Spume everywhere

It is fair to expect Halloween to be a horror show and so it was. Sprog 1 arrived home in his car trailing smoke and oil and which was audible from when he set off from Guildford, where he is at college. The vehicle in question, a not very wonderful mid-1980’s Citroen Saxo Mischief, the filthiest car in Christendom, seems to have parted company with its exhaust system, thrown all its toys (read oil) out of the pram (read engine) and decided to misfire, a problem often associated with old cars that have run out of petrol. I have patiently explained to him that if you run the tank of an old car down to empty, you will get the dregs of the tank sucked up into the working parts, and this is no good for anyone. I don’t think the message is getting home (or rather he is not always getting home) unless you get the message whilst simultaneously engaged in playing computer games, whilst texting, watching TV and skypeing.

I suggested that he might like to clean from it the mud that he had collected when the car was dragged out of a brook, to which he had been guided by his quite useless tom-tom satellite navigation, but I suspect it is a badge of honour. He is a scruffy teenage student after all. No fairy liquid allowed. The offending vehicle is now in Arundel Garage being overseen by a plethora of tutting mechanics. That it will cost me money is a given. Exactly how much is a nightmare I have yet to experience. As I say, a nightmare on Halloween.

The art of conversation is in dire danger of being an art lost to the world if the teenage generation has anything to do with it. Thus we determined to take Sprog 1 out to break the cord that binds him to his computer. So after an early evening jaunt to the Black Rabbit and dinner at home, the delights of Halloween in Arundel were at our feet to enjoy.

I was all for staying at the White Hart on account of the rain that was (inevitably) falling. I say falling but when the rain is travelling horizontally, it does not ever get to the ground, each drop merely lodging in one’s clothing and soaking one to the skin. However that Nice Lady Decorator seemed determined to visit the Eagle, until she stepped outside in a lateral shower. Sprog 1 was undaunted however and extracted £20 ffrom me for refreshments and disappeared into the night.

During the morning I had been persuaded to go to L. A. (Littlehampton) to check out the cycling possibilities whilst that Nice Lady Decorator had her nails done. During my enforced tour in a gale, which arrived just as the rain departed, I happened along the beach in the town and was able to take this picture.

The after effects of a storm on the beach at Littlehampton

It was taken on the promenade yesterday morning. The spume from the overnight storm had built up beside a beach groin and a part of me wanted to allude to a very tasteless joke about spume and groins, but upon further consideration I decided that it might tarnish the very high standards of humour  and taste that are regularly not upheld by this column. Also, I did not think it was very funny so decided against it, so please ignore these last two sentences.

Just room to say that I have forgotten to weave the benefits of opening an account with Currencies Direct into today’s missive, so you have a let off.

Chris France

@Valbonne_News