Liz and self went for a drink at the Ben Shean, one of the other hotels, where a quite different lot hung out, and I must say, they were very weird and wonderful!
One of the couples that intrigued me was Jim and Irene. Jim was a builder working with one Keith, who owned the two man building company.
When I first started making pizzas at the inn, I made the aquaintance of Keith after I almost killed him one Friday night with a pizza of all things.An order came in for a large pizza with only garlic and chillies as topping, and as the thing looked a bitty washed out with the sprinkling of chillies that I first scattered over, and after some contemplation, and not knowing how strong the chillies were, I litterally covered the pizza in the small red bits.Ewan and Suzy, who lived next to the hotel was sitting at the bar with Keith when he started on his pizza, and told the story of how the poor Keith's face went from pink to red, then to purple, while he took huge gulps of beer after every mouthfull of pizza! Nobody told me this at once, and I felt very bad when I heard it told in one of the other hotels after about a week, and when Keith came in again, I went to the bar and begged his pardon.
But to come back to Jim and Irene! Irene was the chef at the Munro Inn at this stage, and was extremely good, albeit, according to people also working there, not one who believed in spitting and polishing all day long, but she was clean with the food. She refused to work at night, as she told me that most couples working as chefs and barmen in small inns like the ones in Strathyre usually ended their marriages and relationships by splitting up, and I could well believe it, as the hours are sometimes horrendous!
Jim, after a hard day's work went straight to the Ben Shean after work, where he sat drinking rum and coke, and the four missing front teeth bore evidence of the over indulgence in the enamel eating sugary coke with which he made the rum drinkable.
Seven o'clock every night Irene would amble down to their house, after a few quick drams to refresh her after a hard day's work, and she would then cook, and sat watching her soaps until Jim came home. He timed it very well, and at about eight you saw him walking down the road, not always in a straight line, and disappear into their house. Actually, as they are not married, Irene would remind him quite often that it was her house, and if he kept misbehaving, she would throw him onto the street, but it always stayed with only the threats!
Irene would constantly moan and groan about Jim's stingyness, as he had to, for the prevelage of her company, and of course staying in her house, buy the groceries for the week. Which he did every sunday morning, when he pulled his car out with great care, and drove to Callender at about twenty miles an hour, coming back quite intoxicated, with a small bag of groceries! Irene would then explode, as the bag usually contained only a few packets of meat, a small bag of potatoes, a few other unneccassary pre- cooked things, while two other bags would have in them about four bottles of wine, two bottles of rum, and umpteen bottles of coke!
Irene would ramp and rave the whole Monday, and took oath upon oath to stop feeding him, but she never did, and the next Sunday he would do the same, and Irene would buy stuff she needed from the village shop!