Scratching around for jokes about lice

Now few of the limerick writers who have taken up residence on the comments section of this daily column are often kind about me, but yesterday one went a bit too far and compared my intellect unfavourably with that of a head lice. Further to my piece yesterday nicked from The Times about drinkers tending to be more intelligent, I do hope that the head lice in question was not teetotal because that would be very irritating, as irritating I imagine as, well, head lice.

It has happened. The weather was so disgustingly English in nature yesterday, with hanging grey skies and driving rain for almost every hour of lightness, incidentally ruining the Arundel Farmers Market held on the third Saturday of each month, that I found myself looking once again at holidays in Tenerife in January. This time it was worse than looking, one more final glance out of the window with the enough for me to press the “buy” button this time, so we are off to the Canary Islands in mid January. I just needed to have some sunshine in my diary.

A couple of Muscovy Ducks search each other for lice

It has already seemed a very long winter, and, much like we have come to the conclusion that high summer is not the place to be in the south of France, unless you are escaping an English summer, we have decided that winter is not the place to linger in England. I enjoy escaping from the tempest and finding a cozy pub, having a bite to eat, a few pints and some banter with the locals, but when you are tempted to do the same thing day after day to try to close out the weather debacle, you realise that it is not the place to be for any extended period. Two weeks should be enough as a build up to Christmas, and maybe a week after, then it has to be skiing or somewhere warm.

As I have said, it was raining so we found a pub, the Red Lion in Arundel and after a disappointing pint of Timothy Taylor’s Landlord Bitter, we adjourned to dry off in the White Hart. That was the bit where we enter into some banter with the locals, and who better than the stunningly beautiful Mighty Omega (Meg to her friends) and the substantially less beautiful James “Desperate Dan” the Landlord, who is her preferred bit of rough. I believe I can see the attraction in a kind of caveman calling way, in the same style of that French rugby player Sebastien Chabel, who reputedly a large percentage of girls in France dreamed of being dragged by him into a cave and ravished. In other words it is not pretty but there is a kind of magnificent primeval brooding charm about him.

Anyway we did manage to settle one important Christmas arrangement; namely the pub opening hours on Christmas Day. The White Hart will open from 11 until 1, thus giving Desperate and the staff time to pop into the Kings Arms afterwards as they will open from 12 until 2. This is vital information required when planning ones festive days social schedule.

Just as important is for one to ensure one does not take ones foot of the accelerator of foreign exchange news whilst celebrating a pagan feast (forget all that stuff in the bible, this is all pagan). It is vital to be aware that those sterling chaps (did you see what I did there?) at Currencies Direct are working until the last possible moment for all your foreign exchange needs, so I have called them in to work on Christmas Eve. Thus there is still time to have that account set up before the holiday commences.

Chris France
@Valbonne_News