Of course the entrance would be a good place being as it is a natural choke point but...the people are too mobile and one cannot earwig conversation..I could go with Barbs to the opthalmickery department?.. No, just a lot of folks bumping into walls and saying "excuse me". Then it jumped out at me "the staff canteen" So, bold as brass I wondered in, got myself a brew, a daily Telegraph to hide behind (still thankfully broadsheet), found a corner table and prepared to view/earwig.
The first four were Nurses of equal rank who proceeded to demolish four baked potatoes with gusto and various toppings while working their IPhones. This was a share experience it seemed and they showed each other their internet surfing results while chewing rapidly.. Such comments as "ohh that looks nice is it on offer?" and "So, I said thats no way to treat a domestic Goddess is it" Wafted over between moutfulls of Tater and Prawn or cheese topping. One girl vindictively stabbed her potato as she described the latest antics of her husband/Boyfriends Mother. "She is a total cow and she knows it" said the stabber. All very predictable including the exploding rice pot that covered one of them. I bored quickly, but happily just as three doctors, one American (very) one of African and an Asian sat down with salad, steak pie and chilly avec rice respectively. The American (female of the species) of rotund and short stature then started a none stop nasal chatter that soon had her compatriots and myself slightly stunned. I swear she never stopped talking and the amazing thing was she managed to eat her lunch before anyone else and with no discernible reduction in verbal output. I swear she must have been breathing with her ears. After ten minutes, and with some desperation I tried to tune her out, as indeed did her unfortunate table companions..Wow she could talk.. but I had gleaned such gems as:
"My Mother enjoys the peace now that Ive left", "I may be vertically challenged but I make up for it in other areas".. She did indeed! I moved my gaze and attention as at last three, at a guess, physio therapists types plonked down on the opposite table. Two of them looked like mother and daughter and they all had packed lunches from home. One in a British Heart Foundation bag and the others not!
However it was the youngest daughter who fascinated me. She was very tall, had a striking nose and huge brown eyes with a mop of blonde hair.
She kind of looked like an African wading bird...... as if to emphasis this she displayed rather similar eating habits. First she ate an apple with rotating gnawing movements at some rate of knots while her head bobbed in a rather alarming fashion and when her moth was full and her cheeks puffed out she masticated furiously and then swallowed the pulp in one mighty gulp. She then ate a small yoghurt with a huge soup spoon using short jabbing scoopy motions while eyeing the contents with one huge eye the other being shut. For all the world it looked like she was taking aim with the spoon prior to harpooning her prey. No conversation took place at any point and mother like daughter was notable for her grazing bird technique. In her case she ate a sandwich simply by biting it twice and then splooshing it down with a probably home filled bottle of evian. Obviously frugal types and not to be allowed to the front of any cavery or buffet cue.
But the best ones were probably two consultants. Who brought a couple of posh sandwiches (probably smocked goat cheese and mango) and then filled their table up with paper work, coffee cups and computers. One was female and in a skirt too short by several meters for the public good and the other a gentlemen who had the look of one trying very hard to get into the garments beneath said short skirt. "A Player" we can safely say. It took but ten minutes for our hero to go for gold. The boy really did try hard and some of his chat up patter was bordering on criminal.
"Its nice to be able to speak openly to a fellow professional on such matters". As a opening line was a bit limp, but "Maybe we could exchange notes on this one" made me smile.. Yeah I bet!
She on the other hand was doing the duck swimming thing.. On top she was filling out notes, smiling and making junior doctor noises while under the table she was stamping her foot, scratching her arse and behind her knee to the point of making herself raw. Either body lice or she doesnt like you mate I thought. But professional to the last she kept her smile. I noted as she walked away from the carnage that had been their table he kept a respectful viewing distance behind her and couldnt have missed the self inflected wounds on the back of her legs.
And then when I thought it couldnt get much better two cleaners of very substantial girth sat directly behind me with the obligatory fat person lunch of salad, water and musli bar. You just knew it was pie and chips tonight. But not withstanding the delight of watching them daintily tucking into the grass verge on their plates I nearly lost it when I tuned into the conversation in time to hear "Well you know me and although I am not a doctor I have worked in this hospital long enough to know when someone is putting it on and that lad was putting it on.. Broken back my arse"
I noted the time and with regret left just as three Bangladeshi Specialists sat down with the most exotic plates of rice, fruit and chilly mounded on it in Himalayan proportions. They nattered away in their native tongue as one chopped a banana onto the top of K2 thus rendering scaffolding probably necessary for its consumption..
The commonwealth in action I thought as I wondered off to pick up Barbara who was not happy when I found her. Apparently the Doctor was not nice and rather rude to her. I brought her a cuppa and a slab of chocolate cake in the Cafe by the entrance to make up for it and watched the people coming and going as she nattered away about the decline of the NHS since her day.
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