Blind Dates

The other night I spent the evening with three women I'd never met before.

Wait. How did this happen? Re-e-e-wind.

Flashback. A few weeks back Giacomo phoned me to tell me that his friend Charmaine was back in Sydney after her English work visa had run out and was pining for English company. He asked if I would take her out for a drink, and I said yes.

After some prevaracation and procrastination I finally got round to organising it and arranged to meet Charmaine via text message.

To be honest, I'm not always the most social of animals, so I began to wonder what I'd let myself in for (sorry Giacomo).

I arrived at the pub early, armed myself with a pint and stationed myself by the stairs. About 10 minutes later an attractive Indian girl made her way up the stairs, eyeing people up conspicuously. When her gaze fell on me, I nodded as if to say "Yes....it's me!"

Charmaine laughed and immediately we fell into conversation. All I can say is "Thankyou Giacomo" because Charmaine had more energy than a van full of Red Bull and her lovely friends Rebecca and Carolyn were super. We hit it off right away swapping stories about London, Giacomo and later when, the drink was flowing, naughtier stuff.


"What did you expect?" Charmaine asked halfway through the night

"Don't know" I responded "You so could have been a minger or a nutter. Or both"

"Oh, you arsehole!" she retorted in mock-anger "I can't believe that Giacomo would introduce me to someone like you"


When In Rome....

The next day I had a call from Charmaine and Rebecca. They were at an Italian festival in Kings Cross. I joined them straight away.

The festival was just one street closed off and packed with stalls selling gelato, pizza and chocolate, a band playing what sounded like a rocked up version of "Just One Cornetto" and some models hired to look very Italian (big Jackie-O glasses, swirly haute-couture frocks and twirly umbrellas).

In the midst of the kerfuffle we heard a man shouting very loudly into the phone: "Yeah, I'm a photographer and I was just wondering whether Sophia Loren is coming today"
Turns out she was in town for an Italian film festival, and they were trying to rope in to turning up to this as well. Don't think she could be arsed.

Predictably the day ended in the bar drinking cheap wine from a plastic carafe. I'm no good at day drinking and so by the time I arrived at Circular Quay for a shepherd's pie, I was falling asleep.

Had some coffee which didn't seem to help. Got a taxi home. Slept for half an hour then, as the caffeine kicked in, spent the rest of the night staring at the inside of my eyelids.

Still, a good day.