Two for tea and forty-two

I appear to be back on form – off to get bread first thing and a good hour and a half’s writing before the Christmas food shopping trek to Leclerc. We even found a bottle of Madeira for those cosy winter Christmas evenings at home in front of the gas heater.

Happy Birthday Michael (one of my more dedicated readers)! We were invited to L’Enfance de Lard for a handful of kirs before lunch, then I wrote all afternoon while Hugo slept it off on the sofa. Then I got one of my heads, drank two litres of water and felt a helluva lot better. This is as good as it gets folks! Dehydration and rehydration in that order. Is anybody still with me?

So, the highlight of the day was, naturally, Michael’s rather marvellous birthday party at the restaurant. We were serenaded with Land of Hope and Glory (sadly not the It Ain't Half Hot Mum version) on arrival and left to the strains of Mrs Miller singing Tiger In My Tank and Three Poofs & A Piano's rousing rendition of Look At My Enormous ***** which I mention merely to give a small but poignant indication of the direction in which the evening progressed. We dined on scallops, prawns, salmon and endives (accompanied by a lively and very classy Chablis), chicken roasted with garlic, and a delicious chocolate birthday cake and endless bottles of red wine and champagne (or whisky and coke in Michael’s case). All told, it was a very fine evening, and I amassed enough material for a whole chapter in my book. Hopefully that means at least eight people will want to get their hands on a copy?