FRI 6th FEB: LA BOTTEGA OVER THE HEADA

The Lady and I went and had dinner with Brit visitors Davo and his girlfriend Mora at La Bottega in the Maritime Hotel. We walked in so we had to wait. They've done it up well and not too crowded.

Suddenly I find myself Mr. Popular. You know, one of those nights where you think you're just the same (if not older) that every other night of your adult life and you (or your girlfriend) is hitting the ladies away with a certain kind of stick.... (cont.)

I tried to convince the Lady that it must have been the Maritime Hotel's staffing policy - she replied, 'what? that I'm invisible - they all keep smiling at you'. And what do you do when that happens? (And after a few draught Morretti) You, kinda, smile back. As we waited for a table at the bar the hostess kept approaching me, sliding her arm down my back and apologising that the table was late. Then she got us 'the best table in the restaurant'. Well actually she told me and Davo and only laid two sets of cuttlery! I tell the Lady she's over-imagining the situation. Then I get up to go to the restroom and the hostess walks into me. Oh sorry, she says with both hands on my waist. The hostess's assistant of course wanders past at this moment and shows her charming gnashers too. What do I do?

The Lady finally just had to take it as a circus side show curiosity - she admitted she couldn't dislike the starry eyed waitress who beamed down at me because she was too pretty (however, the hostess was a beast - in her eyes).

I'm thinking 'It's one of those nights where if you could - you would bottle it and you'd make a million' and then I think, , 'this isn't going to happen for a long long time again.'

Meanwhile the Lady is thinking I get this treatment every night I go out and then she thinks, 'Guy's not going to be let out again for a long long time'.

!

Oh yeah - Pizza was fabulous. Pasta with octopus so-so.