Buba

I played golf this morning--not terribly, but still with plenty of frustration. This evening I headed into the city for a birthday dinner with Sophie and her friends.
The Cathedral Quarter is honeycombed with entries--narrow passageways between buildings. This entry has incredible lanterns at either end.

You can barely make it out, but the lantern hangs from a gold hand that is grasping a ring.
We started with drinks at The Merchant.

Then went to dinner at a restaurant called Buba. We concluded the night in a bar called Henry’s on Joy’s Entry (both named for Henry Joy McCracken). My beef about the dinner is that what I ordered cost 15 pounds. When we split the bill, it was magically 40 pounds each. This happens to me every time I eat in a group. I can’t think of an elegant way to not subsidise everyone else’s meals. Add in the bus into town, the taxi home, the birthday gift and card, and the night cost about 65 pounds. I can either fret over this extravagance while I’m unemployed, or remind myself that this was a fun night out with four interesting women--something I rarely get to be part of. Like never. It is an intellectual exercise for me to force myself to recognise that the generosity I am frequently on the receiving end of far outweighs the occasional overspend. I don’t think frugality is a terrible thing, but I do think it gets in the way of me enjoying myself sometimes.
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