An account of my descent into madness during an extended stay in Derry.

 

Meals For One, a short-lived travel blog by Matt Watts

Day 1:

A takeaway in my hotel room while watching Fantastic Mr Fox. I couldn’t be bothered with going out so I got them to deliver to the car park of the hotel, scampering down and hoping the reception staff wouldn’t be miffed as I walked past the hotel restaurant with a bag of chips. The prices were so low that I accidentally ordered three meals worth of food. I did not, however, get any cutlery, so I sat there eating a haloumi burger, sweet potato fries, and a salad, using only a teaspoon. I can still taste the red onions. 5*s would do again.

Day 2:

Silver St bar and restaurant. Looked classy from the outside, came in to find that there are giant love hearts hanging from the ceiling with phrases like ‘Tease Me’ and ‘LOL’ scrawled across them. The veggie chow mein was a veggie chow mein and that is all. The side salad had red onions. All I taste is onions. They played a song that I thought was Psycho Killer but it turned out that Selena Gomez has sampled Psycho Killer. Upsetting. My receipt informs me that I was served by a man named Paddy, aren’t racial stereotypes great?

Day 5:

I upgraded my cutlery selection to include a small plastic fork. Even when combined with the teaspoon, it was still a struggle to eat my Indian kebab (like a normal kebab, but made with naan. There was a copious amount of red onion) as I watched Mean Streets. One of the downsides to eating takeaway in the hotel is that you wake up in a room that smells like shame.

Day 6:

In my ongoing mission to contract obesity, I had my fifth cooked breakfast in a row. The hotel restaurant was fairly full, so when the waitress showed me to a table set for four people, I said I didn’t mind having a smaller table. She took affront to this, showed me to a table for two, removed one set of cutlery, and asked “Is this one better?” Now she thinks I refuse to eat at tables that are not laid for exactly the amount of people sitting at them. I left with my head held low and bean juice in my beard.

 

Day 7:

Breakfast went smoothly. It was my sixth buffet breakfast in a row and I’ve got it down to a T. First, collect a glass of juice, then load the plate with mushrooms, two tomato halves (making a total of one tomato), two potato cakes, and several ladles of beans, in that order. I sat at an appropriately laid table, didn’t spill anything, and left the room with my head held high.

Then I fell up the staircase in the main lobby of the hotel.

I tried to recover by doing that “I was actually breaking into a brisk jog” thing people do when they stumble on the street. On a staircase, this looks like a manic half-crawling scramble up the rest of the stairs. That’s what I get for feeling cocky.

In other news, the cutlery collection continues to grow #gottacatchemall

 

I went for a solo curry in an Indian and Italian restaurant (thankfully they don’t fuse the two, you can just order a garlic bread before your bhuna if you are some kind of pervert). The large flat-screen on the wall showed a constantly-panning live-feed of the outside of the restaurant, which I guess was some strange consolation prize for not getting a window seat. The grainy images combined with the music to create a unique ambience as I ate my mattar paneer to the sounds of Shaggy and Daniel Beddingfield.

Top tip: undoing the top button of your jeans to expand your curry-capacity looks a lot sketchier if you’re there on your own. The only thing that could make it sketchier is if you forgot to do the button back up then went to the men’s toilets and pushed open the door to find that it wasn’t a full bathroom as you expected; but a single toilet where a 10-year-old kid who clearly doesn’t know how to lock the door looks up through his metre-thick specs from his seat on the throne in surprise and embarrassment as you apologise profusely and close the door. Unfortunately, I am speaking from experience.

 

Day 8:

Breakfast went smoothly, but halfway through I realised they were playing ‘Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas’. They’re just trying to mess with me now.

Went to Nando’s for dinner. There was another man sitting on his own at a table. He was engaged in an in depth conversation with himself. Could this have been a glimpse into my future?

 

Day 9:

I believe I have finally earned the respect of the hotel staff. After a week here, I came back to find that I had been left a new soap, shampoo AND conditioner. Up until this point I had not received any conditioner, leaving my hair lank and of a timid volume. I also had FIVE UHT MILKS as opposed to the standard four. They probably think I drink a lot more hot beverages than I really do because I empty the tea and coffee selection into my suitcase on a daily basis so that I can pretend I’m still in a hotel when I get home.

I celebrated by taking the Corby Trouser Press for a spin. It made my jeans smell like Grandma’s house.

Of course, they may be being generous because they are afraid of me. At the moment, all the staff know is that the strange man sits on his own at breakfast, that he has insisted on rearranging the furniture in his room, and that he leaves a collection of small useless utensils laid out on the desk.

 

Day 9:

Hello and welcome to tonight’s edition of Ready Steady Don’t Cook Because All You Have is a Kettle. Your meal must be simultaneously as cheap and as middle class as possible.

Matt’s prepared a beautifully presented cous-cous a lá mug with baba ghanoush and taste the difference bread on a tiny cup-plate.

His ingredients:

Lemon cous-cous (As we all know, lemon is the most versatile flavour)

Baba ghanoush (I only bought it because I wanted to say it out loud, it has left my stomach confused)

Discounted taste the difference cheese and chutney cob (because who doesn’t want a loaf of bread that already has your favourite fillings baked into it? What an age we live in.)

Best enjoyed with a double bill of The Cable Guy and Ace Ventura 2: When Nature Calls.

 

 

Day 12:

Today I returned home from Derry with a suitcase full of Irish crisps and dirty clothes. Despite the mildly tragic nature of these posts, I’ve had an enjoyable time and eaten a wide variety of great food, a lot of which contained a copious amount of red onion. Despite my fortnight of over-exposure, I still consider it to be my favourite of the onions.

At the airport I noticed that my bag was a kilo and a half heavier than when I arrived. When I got back to Leicester, I emptied all my newly acquired (it’s not stealing if they’re free) hotel toiletries and hot drink ingredients onto the floor. I felt like Neil Buchanan about to embark on a show-closing Big Art Attack, so I decided that I would embark on a show-closing Big Art Attack.

There were:

29 Nescafé originals

22 Cane Demerara sugar

19 Pure white sugar

15 Premium blend tea bags

14 Tetley tea bags

8 Shampoos

8 Body washes

4 Nescafé decafs

4 (Presumably impure) white sugars

4 Bars of soap

1 Bottle of conditioner

There will be no more meals for one now that I’ve made myself a friend. Thanks for reading.