Meals and Maths

Friday evening was the group meal down the local gastro-pub. 12 hungry souls trudged the few hundred yarda from their vans to the Black Bull pub in Moffat.

The food was good and reasonably priced, and the Black Bull also happens to have two hand pumps on for beer (one of only two pubs in Moffat with real ale)

For the record Liz had a huge Mediterranean Salad, with olives, pomegranate, feta, cucumber and mixed leaves (and none of the thing that so annoys her with pub salads normally - raw onion, they always add far too much in in her view). Me, I went for the haggis, tatties, and neaps pie. Yep HTN in a Scotch Pie pastry shell served with broccoli and a whisky sauce. The more astute reader will have notice the absence of the word 'chips'! Worried me a bit but it was very good and more than enough without them.

No, the problem came at the end when we were presented the bill 

Yep, nothing had been itemised, so the bill for the 12 of us was £413.44 and they didn't know how to split it. Of course the sensible thing would have been, like every other place we've been, for individuals or couples to go up to the till, say what they'd had and have their individual account subtotaled on the till for them to pay. 

But no! Someone had to take charge, some of the group were getting restless to leave etc; hence the paper napkins and hastily scrawled figures. I sent folks off, individuals or couples, with a figure to pay and slowly the till account whittled down until it was just mine and Liz's tab left. The extra £8 was unwelcome (a couple of folks must have forgotten a couple of drinks) but then I realised no-one has left a tip so I was well out of pocket 

And remain so, one person still has to pay his share of the tip and another doesn't tip (but didn't offer to reimburse me for including their party of the tip). Still I'm not only about £15 or so short - I can live with that.