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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Comment
Adrian Chiles

I’m happy to be called love, bab or even pet. But I’d travel miles to be someone’s duck

a male tufted duck in closeup
‘A duck is just a nice friendly thing. Perfect.’ Photograph: Mats Janson/Alamy

At 8am on Sunday I was desperately short of fuel while heading north from Birmingham. I should have stopped at Tamworth, but I wanted to make my stop in the East, not West, Midlands. So I pressed on. It was Donington Park Services or bust. I made it. Excellent. Donington Park was perfect because it’s roughly at the point where Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire meet. Peak East Midlands. This would do nicely.

There was a lot of toastie-based faff at Costa, so I went to Greggs instead, where, by the way, the coffee was really very good. But I wasn’t there for the coffee – I was there for the woman who served it to me. “Have a good day,” I said. “You too, duck,” she smiled.

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