Chinese year of the firework

It was at the China Palace, the excellent Chinese restaurant in Arundel where I made my first mistake of the evening. Turning right out of the toilets rather than left, I bumped into a rather aristocratic and well dressed chap with splendid chin furniture (fulsome and interesting beard and moustache) who looked every inch a gentleman. In fact a proper chap, as depicted in the excellent Chap Magazine, to which I have just become a subscriber.

It had occurred to me as I sat down that this particular chap looked a lot like me, and I was right because it was me. These damned mirrors can be so confusing don’t you think? After a day diligently eating my way through the larder (it was “sandwich day”, the day sandwiched between two 5:2 diet days) and saving another foreign exchange customer from the evil clutches of their banks by setting up an account for him at Currencies Direct, we had been over to somewhere called Five Oaks and collected the soon to be Skip 2, That Nice Lady Decorators new 4 x 4 after its tracker had been fitted, and had stopped off for a sharpener at a new pub to us; The Labouring Man at Cold Waltham, for what turned out to be an excellent pint on the way back to Arundel.

These names can be so evocative don’t you think? What would you expect to find at Five Oaks? Also, it was a bit chilly when we got out of the car at Cold Waltham, which reminds me that I must go to that pretty town in Switzerland called Wankdorf, but never want to go to Cockfosters. I don’t know why but I just don’t fancy it.

Earlier I had once again taken to my bike for my daily constitutional and this time I had That Nice Lady Decorator for company, and for a change it only rained a little. It shows how far down the meteorological scale we have dropped when we are pleased that it only rains a little. I refuse to use a photograph of the dull and unpleasant (unless it is one of my friends) so I have used a photograph I took on the one clear sunny half day of the year last Sunday.

The flooded fields of Arundel still looking a bit damp

Appetites whetted, and back home, we decided on the Chinese for a change, which is not the Decorating Operative’s first choice but I has talked her into it on the basis that they served a very decent Thai Green Chilli, one of her favourites. She had satay. I am not saying she was being contrary, but one would not want to be married to a partner who is as quiet as a mouse and who never spoke her mind, and I am not. This means that occasionally, when I have done something wrong, even if I know not what it is, that blue touch-paper is somehow lit and fireworks ensue. All jolly good fun for other diners but slightly less fun for me, but I would not change a thing as it is always forgotten by morning and it makes life interesting.

I am often told on these rate occasions that I can be loud and garrulous, difficult, a slob, an idiot, and that I never listen, but nothing could be further from the truth (although the not listening bit might have an element of truth to it, especially with my fingers in my ears). On the contrary I once saw a description of Aquarians, such as myself, as “kind, honest, sincere, generous tolerant and good-looking” and I concur.

Chris France
@Valbonne_News