Run over by a sheep?

Being a Sunday, and therefore a day where I spare you the entreaties to become a client of Currencies Direct, even although they offer the best foreign exchange services man can have, we went for lunch with Terribly Tall Timothy Taylor (TTTT).

He is the resident bar manager at The White Hart in Arundel, and so lunch was served in his parlour, the back bar at the pub. At present, there is usually no prospect of food at the pub as they are between restauranteurs, and so with him being a confirmed bachelor, or so it seems, our hopes of a good Sunday lunch were not high, however he excelled himself, producing roast lamb with all the trimmings and even some roasted leeks. This prompted me to ask if he had any Welsh antecedents, and, looking a bit puzzled by the question, replied that he did not, but that he had once been run over by a sheep.

I never got to the bottom ( can I say that when talking about sheep and the Welsh?) of whether sheep was singular or plural as the conversation had moved on before I thought of it. Perhaps he had “steered” it in a different direction, more towards livestock in general, as it were.

The creek at West Wittering in Saturdays sunshine

Earlier, with those very low and as it transpired misplaced, expectations of getting a decent meal, we had gone to The Kings Arms for a couple of pints, and to raid their selection of cheeses, pork pies, pate, cocktail sausages and biscuits that adorn the bar on a Sunday lunchtime. If you think that this was a form of insurance against what we believed might comprise lunch, then you would not be far from the mark, but TTTT did terribly well, producing a fine feast, that should have precluded the attack on the Kings Arms offering. As has been the theme running though the weekend, I once again peaked a little early, mainly due to the early application of some port, which seemed a good idea at the time.

Earlier, in weather that could hardly have been further removed from the stellar, clear, sunny day the day before, with drizzle and glowering skies occasionally descending into hill fog, I had once again misjudged my walk and had tramped nearly 6 miles in the mud of Sussex. With a holiday due to start tomorrow, and with my Adonis like figure possibly being exposed to the sun when we get to Tenerife on Tuesday, I felt there should be a last push to avoid the taunts of That Nice Lady Decorator, which usually revolve around the theme of beached whales. I am certain that those comments await me, but at least I can find some solace knowing that I have tried to ensure that the whale in question looks a little slimmer than was the case a few months ago.

So a very fine lunch developed into a drinkathon at ours (well it is next door) and with Sprog 2 in residence and one of her sommelier friends miraculously producing a white Musar, the whole late afternoon, early evening gathering became a splendid blur of conversation, fine wine and cigars. Yes, the Monte Christo No 2’s made a late entrance on to the scene, so I will have to be handy with the Hoover this morning. This is because one should never flick the ash from a decent cigar, one should await it’s falling naturally, and this usually means that it incommodes the lounge carpet, quite reasonably enraging That Nice Lady Lounge Cleaner.

Once the hoovering is over, then it will be down to the nets to play some cricket. I agree that this seems a little surreal. Pushing sixty and donning ones cricket gear again is not something I would have predicted, but I guess once a sportsman, eventually a geriatric with delusions of sporting prowess.

Chris France
@Valbonne_News