring if you drink there every day.

Wednesday

Picked her up from the coach station, on the bus to Hackney she was talking loudly and said the word Paki at the top of her voice and then realised where she was. The rest of the journey was spent in an embarrassed silence.

We stopped at The Cock Tavern for a quick pint, she wanted to go to The Hare for the last knockings to see her friend behind the bar.

Thursday

I had no money so we spent the entire day sitting in the flat. There were plenty of fun free things we could have done around town but she only wanted to go out if it meant going to the pub.

Friday

I got paid some money from a client so I took her to Dalston to do some shopping, I bought her some trainers and some CDs for myself. We stopped at a pub called The Brewery Tap on Kingsland Road for a quick one.

We spent the evening in The Hare where I was slapped and bitten while Tracy and her barmaid friend cackled like witches.

Saturday

I was determined to at least listen to the game between Millwall and Leeds if I wasn’t allowed to watch it. We bummed around until 3pm then the radio went on, she sat there bored while I yelled at the radio as Millwall were victorious 3-2. 🙂

It was her last night and the one thing she loves about coming to London is the Chinese DVD sellers that seem to be everywhere. She wanted to go to The Marquis Of Cornwallis to catch her favourite Chinese DVD seller (what an award that would be!).

We didn’t stay long as two blokes walked in and started giving everyone verbal abuse, they picked on two innocent women and some poor sod who I had known at school. None of them had done anything. She wanted us to leave because I was having ‘a word’ with them.

We walked to The Hare so she could see her new best friend one last time.

Sunday

I had to drag her out of bed so we could make the coach that would take her back to Manchester. I’m not sure if this is bad but I was actually quite glad to see the coach pull away.

When she said she wanted to come up I wanted us to go out, comedy shows, music gigs, that kind of thing. Because she sits at home all day, every day, in Manchester she wants to do that when she comes down here and it drives me nuts.

Photo by leila haj-hassan from FreeImages