The Meal Challenge- Making Conversation?!?

As part of our little foray into Cornwall and despite making promises to ourselves to cook and eat in our cottage, we did opt to eat lunch/dinner out on one occasion.
We quite like to eat outside an English pub when the weather is good and have done so on endless occasions during hot weather but it’s a whole different ball game when the weather is as changeable as it has been this Spring here in the UK. Saying that, we were lucky as the sun did pop out for a little bit which meant we were able to shed our coats and actually feel some warmth on our skin.
We chose to eat at “The Tinners Arms ” in Zennor which was recommended by some friends who own a cottage on this peninsula. It’s a lovely little pub built back in 1271 which has sat at the heart of the village of Zennor for over 700 years.

Arriving about 2pm we found the garden quite busy despite it having more tables outside than we probably expected. There are great views across to the sea in the distance, it’s in a lovely rural location and we were soon happily ensconced in conversation.
It has a fairly predictable pub menu but we liked the fact that they utilise local produce. Their website boasts that “with Newlyn fishing port, acres of arable land, and lush grazing pastures on our doorstep, naturally our menus make the most of the local produce grown, reared and landed here. 
You’ll find crab, fresh off Stevenson’s boats at Newlyn, mackerel from Mount’s Bay, meats all reared on local pastures and Moomaid of Zennor ice-cream, churned down the lane at Tremedda farm, all fill the menu with delicious dishes.”

We opted to share a bowl of nachos to start and to be fair this felt like a meal in itself before embarking on our main courses. Hubby opted for the burger and I thoroughly enjoyed a crayfish and avocado salad.
Eating as a couple is one of those adventures that we actually enjoy but have you ever looked around you, done a bit of people watching and clocked what other couples are doing, particularly those in midlife?
Some are like us and never stop chatting. Others don’t say a single word. It’s as though they’ve been together for so long that they have run out of conversation. I guess they could just be happy in silence and in each other’s company but personally I feel those couples are a rare breed and the case is often the former!

In this age of social media, conversation is often substituted by an attachment to a mobile phone. Can you spot the career driven guy who cannot possibly go to lunch with his wife or family without turning his phone off? Sometimes the shoe can be on the other foot and it’s the lady who doesn’t seem to be able to put her phone down.
Many years ago I actually walked out on a guy who answered his phone twice during what was suppose to be a pleasant Friday date night. I just figured I obviously wasn’t that important to him and, therefore, went home. Incidents like this always remind me of the film “Pretty Woman” when Julia Roberts throws Richard Gere’s phone away to ensure he actually switches off from his business.

Then there are those who desperately need to check the phone for messages and social media updates. Often this will be a group of friends usually millennials or GenZ but couples do it as well.
We sat adjacent to a young couple once in a lovely tapas restaurant in Edinburgh. They both arrived looking fabulous, evidently on a date night and then spent their entire meal on their phones texting and taking selfies! At one point we were convinced they were going to text each other across the table what their choices to eat were!
We also witnessed a couple older than us recently sat on on their phones throughout their whole meal as if that was preferable to actually talking to one another!

Finally there are the family groups where Mum and Dad may actually talk to one another, when they can prise themselves away from their phones, but their children are sat at the table, in their buggy or in a high chair with a phone or a tablet in front them watching a children’s programme or even Disney movie. I’m guessing this is to keep them amused. What happened to parenting? Teaching your children table manners and integrating them into society.
I still remember being sat in a restaurant in Tenerife and a family of four sat down at a table opposite us. Before ordering anything from the menu the little girl who was only about two remained in her pushchair and was given a child size tablet and the little boy who was about school age was given a handheld computer to play on. Hubby and I just looked at each other in amazement.

Sorry but I brought two children up on my own. Our first holiday was when my daughter was eighteen months old and my son was just turned three. We went to Fuerteventura for two weeks in June. I thought it was a good idea until I was 30,000 feet up in the air on the way there and we hit turbulence. My daughter was on my lap as she wasn’t entitled to a seat and desperate for a wee my son wasn’t allowed to leave his seat with the seatbelt light on and so he wet himself and the seat! The guy on the inside of us was disgusted and made his views known!
I just wanted to get to the airport and jump on the next plane home. How on earth was I going to manage two children on my own in a foreign country that I’d never been to before?
I didn’t turn tail and run, however, instead I started out slow taking them to a local cafe on our first night complete with plastic tablecloths and a menu with everything and chips and then worked my way up from there. It wasn’t always easy but I persevered and on the last night I celebrated by taking us to an Italian restaurant with proper tablecloths, linen napkins and no childrens’ menu. As dinner wasn’t served until about 7.30 p.m. when my children were usually asleep in bed my daughter actually fell asleep in her spaghetti bolognese but I didn’t care. We’d made it. My children left that holiday knowing how to behave in any restaurant, with proper please and thank you manners and able to use cutlery.

What has happened to having a meal as a social occasion? Chatting and laughing and having fun as a couple or family.
My challenge to you is to make an adventure of your next meal out together, leave your phones in the car and see if you can talk to each other throughout your meal and enjoy each other’s company !

I’d like to finish this series of four posts about Cornwall and our mini break with a wonderful piece of narrative written by D.H. Lawrence which I admittedly “nicked” from The Tinners Arms website but only because I feel it fits not just Zennor but the landscape of the Cornish coast so well.
“At Zennor one sees infinite Atlantic, all peacock-mingled colours, and the gorse is sunshine itself. Zennor is a most beautiful place: a tiny granite village nestling under high shaggy moor-hills and a big sweep of lovely sea beyond, such a lovely sea, lovelier even than the Mediterranean… It is the best place I have been in, I think”

– D. H. Lawrence, 1916.

NB: This is part of a series of four posts I have written about Cornwall. Why not read the others? Please like and/or comment at will