A tight decision on New Years Eve

Now I am not an expert about the inner workings of female underwear, but I am pretty sure than when one has laddered ones tights, one does not usually resort to gluing the remains to ones arse. I am not at liberty to say to which highly skilled and charming Decorating Enthusiast to whom this may refer, but guesswork here is everything.

She was preparing to go out for a sumptuous New Years Eve celebration dinner at The Townhouse in Arundel and had elected, quite unusually, to eschew trousers and wear a dress and a very pretty dress at that. It was apparently during final throes of preparation that a catastrophe of the laddered tights occurred, but surely the replacement of the damaged items with an undamaged pair might have been a wiser move? With the offending article now firmly fixed to her posterior, we went to dinner with house guests the gorgeous Janey and her father figure husband Peter Savin. When you see them together it is quite usual for him to be mistaken for her father, but I digress. With a sharpener at The White Hart on board, we arrived to the restaurant to be greeted by champagne and then discussed what would be the result, if and when, inevitably, she had to go to the lavatory. Eventually, half way through the evening that moment arrived, but I cannot tell you exactly what was the result because the boundaries of good taste for which this column (dedicated to the promotion of the excellent foreign exchange services of Currencies Direct) are justly unrenowned. Suffice to say that they were rather damp and will not be worn again.

Earlier in the afternoon, Mr Clipboard popped in for a coffee and a single malt on his way to a Bollywood party being staged at nearby Angmering. He was very keen to show me the hats or rather turbans he was planning to wear. I have a picture of one of them today. I do hope his head gets better soon.

Mr Clipboard, the original slumdog millionaire, doing his best Bollywood impersonation.

Today, being the start of a brand new year, we shall start as we mean to go on, with a pub crawl around Arundel and the surrounding countryside at lunchtime. I was hoping to be allowed a day off from drinking but the announcement that this was not to be the case has just been made. That Nice Lady Hosiery And Decorating Operative wants to show our house guests the delights of our adopted English home town and which I had taken to mean a tour of the very fine retail establishments that festoon it, whilst I sat at home and nursed my hangover, but it appears she means all the pubs within a 10 mile radius.

So before that befalls me, and by the time you are all reading this whilst tucked up in bed or eating your breakfast in the cozy warmth of your homes, I shall be preparing by donning my now well used wet and still damp weather gear and tramping around the sodden countryside for my customary daily 4 miles in the ongoing battle with my bathroom scales. They have become distinctly less cooperative since the arrival of the festive season. I have tried being gentle with them, stepping on slowly and lightly, then, when they do not do the decent thing and give me more of the kind of reading that I want, they get stamped on, but they are stoic and in either case refuse to change their position one iota. The scales of justice, eh?

Chris France
@Valbonne_News