A pawn cock tale

I think the chef at The George at Burpham is a closet chess fiend. We were there yesterday for Mothering Sunday, when, in my limited opinion, us chaps could hope to be mothered, but it seems I was wrong. The annual celebration of motherhood was marked by a splendid lunch at this wonderful pub with Nearly Hairless Nick taking charge of the occasion. Obviously, he must have finished cleaning his car before he began work.

The meal commenced with That Nice Lady Decorator partaking of the pawn cocktail. For once, this is not a blog typo, but a genuine spelling error on the menu. I would have liked to say I was castled by the menu choices but that would have been the type of joke that is far below the standard you have come not to expect in this Currencies Direct inspired column.

I did consider a paragraph of more chess jokes but on balance I decided that my readers might be a little board by that. We had the King and Queen of roasts, beef and pork and sat next to a bishop. Ok that’s enough. There was no bishop in the pub. It was a splendid occasion finished perfectly for me an excellent rhubarb crumble and custard.

Nearly Hairless Nick made some comment along the lines that he enjoyed a bit of pawn on a Sunday which made me think that a purveyor of questionable material may be referred to as a pawnbroker, but then again…

New born lambs, hopefully munching away at the mint.

Although the weather was not as nice as Saturday, it was warm enough once again to get the roof down on the Merc. We took this picture of new born lambs on the drive over. It was a beautiful quintessentially English spring scene and made me hope that roast lamb was going to be on the menu, but alas no. I mentioned this to That Nice Lady Decorator, who exclaimed “but you can’t eat Sydney!”. It was the name she had given to a three legged lamb she had reared many years ago after it had been rejected by the farmer and was about to be shot. She was never very comfortable with me trying to get Sydney to eat mint. I saw it as an opportunity to marinade him from the inside. Roast lamb with mint sauce, yum.

I have been asked by the Reverend Jeff in the reply section of this column why I have not commented on the latest cricket debacle to befall the English team at the World Cup 20:20 finals in Sri Lanka. The reason is that because of another woeful performance by an idiot fast bowler, who should not be in the English team, against his fellow countrymen of South Africa (does anyone else have any suspicions?) conspired to leave our batsmen with little chance of rescuing the game (although they came close), and I did not trust myself to speak after watching it. I have calmed myself now. The tablets must be working.

Talking of cricket, the penultimate cricket practice before the Cypriot cricket tour with the Sussex Seniors next weekend takes place this morning at Arundel Castle indoor cricket school. I am hoping not to be bowled again by a purple croc wearing pensioner with a moth eaten sweater, but it is always a danger. I have calculated that, taking into account the 5 days in Cyprus, I have just under 6 more days in Arundel before heading to the Isle of Death Wight for a few days then off to Spain and France until the end of June. If the weather was always like it had been on Saturday then I may have had some reservations about leaving, but of course it will not be, which is one of the main reasons I moved to France 10 years ago.

Chris France
@Valbonne_News