Play not a turkey

The practical half of our relationship, That Nice Lady Decorator, or Nice Lady Heating Engineer as she was called yesterday (you will see that I never contemplated referring to anyone as an old boiler) sorted out the boiler problem herself. Fed up with a stream of engineers turning up and failing to fix it, she worked out that the problem had to be a blocked flue and made a hole in the pipe to unblock it. She then unlocked her tongue to give the hearing engineers a lambasting and I was able to have a shower after my bike ride. The bit I did not like was standing out in the rain with a hose pipe inserted into a drainpipe in the dark at 9pm the night before, pretending to be the Decorators able assistant.

Freshly showered and thirsty after a very dry week, we decided to pop into the Spotted Cow in Angmering whilst waiting for the garage to reopen after lunch to fit the personalised number plates to the soon-to-be-a-skip new Decorating Audi. Timothy Taylor Landlord was the main attraction, with the haddock fish cakes coming a closish second and the horrible reconstituted chips come up a firm last. What is so hard about cooking proper chips? Even the frozen versions you get at supermarkets were better than these. Anyway, the pub could be better but is not bad overall. It is in a nice position and has a garden with views over the allotments where, I am told, they have music on summer afternoons so the jury is still out.

The lovely Kelly, sporting festive hat, but what is Sprog 2 doing in the background?

After a couple of sharpeners early evening at The White Hart, we duly attended the Victoria Institute to witness the Drip Action Theatre production of a play called The Price Of Everything, which completes its run this evening. It was described as having some dark humour, and although I enjoyed the whole thing, I failed to see much humour in a failed business man shooting his dog, his wife, his daughter and himself.

Falling out of the “theatre”, we found that there was a band playing across the raid at The Eagle. I have used inverted comments because the building is a fantastic old relic (a bit like myself) but is in need of a great deal of loving care. Recently handed over by the “people of Arundel” to a newly formed charity, hopefully with the help of fund-raising and the National Lottery, it can be restored to its former glory.

I questioned the lovely Kelly, pictured today in a fetching hat she was wearing in the Kings Arms in Arundel last Christmas – who is a stalwart of the charity involved in this restoration – about whether the people of Arundel knew that it had been handed over. I am currently one of those people and I did not know that I had partially owned it, but more importantly I did not remember any recompense for said hand over. I shall be consulting my lawyers Messrs Mean Grasping and Fickle about suitable redress.

After the quite decent band at the Eagle had finished and the most appalling soul music through the PA replaced them, we set off for home, only to discover, as we were passing, another band playing at the Red Lion, and so given my music business background felt it our duty to pop into what was our 4th pub of the day. You never know where you may find your next customer for the foreign exchange services of Currencies Direct.

Chris France
@Valbonne_News