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It was my wonderful wife’s birthday today, so we had the day off and went to London for a fancy lunch.
We were both so knackered that we nearly cancelled it, but I am glad we persisted because it was just what we needed. We arrived at the fancy hotel which Catie commented smelled quite eggy. It did indeed. The smell of bad eggs permeated through the whole place, like someone had let off a stink bomb a few hours before or the drains were really playing up or the kitchen was cooking a whole lot of eggs. Or maybe all three of those things. Maybe I’d just come in a week ago and done one fart. That’s about how long my swamp busters hang in the air.
It was so noticeable that I almost commented as they took our coats, but I didn’t want to offend them in case they didn’t realise they had an eggy smelling hotel. They were trying to be so fancy that I didn’t want them crying about that. Some would say the first rule of running a fancy hotel that people are going to eat tiny courses of delicious and expensive food in is don’t have it smelling of eggs. But maybe there fanciest restaurants pipe in the bad egg smell as a counterpoint to the cuisine or to satirise their clientele to see how much they will put up with without complaining. Maybe if you complain about the egg smell they will look down their noses at you and say, “Oh, do you not like your restaurant smelling of egg? Oh dear. How bourgeois.” I don’t know. I just know that if I ran a fancy restaurant and it smelled of egg I’d pay some people to try and waft the egg smell away. Though I have a feeling the egg smell might have been coming in from outside. But if you have a fancy hotel and can’t stop nasty smells coming in then what’s the point?
Anyway, we quickly got used to the egg smell and didn’t notice it any more. Which just made me wonder how bad our house might stink. Maybe our house smells so bad that when we go somewhere that doesn’t smell at all, to us it smells of bad eggs. Because we’re used to something even worse.
Our enjoyment was not tainted by the egg though. It disappeared and we ate some delicious food (none of it was eggs) and had a lovely time together and realised, as usual that we hadn’t done anything like this for too long. As always I don’t feel guilty about a massive blow out, as we now consolidate two or three months of dates into one day and it comes out a lot cheaper. And my wife deserved the best.
We had our long lunch of about two and a half hours, then got straight on the tube and on to the train and were home before the kids were back from their after school activities. It was like it had never happened.
But we took this photo to prove it had happened.
One of us is definitely punching in this relationship, but she’s got a nice personality.
You can buy the book/audiobook from all good retailers, like
Gofasterstripe (where you also get a signed postcard and the chance to win a Right Bollock stress ball - only about 35 of these have been made)
