this evening on the way home after nursery, ronnie put in the request to go to pizza express. now i had a bit of a mental day at work, a good mental day actually, designing the spring/summer 2013 children’s collection, but enough of that. anyway i missed lunch and worked straight through so i was starving, so it didn’t take much convincing me, even from a three-year old that pizza could be a good idea.
mummy promptly did a u-ie, slid into a parking space and practically skipped over to the blue glow of the pizza express sign. fairly busy night, as normal, the lovely waitress looked around asked if we want a table upstairs “yes mummy upstairs” so we obliged. how grand we had it all to ourselves. we sat down made our selves comfy, pulled out the colouring book and pens and waited for our supper to arrive. juice, a glass of rose and a bowl of olives slid their way onto our table and ronnie dives into the olives like someone might just take them away from him. just then, two ladies appeared at the top of the stairs. one took one look at ronnie and i and this is what she said:
“oh no not up here, look” *points in our direction* “it’s bad enough at tea time, but children really should be in bed by this time, let’s go back downstairs”
now i do get that children might annoy other people. and i’m not saying that ronnie is perfect, but he very nearly is! but that was just plain ignorant and fecking rude wasn’t it? silly bitch.
right from the moment ronnie was born, we have made a real effort in making him very socially aware of how to behave in public places, and a huge percentage of the time he is an absolute angel. i was lucky enough that as a child, an only child, my parents took me absolutely everywhere with them, what they did, i did essentially. coupled with my spanish heritage, families dining out is just simply part of life. i loved every moment of it as a child and i want ronnie to feel the same. so for someone to come into a public place of eating at 6.30pm (which really isn’t sleepy time) and near enough run at the sight of my son and i sitting at a table, colouring, chatting and scoffing olives i find rather peculiar.
i wonder if she ever thought that actually we might not have wanted to share private dinning room with her?
is 6.30pm really too late for a child to be in a restaurant? i get it if you rocked up for dinner at 9pm and there’s a tinker running around causing havoc or continuous whaling because they are tired, but 6.30pm? really? what is the dining etiquette with kids? is there a secret curfew when they all should be banished to their homes that i simply don’t know about? have i really misjudged this? or is that women just a complete twat?
How rude of her. I think anything before 8pm families should be encouraged to go out to restaurants. I think I would have been hard pushed not to say something to her, Pizza express market themselves as a family restaurant after all!
coombemill
it took at lot of strength for me not to say something as i was with ronnie, any other time i would have done a scrappy do!
The woman is a complete bitch and an idiot. I agree with you, it is not too late for a child to be up and out. How else are children supposed to learn social etiquette other than actually being out and socialising? I am impressed you managed to hold your tongue with her.
My eldest son is nearly 13 and for 10 years he was an only child. He went all over the place with me, we travelled together, we dined in posh restaurants, we ate unusual foods, we went to festivals… He is now happy and confident going just about anywhere and loves food and eating out. He’s a pleasure to be with.
So sod what anyone else thinks and keep up enjoying time out with Ronnie, it’s a lovely way to be.