Rainbow over Moelfre

Marooned on a Bar Stool

As all readers of my blog will know, since I have come to Wales I have become a regular boozer in a pub, or 2. I enjoy a drink… and a pub quiz. I like conversation and its been fun. I have got to know a lot of lovely people and characters that Charles Dickens would have liked to have known. It has enhanced my life and dragged me away from internet addiction, yet, I am not so sure now.
I am very much against smoking as it seems to have done more than its fair share of killing my family. My mother has emphysema, my brother and uncle both died of lung cancer. Yet I was anti-smoking from an early age, finding that it irritated and made me feel ill, just by being close to anyone who smoked. I objected to having to wash my clothes, including coat and my hair every day that I was in a pub. I can remember walking out to just get some oxygen. In Beaumaris, I even walked along the sea front and the pier when I was so engulfed in nicotine fumes it was hurting to breathe.
But it’s all changed since the smoking ban came into existence. Now I am glued to a bar stool. I have to look after everyone else’s stools too, especially on a busy night. Even fend off drunks so that I can keep a few inches of elbow room, and then find that some people get very possessive about their own personal space on a bar stool. I do develop back pain if I can’t move for too long. A bar stool is a better height than a seat so the pain takes longer to penetrate than sitting at a table, in a pub. One cigarette can take from 1 minute to 3/4 of an hour to smoke, depending on company. So this balancing act of stool protection can take a variable time. I am also there to look after the drinks, as they cannot be taken outside, if the pub has no outside area.
I have to put up with body odour, farts, and some rather cheap and over-powering perfumes. No more can I venture outside to get some air. Even when menopausal hot flushes hit, I have to protect the bar stools for fear of death! Outside is another world, a hazy, smoky one; where everyone dribbles into their cigarettes and chats happily to strangers, united in one addiction, the aggression is left for the inside of the pub, and the stool and drink thieves. As my bladder fills with Guinness I struggle to remain seated while waiting for the addicts to return, as I don’t dare leave the stools unattended.
The smokers return, in mid conversation, so it either takes a while to join in, or I dash off to the bog for some relief. When I get back, the smokers then also go to the loo. And when they return, they start the routine of rolling up the next cigarette. Sometimes the cigarette gets smoked immediately, sometimes it is held aloft. Can I actually start a conversation? Or will it be cut short with the “I’ll be back in a minute, just going for a smoke”. So conversation is stilted now, punctuated by long gaps and then its so difficult to follow. The impending cigarette hangs like a sword of Damocles and I can't help but be aware of it.
I have tried going outside, in the cold, the rain, but the freshness of the air is now polluted, by the congregation of smokers, and the smouldering ashtray stuck on the wall. But its not always burning, it gets doused with water and rain, but the smell then is even worse. But it’s the mecca for the smoker now.
When the smokers return to the pub, they are oblivious of their own perfume, some even blast the last puff of their addiction into the pub, generously shared amongst the bar stool widows.
While I am alone, I can sometimes use my phone and get online in Yahoo or Facebook, it sometimes keeps me company, but typing on a phone keypad is difficult and slow to a professional chatter like me. I can’t phone anyone or SMS them, because there is no phone signal inside the pubs in Beaumaris, just WiFi, if I am in the right place. So I can’t move from that wretched stool.
Maybe I am better staying at home, and drinking alone?
I can’t remember the last time I walked down the pier or along the beach at night. (Maybe I need a drink!)
I can see why so many pubs are closing these days, since the smoking ban.
And all my problems are worse in foreign countries when I am left in strange bars, where I don't know the language and have to sit alone waiting for the smoker.

Big Bertha- Angie

I have been told to put this photo on display, so here you are!

The label in the cleavage says "Big Bertha - beer with balls"
Please click on this picture ;)
Just another one of the great characters that frequent my local pub. But, can you suggest ways to modify this picture? It has been suggested that I put her in a wrestling ring.. a few changes to the background...

Any ideas?
:D