SOMETHING a bit different last night – dinner out and drinky-poos in Chester.
Yes, I went out on the lash with a very upmarket gal with whom I’ve somehow become friendly.
Why she likes me, I don’t know. I’m loud and lairy and as common as muck.
We started with cocktails at her elegant Georgian house within the city walls. Swanky or what?
I could tell straight away she was proper posh because there was a bowl of fruit on her table when no-one was ill. That’s it. She’s rich. She’s classy. She’s a widow. I’ll have to marry her.
We went for wine and nibbles to a city centre bar full of young Chester trendoids. We then sipped Brandy Alexanders like decadent fops before sloping off to an excellent (and surprisingly cheap) French restaurant, Chez Jules, in Northgate Street.
Thirteen quid a head for two courses and a bottle of house wine EACH – a special deal for tightwads on Tuesday nights.
As a dining experience it sure beats the four pints of smooth-flow keg I usually consume in my local, Hell’s Waiting Room, New Brighton, followed by a late night visit to the kebab shack or the World of Lard chippy … then more booze at The Lost Weekend nightspot.
Chester is a “nice” place, sure enough, but therein lies its problem – it suffers from terminal blandness. To me, Chester doesn’t seem like a northern English town at all.
It lacks the warmth and wit of Liverpool or Wallasey. Culturally, it might as well be in Berkshire.
Still, the old city by the Dee is architecturally very handsome, and a walk around the Roman walls is poetically inspiring.
I did the complete walk recently, following in the footsteps of countless Roman legionaries who patrolled the city’s defences nearly 2000 years ago.
I enjoyed the experience but it also made me feel sad that a city so full of history is now dedicated to nothing more significant than shopping for luxury goods and fripperies.
As I walked, I couldn’t help thinking of that great poem by WH Auden, Roman Wall Blues.
In it, a brassed-off legionary on patrol in ancient Britain tells of his homesickness: “The rain comes pattering out of the sky, / I’m a Wall soldier, I don’t know why. / The mist creeps over the hard grey stone, / My girl’s in Tungria; I sleep alone. / Aulus goes hanging around her place, / I don’t like his manners, I don’t like his face.”
For all its perceived glamour now, Chester would not have been a desirable posting for the Romans.
Rather it would have been considered a dreary provincial backwater, with a damp climate and truculent Welsh people living close by.
Some might say not much has changed.
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Pesky Kid wrote...
Yes, yes, but what about the girl? You wined and dined and then what? All this poncey stuff about W H Auden and roman soldiers. Give us some red meat, Regan!
Posted by: Pesky Kid | February 22, 2006 4:55 PM