Pig in a poke

Inevitably, after the furore of the book launch, eating, drinking and seeing loads of old pals over a period of six days, the expectations that yesterday would be something of an anti-climax in comparison, were exceeded. I think the highlight came mid-morning when a shaft of sunlight lit up the beach near Littlehampton for 5 minutes as we trudged along, nursing hangovers and hungry. My stomach was telling me that a mushroom omelette with a great deal more mushroom than omelette was not the ideal cure for the ravages of fine French food and wine for 5 days, exacerbated by too many pints of London Pride at the Kings Arms quiz night the night before, but necessity is a contemptuous animal and yesterday was the counterpoint; the famine after the feast.

Talking of feasts, My picture yesterday of my tennis partners elicited some rather catty remarks along the lines of “who ate all the pies” but what you were looking at there were three magnificent athletes, just after they had been eaten by three fat blokes. Luckily for them, as I was taking the picture, my fine physical frame , honed by years of drinking and eating, was not in the shot to enable comparisons. The phrase “like a whippet” springs to mind, well my mind anyway.

Snout anyone?

There should be no attempt to make any link between yesterday’s photograph and the one I feature today, which I took in a shop window in Arundel on Tuesday evening. Some are more equal than others.

Seriously though, who was the genius behind this concept? Is it actually designed to attract people into the store? If so, what on earth would customers expect to find? Lots of fat tennis players eating and drinking? Or large packets of discount bacon?   I am at a loss to explain. Much easier to explain are the advantages from which one can benefit when opening a foreign exchange account with Currencies Direct. That costs nothing, unlike this pig, which had a swingeing price tag. Someone would need to be bringing home some serious bacon to be able afford that. They would also have a tendency to be quite unhinged; “I know, let’s trot off to that shop and buy a concrete pig”.

Today I can indulge myself like a pig. The whole ethos of this 600 calorie a day two days on, five days off, is that one must eat (and to my mind drink) normally on the feast days, which is the part if the concept of which that Nice Lady Decorator is suspicious, except for the drinking that is. Thus as I write I am contemplating a large cooked breakfast with extra portions of all the stuff I did not eat yesterday. You may consider that I am being disingenuous, but the great thing is that the whole charade seems to work.

So what does the immediate future hold? Another day if fasting tomorrow is coming up fast (eek!) but on Saturday we are going to the theatre in Arundel. Yes, we have discovered that there is a delightful small theatre in Arundel at the Priory, cunningly called the Priory Theatre. It is this week staging “Entertaining Angels”, which I like to think suns up exactly what That Nice Lady Decorator had in mind for me when she planned this treat. She knows I like theatre comedy, especially if there is no travelling involved and a couple of pubs on the way there and on the way back. Thereafter, next weekend, there is the prospect of venturing north, through the tundra in search of some culture. David Attenborough, eat you heart out.

Chris France
@Valbonne_News