The annual M25 car park game

The M25 was the most choked car park in Europe yesterday. The combination of floods, wind (a natural side effect of the excesses of the food and drink) and weekend drivers put paid to any thoughts of getting back from the wilds of northern Buckinghamshire into civilisation as early as we had hoped. The winter weather is partly to blame, but those people who only drive twice a year, are often female (did I say that out loud?) and cause accidents, combined to make it one of the most unpleasant days on the road of the year.  It meant that we had to bypass that giant car park and shimmy around London on all the A roads, rather than the stagnant motorways. Thus it took nearly 4 hours before we were sufficiently far away from the inhospitable north to be able to unlock the doors and windows and have a reasonable expectation of travelling at more than 10 miles an hour and avoid being car jacked.

Tired and hungry due to the privations of provisions up north, and being in a car for four hours and further with Sprog 1 due to depart today to “enjoy” (?) New Years Eve in Guildford, it was decided that a curry at the Kings Arms was the way forward. As I have said before, it is an enlightened policy of the pub that does not serve food itself, that they invite the customers to buy and have take-away meals delivered to the pub. I cannot understand why this is not prevalent throughout England, but I know of no other pub that offers to supply plates, napkins and serviettes to hungry customers in need of a curry.

They get the obvious result that we all have to have several drinks whilst it is cooked and delivered, but only a cynic would dare to suggest that the landlord, Charlie Pistorius Malcolmson, pictured today in rather a gay hat, may have an arrangement with the Indian takeaway in Littlehampton not to deliver for at least an hour after receiving the order. I know I have a cynical attitude and that my bar bill (as we were 5 with Sprogs and Sprog boyfriend, and for some reason it was expected that I should pay) somehow exceeded the food bill, but nothing here should be construed as my having anything but the highest praise for the pub to have such an enlightened financial policy, even at enormous personal cost to myself. The wheels of commerce must continue to grind their weary path through life as I know to my own cost, keeping as I do, both the music industry and the foreign exchange business (in the form of securing new customers for Currencies Direct) operating at all times, even at Christmas.

Festive but slightly gay hat?

With That Nice Lady Decorator having peaked a little early, it was not a late night, but I made it so by staying up until 3am watching play in the England versus Australia Ashes cricket test match in Melbourne. Satisfied with England’s dominance at lunch, I gave in to slumber and then awoke this morning to find the dreams of a first win in the series in tatters as England’s batting collapsed again without my continued support. It is such a burden being an English cricket fan.

Unless there is something about which I have not been told, I believe there is nothing in the social diary for today, and believe it or not, that is a relief. I have not attempted to commune with the bathroom scales, but I dreamed of them coming to life last night and shrieking out loud when I stood on them.

Chris France
@Valbonne_News