Jack was always a different boy.

I do admit the boy may contain a little of my own DNA, however I have taken sound and very expensive legal advice and remain to this day absolutely sure I cannot ever be held responsible for him in any way other than as his probable sire. I was taken advantage of by his mother in a weak moment. Unfortunately the seed fell on stony ground and he turned out just like his father. 

It was of course his mother’s fault. 

He definitely came from her side of the family, most of who were more or less direct descendants of convicts or medical practitioners. I mean, who in their right mind would wear gold nipple rings, gold nose rings and gold eyebrow rings with a silver tongue stud, other than one of her relatives. And he has a full size tattoo of a tiger romping all over his back and he takes great pleasure in showing all manner of people where the tail is. Some swoon, some shriek and some of our more gentle folk take considerable interest in his epidermal artwork and ask for a private viewing at a time and place more convenient to both parties.

And he is a vegetarian too.

He took that pledge on his thirteenth birthday and since that day has eaten nothing more toxic than an egg. Laid of course by a brown free-range hen which has been fed only organic wheat all its life and has been serviced at least once a week by a rooster kept specifically for the purpose of procreation. The idea for this last stipulation was of course suggested to him by his mother during one of her ‘moods’. And he inherited her moods too. Both he and she are what I lovingly call ‘temperamental’.

 Eighty per cent temper and twenty per cent mental.

 Honestly, if I hadn’t been terribly short staffed that day, I never would have employed him because the boy was exactly like I used to be thirty years earlier and I too was only ever employed by people who didn’t know me very well. 

Or my father.

He arrived for duty a little early.

In fact three and a half hours early, because he refused to accept a lift with moi, his nominal biological father, preferring instead to use public transport to the edge of the suburbs and walk the rest of the way to the restaurant in the warm morning sun so he might arrive glistening with moisture, looking to all intents and purposes like one of Mother Nature’s fresh little flowers with a generous coating of morning dew. Unkind persons might have called his appearance hot and sweaty.

There was only one bus to the edge of suburbia and it fortunately left town at about the time Jack was returning home from partying all night, so that particular Sunday morning, there was no need for his mother to drive over to his house as she usually did and wake him up and make him breakfast so he wouldn’t be late for workies. 

She drove over anyway because her twenty per cent part usually took over whenever it came to the children. It was a phenomenon I found common amongst all my ex wives.

It was Autumn, the second Sunday in May and the road was busy with traffic hurrying to Mother’s house for the joyous annual Mother’s Day lunch that everyone so looks forward to. (I understand the Bureau of Statistics shows there to be almost as many murders committed on Mother’s Day as on Christmas Day and it gives a whole new meaning to what we lovingly call a ‘Relly Bash.’). Jack waved to them all as he sauntered the final five or six kilometres through the hills to his place of casual employment, his freshly laundered white shirt (so recently ironed by his mother) tied in a neat bow about his waist in order that both he and the tiger might benefit from a little vitamin D during the course of the stroll.

And perhaps scare a few young children along the way in the process.

On his arrival I remembered to thank him for his punctuality and also made quite a point of thanking him for the fine selection of music he had thoughtfully brought with him in case we didn’t have enough ourselves. There were two new CD’s by his favourite artists, ‘Annihilation’ and  ‘Smash the Police.’ I said I could see his mother’s influence in his taste and politely lied that given an opportunity, I would ask one of my other staff members to add his CD’s to our current selection.

If they wished to suffer instant dismissal.

I also tactfully suggested he deposit a few handfuls of the gel he had brought for his impressively spiked hairdo, under his armpits as well. It smelled like deodorant and I hoped it might do the trick. Jack had had a very long walk and although not musically inclined, he was already starting to hum a little. The day was starting to warm up and we had a fire going in the dining room too. It was my wish that the patrons notice only the bees humming around the flowers outside.

 He shot me a winning smile and complied as immediately as a twenty one year old son ordinarily does and with just a few minutes to spare before opening time, the deodorant gel was in place doing a fine job, although his armpits now made funny farty noises whenever he lifted plates or glasses as he set the tables.

Perhaps he was from my side of the family after all.

I made a special point of asking Jack to be ‘personable’ with the customers. Not personable as in ‘with your siblings,’ (for in the past this had often involved third party interventions of a quasi legal nature), but a more ‘sociable’ sort of ‘personable’.

 “Converse with the clients” I said. “Tell them your name. Tell them you will be personally attending to them this afternoon and if they need anything at all, just ask and you will assist wherever possible. Perhaps even chat a little.”

The lad beamed. 

If there was one thing he was good at, he replied, it was socializing. He said “Chain yourself to your workbench with equanimity old man; you can rest easy. I am now in my element.” 

I wondered where on earth he had learned the word ‘equanimity’?

Certainly not from his mother. 

As a safeguard, I asked the voluptuous young Amanda to signify the differences between the articles of cutlery to the young man before turning him loose on the customers and then made the mandatory telephone call to his mother to reassure her that her little baby had in fact appeared for work and had not been taken away in a spaceship by alien beings for scientific experimentation. I added that I was sorry it had apparently happened to her. And her mother.

She hung up.

That was the eighty per cent part of her nature going into overdrive.

FACT. Women eat chicken and men eat steak in restaurants. Occasionally, a person of indeterminate sexuality will order something different.

Ergo, chicken and steak feature strongly on a menu which has a choice of only two main courses on Mother’s Day. As an addendum, in very fine print at the bottom of the menu, are written the words…. “Ask your waiter if a vegetarian option is required”.

This piece of information is of course by intention every bit as readable as a telephone book at fifty paces or a clause in a hire purchase agreement. It is however occasionally noticed by Flower Children and the Mardi-Gras set with better than 20:20 vision. 

So, as well as the usual thirty mother-bear and thirty father-bear high protein type dishes I had prepared for Mother’s Day, I had also lovingly prepared two beautiful French crêpes stuffed with Avocado and Camembert. Just in case Goldilocks and her current girlfriend with phenomenal eyesight came for lunch as well. 

One must always be prepared for every eventuality, mustn’t one?

My first order came through to the kitchen from the dining room…………

 “Four chooks and four pieces of meat”. 

Amanda had quite a way with words and I prayed she didn’t take the same liberties on the itemized account which was presented in a black leather folder to the customer after lunch.

The second order arrived at the same time as the third and fourth orders, all from Amanda’s tables. Collectively they were……….. 

“Twelve chooks, fourteen pieces of meat and one weirdo.”

I really had to have a word with that girl and made a mental note to try and get her on her own late one evening and try to give it to her. 

Jack’s orders were still to arrive and I asked the voluptuous young Amanda to enquire as to his wellbeing and if necessary, to poke him anally with a sharp object to wake him up. She must have used a needle for almost immediately, his sunny face appeared at the kitchen door and he thrust the orders for his four tables into my hand.

The boy had obviously been absent for a while taking drugs in the toilet, for in my hand I held orders for one murdered chicken, two unhealthy steaks and thirteen exquisite Avocado and Camembert crêpes. It wasn’t the adjectives on the orders causing me concern, it was the numbers of each item. I began to feel a little queasy, akin to visiting the doctor’s to discuss dandruff and finding out it was time for the digital examination of my prostate. 

I called the boy over and quietly asked whether or nor he wished to see his twenty second birthday? A reply in the affirmative suggested he indeed did. I then beseeched him not to play little jokes on his tortured father but to instead hand me the real orders.

I said no matter what explicit instructions he had received from my ex wife to enliven my afternoon, Mother’s Day lunch at Chez Alain was neither the time nor the place for childish pranks. April the first had long since passed. It was now May.

He looked at me with the crushed expression that only a son can give and I witnessed the beginnings of a tear in his left eye, the one that his brother Tom always used to poke him in when he was being irritating.

“They are the real orders,” he replied. “The customers just felt like a change today.”

I too felt like a change.

Of underwear.

I had a total of one weirdo left in the fridge and was now in somewhat of a predicament. Thirteen weirdos were required. I thought of asking Jack to perform a naked dance in the main dining room to entertain the guests for a while whilst I panicked in the kitchen, but thought better of the idea in case he actually did it. I then thought of asking the voluptuous young Amanda to do the same, but thought better of that idea too in case I left the kitchen to watch instead of attending to the problem at hand.

There was nothing else I could do but shut down the kitchen for twenty minutes whilst I made the quickest batch of crêpes I had ever made in my life. In the meanwhile, I asked my darling son if he would be so kind as to tell the guests that there would be a short delay and to socialize and chat a little.

“No problemos, ancient one” came the reply and he disappeared into the void to do what he does best. Socialize and chat.

Just like his mother.

Meanwhile, I socialized in the kitchen with my crêpe pan and a couple of litres of hastily prepared crêpe mixture. I also began to socialize a little with the bottle of Napoleon brandy I kept on the shelf above my workbench especially for moments like these. On previous occasions I have found it helps ease the pain and erase the memories later.

Fifteen minutes later, my bench was covered with a dozen and a half freshly made crêpes and all I had to do was fill them with alternate layers of sliced ripe avocado and equally ripe, soft camembert cheese. Easy peasy. The only problem being that I had to do it all myself. Kitchen staff had noticed my assault on the Napoleon and had vacated their posts to see if they could assist the other staff in the dining rooms. Or the carpark. They had seen this sort of thing before and had learned from the experience. So, instead of my apprentice or kitchenhand being anointed with sloppy green avocado goo and sticky yellow cheese, I was the lucky person to receive the rapid colour change, along with my knives, apron and shoes. Not to mention the neck of the brandy bottle. 

As the last filled crêpe was put into the oven to warm, staff reappeared as if by magic and we all became one happy family once again, although daddy was perhaps a little happier than he should have been, owing the influence of his ami, Monsieur Bonaparte. Jack too was in an extremely happy frame of mind and began to whistle whilst he worked, although I managed to rectify this with a love pat to his rectal area with an avocado coloured shoe as he passed through the kitchen.

It was toward the end of the afternoon that I sensed something was not quite right, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. Not that I would have wanted to actually put my sticky green finger on it anyway, merely it is a figure of speech to denote my state of whimsy, befuddled as it was by ten or eleven stiff brandies. Slowly it dawned on me what it was that was jarring in my mind. My clients were currently being serenaded to the sweet refrain of Jack’s favourite group, ‘Smash the Police’ and I caught the words “Kill the bloodsuckers and burn their houses down” as I raced for the CD player behind the bar to spare my patrons any more extreme pleasure. Fortunately the album had only one more song of its twelve song repertoire to go and I quickly exchanged it for what I thought was more appropriate hypnotic Mother’s Day music. This was not to be, for my son was one step ahead of his biological co-creator and had cunningly swapped my ‘Elevator music symphonies’ for his ‘Annihilation’. I thought it was fittingly titled and so did the rest of the kitchen staff who were now also taking alternate swigs from the tacky, green-coloured bottle of relaxer-juice to prepare themselves for forthcoming events.

They could sense I was looking forward to a deep and meaningful father/son conversation with my seventh born as soon as the last patron left, and they wanted to be in a happy frame of mind at that juncture.

My apprentice wisely called to the bar for delivery of a second bottle of mood enhancer.

Dessert orders arrived a little later, and after several initially unsuccessful attempts to coordinate their limbs, my happy kitchen staff finally succeeded in assembling what could pass as an edible Picasso on a plate for each of my patrons who I sincerely hoped were in a similar state of peace, love, happiness and intoxication.

Finally the afternoon drew to a close and table by table, my customers approached the bar to pay their accounts and discuss business. As always, the gentlemen from those tables serviced by the voluptuous young Amanda said they had had a wonderful time and looked forward to coming again in the near future, perhaps for a business lunch accompanied by their male colleagues. They said she had done a very good job.

The mothers and wives also personally expressed their appreciation to Amanda in a different, more feminine way, and said she had had a very good job done.

Eventually Jack’s tables began to make their way to the bar and I assumed the stance and smile I reserve especially for the tax man, although I did notice that the room swayed a little if I didn’t hold on to the bar tightly with my free hand. I guessed that in ten minutes or three more brandies it would all be over anyway. Or I would fall over. Either way it didn’t really matter any more, I couldn’t feel anything above the waist. Nothing they could say could hurt me now.

But they LOVED him.

They said how fortunate I was to have such an entertaining son who was so aware of world events and changing social values. And tattoos were quite fashionable nowadays too. And Jack’s was especially artistic, wasn’t it?

They said it was refreshing to be confronted with their own shallowness and in the future would think twice before mindlessly ordering dead animals to eat at lunchtime. And the three patrons from his tables who had dared to order steak and chicken asked me to convey my apologies to Jack, it wasn’t his fault they didn’t like avocado, they just didn’t like the texture in their mouths. It reminded them of the semolina or custard they were forced to eat at boarding school. They promised to give the crêpe a try next time they visited.

Several also congratulated me on my choice of music later in the afternoon. They said Jack apparently knew most of the words and sang along as he waited on their tables, although his silver tongue stud did affect his pronunciation of some of the four letter words. They also added that Jack had kindly invited them all back to his place for a party that evening. To socialize and chat. If they weren’t too busy doing other things. 

I smiled weakly and took their money, noting that Jack’s patrons had collectively left an amazing total of seventy five dollars in tips, which I was told was specifically for the Gay and Lesbian rights legal fund. Just as Jack had requested. 

I assured them the money would be appropriately disbursed by certified bank cheque to the G & L trust account the following day and thanked them for coming.

As the last group filed out of the restaurant, the telephone rang.

It was she who used to be obeyed, wanting to know if her baby Jacky Jacky was still alright after his traumatic ordeal working for me that afternoon.

I said “Currently,” and hung up.

I had a tiger to hunt down and kill.

And so ended another day at Chez Alain, and later that evening, as I lay on my tiger skin rug in front of the open fire, I reflected on how this idyllic lifestyle had all come about.

It started in France……………………….

   We were camped just outside Aûmes, the quintessential sleepy little village nestled cosily in the French countryside. Two young Australians and a large Blue Jellyfish. Our campervan was so named because of its ability to wobble of its own volition all over the road, even at slow speeds in benign conditions. It was also painted bright blue, except where altercations with foreign objects had dappled the duco with other more interesting shades of the rainbow on its previous visits to Europe with different owners, who like ourselves, were also used to travelling on the left hand side of the road. I believe we were the forty-fifth or forty-sixth owners of the vehicle if those who were never seen again after breakdowns in Morocco weren't counted, and the van was fairly long in the tooth. The Blue Jellyfish did however perform admirably for us on the whole, (apart from its mindset to travel on the wrong side of the road throughout the whole of Europe causing accidents all over the place). And in no way do I shoulder any responsibility for that myself.

It was certainly the van's fault. 

And I soon learned that the wake-up impact of strong French coffee first thing in the morning pales to insignificance when compared to the wake-up impact of a collision with a large French truck! 

The van had driven us nonchalantly down the road on the wrong side for several kilometres after leaving the caravan park and I’m sure it would have continued to do so had we not made the other vehicle’s acquaintance. A short rest break ensued whereby one the drivers (myself) was questioned in a staccato foreign language by all and sundry as to his mental competence. I in turn hit the van with a stick to teach it a lesson and searched for the tin of blue paint, thus reassuring the crowd of my mental competence.

My co-pilot just smiled the special smile she reserved for moments like this and allowed me to prove the obvious.

It was at our first free campsite at Aûmes that I saw my first wild squirrel. A tiny, gingery coloured little fellow with a long flowing tail. He was busy running about a large beech tree, quite oblivious to the Australian tourist below and I was able to observe him for some considerable time, wondering all the while what squirrel casserole would taste like. Hunger can do that sort of thing to you.

That particular picture has stayed with me for more than twenty years, and in more reflective moments, I revisit that beech tree. I feel the warmth of the sun, I smell the damp lush grasses, I hear the ancient church bell from the village and I'm glad and sad at the same time. Glad that I was there. Sad that the moment has gone. 

And very grateful I didn't die of squirrel poisoning.

The little squirrel had other neighbours besides ourselves. A number of plump bunnies hopped about the undergrowth, totally at ease with themselves, blissfully unaware they were in the company of the world's greatest rabbit hunter. In fact I had won every gold medal for rabbit hunting at the last five summer Olympics, and I had once singlehandedly fed the population of a small regional city back in Australia with the proceeds of one night's trapping.

I may exaggerate a little, but the reason we were camped at Aûmes was that we were flat broke and almost out of petrol. We also had little food, and as the male of the duo, I felt it my duty to be the provider.

As far as hunting equipment was concerned, we were in possession of a single coil of fine wire. It was one of the sundry items contained in an old box of odds and ends which came with the jellyfish when it was purchased several months previously from two other world travellers who were camped in a London carpark. They and thirty or forty others in a similar situation were waiting to sell their campervans to new, naïve tourists like us in order to purchase an airfare home, wherever home might be. 

It seemed it was an unwritten law that each successive owner of our campervan must add to the box during the course of ownership, and so, after innumerable additions, it was full to overflowing with the weirdest assortment of paraphernalia. Small glass bottles, springs, new and used spark plugs (some even suitable for the make and model we were driving), fanbelts, bottle openers and even a small brass crucifix which showed Jesus in a most unusual pose because someone had used Him when they couldn't find one of the many bottle openers. The coil of wire I found was actually piano wire, and at the time I wondered why on earth one would take a piano on tour through Europe in the back of a campervan, but decided to leave that thought alone. What Liberace and a friend and a small garden gnome did on their European holidays was their own business.

Little time elapsed before I had made six or seven excellent snares with which to catch dinner and I proceeded to set them on the outskirts of the blackberry bushes where my quarry had established their warren. 

And it was whilst carefully setting the last snare that I realized I was being watched.

An ancient gentleman, sitting underneath an equally old and gnarled olive tree had been regarding my every move and he beckoned me to approach. Luckily, I had studied French in high school for six long years, from a wonderfully eccentric Algerian lady who spoke French in fluent Algerian and had taught me to do so as well. Thus, my bilingual education enabled me to understand nearly five or six percent of what the old gent was trying to say to me, whereas he was able to understand no Algerian whatsoever, even when I tried a fake French accent.

Fortunately, some words are the same the world over and by a mixture of gesticulation, guesswork and good-humoured slow, laborious, repetition, we conducted a conversation during the course of which I learned that it wasn't yet rabbit season in France. Also, if I happened to be apprehended by the local gendarme, I would certainly be a guest of the governor of the Bastille, especially if they learned my ancestors on my mother's side were English. Something to do with Waterloo, I believe, and to reinforce the negative aspect of being caught, he drew his index finger across his throat.

He then smiled broadly, showing me his excellent tooth and waited for my response.

I decided this was not the moment to argue, mainly because I didn't possess the vocabulary, and so I thanked him for his advice. I also promised to unset the snares and return them to the companionship of a bent Jesus in Pandora's box. However, this still left the small problem of nourishment for both my wife and myself. My little darling wife had the appetite of a bird (vulture), and I too had become accustomed to eating heartily on her leftovers. This fact was relayed to my newfound companion who immediately repaired to his nearby rustic farmhouse and reappeared minutes later with a piece of cheese, some crusty bread and a bottle of vin de la very old maison.

Beggars cannot be choosers it is said, so I thanked him profusely for his kind gifts and returned to my beloved who was waiting patiently for the return of her intrepid hunter. Thankfully she knew me well enough not to enquire too deeply as to how I had managed to trap a vile smelling, blue-spotted cheese, an inedible rusk and a bottle of good quality paint stripper with just a half dozen homemade snares.

She knew I was good, that's why she married me.

We dined to the monotonous toll of the single church-bell, commencing with the wine, wrongly believing this would give us enough courage to face the cheese. We were sadly mistaken and my darling suggested that next time I should chance incarceration at the governor's pleasure, for compared with that gastronomic turd, even my famous rabbit ragout would taste good.

Morning found us in exactly the same predicament. Extremely low on funds and with no edible food.

Suddenly, as if from nowhere, our fairy godfarmer appeared with another piece of turd and a second bottle of rank liquid for our breakfast.

Although not quite fully recovered from the hangover we found at the bottom of the first bottle, we graciously accepted this second gift, although the new cheese was viewed with alarm. This epicurean morsel was considerably older than the other offering and appeared to have a more vigorous ecosystem.

My darling gave him a winning smile, thanked him in her most fluent and polite Australian and impounded the offensive article in the glove compartment of the motor vehicle. It would be eaten later she said, should the tyres on the van prove inedible.

Our agri-friend had even more to offer. During the night he had reflected on our predicament and had come up with a cunning plan. He suggested we collect snails, thousands of which abounded in the nearby hedgerows and woodlands. They could then be sold later for folding gold in the large town with the twinkling lights beyond the village.

To enable us to do this, he had brought four large onion bags. 

An onion bag, for those less acquainted with modern agricultural equipment, is exactly six thousand holes joined together by two kilometres of thin, red, plastic thread, which prevents the holes from falling apart. The primary purpose of this type of bag is to allow the onions to breathe and maintain a longer shelf life. A secondary, less common use of this style of bag is to hold hundreds of thousands of snails.

Had it not been for that old farmer and his generosity, we might have died of malnutrition at that secluded campsite in Aûmes. He, on the other hand, probably still tells his neighbours and friends about the Australian tourists he managed to be rid of by supplying them with some left-over fishing bait and two bottles of vinegar that his mother in law had given him for his 25th wedding anniversary.

We set off to snare some snails.

           Snails come out to feed mainly at nightfall and so I delayed my attack until dusk so I wouldn’t be so easily seen. And to assist my camouflage, Mother Nature had thoughtfully provided a constant fine rain for which I was very very grateful, if I remember correctly. 

So, fortified by the skeletal remains of our full bodied red, I stepped out into the undergrowth and within five minutes I was soaked to the skin. The escargots, plentiful for the first few minutes, were rapidly becoming less and less visible due to the failing light and I reflected that it wasn't only the light that was dim. I appeared to be the only person doing the collecting. Herself was reading a tourist guidebook in the safety of the campervan. She waved to me and blew a kiss.

After half an hour, I had managed to quarter fill one bag and had been forced by the prevailing conditions to conduct the rest of my hunt using braille. The only thing that kept me going was the thought of trying to metabolize the life form now locked safely inside the glove box. And the fact that herself had locked all the other doors on the van as well, to prevent any entry. 

After another half an hour, I had managed to collect a further forty snails which added just one more layer to my sack. I began to panic. At this rate, it would take a fortnight to fill just one bag and the old farmer had told us we would need to fill at least three in order to raise enough money for a tankfull of petrol and a bellyfull of food.

Quel horreur!

Fortunately, Australians are known for both their quick thinking and improvisation, so it came as no surprise to me that after several hours of grovelling in pitch darkness, the thought of using a torch entered my less than adequate brain. I didn't waste time on self-congratulation for this stroke of brilliance, but extrapolated on the idea. I tapped tentatively on the car window and asked my darling for her assistance.

Several minutes later saw that same darling, snug and warm in the driver's seat of the Blue Jellyfish, inching her way (at snail's pace) down the backroads of the village. I walked along in front of the vehicle in the now teeming rain, busily picking up thousands of startled snails caught 'in flagrante' by the glare of the headlights, either too frightened or embarrassed to make a sudden dash for the safety of the hedgerows and ditches by the side of the road.

By two a.m. I was a professional snail catcher and onto my fourth bag. I was now like the actress, discriminating between both size and variety, for when it comes to snails, size really does matter. The big ones meant less bending per gramme collected and so were better value. Littlies were overlooked and left to take their chances with the set of Michelins following.

Three a.m. saw the fourth bag filled to the brim and loaded safely into the campervan with the others. I felt really proud of myself and climbed in with the snails to strip off my sodden clothes. Then, bathed in the warm glow of my brilliance, I snuggled into the double sleeping bag with my darling, who told me I was cold, wet and smelly.

Comme toujours.

Our lullabies were the incessant squelching, popping and slurping noises of several thousand snails parked just centimetres from our heads and to this day I don't know why I put them in the van. I'm sure they wouldn't have run off during the night. Nor would anyone else besides me have been stupid enough to be out of doors at that time and in that weather looking for escargots to steal from outside tourists’ campervans.

As it was, our captive bedfellows took turns in making the most suggestive of moist noises until we arose at dawn, and to the best of my belief, those were the only suggestive noises I heard that night.

By morning, the rain had stopped, a fact for which we were most grateful, because it was now drier outside the van than inside. 

N.B. Readers may not be aware of this little miracle of nature, but a snail manufactures its own lubricant. I'm sure this is of considerable assistance in a personal way, even for a hermaphrodite (which a snail is), but its main function is to facilitate travel. The snail bubbles out a stream of goo (not the technical term), then bobsleds on this slime to a point a little further away. This act is repeated over and over until our little tourer reaches his/her intended destination. This mode of travel is much akin to going on holidays overseas by skateboard but at a much more leisurely pace.

Unfortunately, held prisoner in the onion bags as they were, the escargots couldn't go anywhere, and so just produced forty or fifty litres of goo which they kept at the ready on the floor of the van in case the bags broke and they were able to make a fast exit.

There is no known antidote for snail goo.

Had we been able to collect it and put it into jars, we could have sold it for a fortune as a lubricant for heavy industrial machinery, or a personal product advertised on page three of adult magazines, but alas, the goo had a mind of its own and sought to infiltrate every nook and cranny on the floor of the vehicle. It was whilst trying to rescue her make-up bag from the morass that the idle of my life slipped and was jettisoned bodily through the rear doors of the vehicle, only to have her fall broken by the bags of cargo that I had removed just moments earlier.

She smiled sweetly and suggested we sell the slippery little suckers immediately. I agreed and tactfully refrained from admonishing her for rendering some of them unsaleable as a result of her calisthenics. 

We had been told that our best chance of success would be at l'Hotel St. Dennis. This turned out to be an uninspiring, unimposing, rather drab looking building, inhabited by a barman of much the same description. The atmosphere inside was provided by a single twenty-five watt bulb which hung from the ceiling in the centre of the room and was assisted by whatever sunlight managed to percolate through the coffee coloured windows.

A row of old wooden booths stood unoccupied against one wall and a picture of either Charles de Gaulle or Mona Lisa smiled down enigmatically from the opposite wall. The only other living creature with just one pair of legs apart from myself and the barman appeared to be a motionless figure at the end of the bar. He had a shot glass in front of him, half full of yellow liquid.

I had expected a tumult of traders, a multitude of merchants, a plethora of purveyors, all a-jostling each other, competing wildly for my housebound beauties. However, under the circumstances, I thought frantic jostling and bidding unlikely, unless the obviously wax dummy at the bar was awakened from his reverie by the kiss of a frog.

The barman broke the silence by asking me what I wanted. 

He spoke excellent French.

The position I now found myself in reminded me of a somewhat similar situation in Portugal when a friend of my wife who was travelling with us at that time, found herself with a medical condition of a very intimate and personal nature. I was asked to take her to the hospital and explain in French to the Portugese doctor the extent of her condition and the circumstances under which it was bestowed upon her. Basic schoolboy French sadly under-equipped me for this delicate eventuality, and even less for the myriad of questions which followed regarding my own wellbeing re the nether regions of my anatomy.

Fortunately, the thought of a meal of our glove-box delicacy assisted in the expansion of my lexicon for the forthcoming negotiations.

I asked whether or not (s'il vous plaît), he would be remotely interested (peut être) in purchasing eighty kilos or thereabouts of the freshest, the plumpest and certainly the juiciest (a fact to which I'm sure my wife would attest) snails in the whole of France, and probably the world for that matter.

"Non" was the one word answer.

It was a Mexican stand off in France. There were now three motionless figures in the room. The barman looking blankly ahead, our friend with rigor mortis at the bar, and moi, dumbstruck!

I remained thus stricken for the best part of an hour until the barman blinked first.

"I already have lots of escargots, I need non plus," he said.

I wasn't born yesterday

The barman had made a fatal mistake. He said he didn't NEED any more, not he didn't WANT any more. I knew then he was only jostling for position amongst all the other buyers in the madding throng. I had him trapped.

"OK" I said nonchalantly, "how much will you offer to take them off my extremely well lubricated hands?"

We went outside together to inspect the goods then returned to the bar for the final intricate negotiations. I didn't have a clue what the little perishers were worth and so I resorted to the tried and true Australian way. When all else fails, bullshit as hard as you can. 

He patiently heard me out then made his best, only and final offer.

I took it.

The deal was sealed with a glass of his very best vinegar and I watched with relief as the barman dragged the first bag across the floor to a storeroom at the rear of the premises.

It was whilst imbibing the anti-bacterial mouthwash so graciously bestowed upon me by mine host, that I heard a loud 'Pssst!' It was that rather conspiratorial 'Pssst' which one usually hears in a spy movie when one spy is trying to attract another's attention.

'Psssssst!' came the noise again, this time a little more stridently, and as I looked about, I spied a youth, previously unnoticed in the gloom, sitting at one of the booths. He had obviously witnessed everything and was now wearing the same enigmatic smile as his friend hanging in the frame on the wall opposite.

"Monsieur," he said in a hoarse whisper, "you 'av been stolen!"

I immediately walked over and corrected him. The proper terminology was 'ripped off'.

He went on to say that had I enquired at the cute little restaurant frequented by all the tourists just a little further down the street, I would have received ten times the price so recently offered by my friend the barman.

I thanked him sincerely for his timely advice and in the true spirit of brotherhood left him the remainder of my acetic acid.

Monsieur retired to his campervan where he duly informed his darling that after twenty minutes of hard bargaining he had encouraged the proprietor to part with a king's ransom. 

She was so proud of me.

            The kitchen door wasn't hard to find. One just followed the aroma of Boeûf Burgundy to its source, and voilà! - An ancient oak door, fully open to allow the delicious cooking smells to assail the nostrils of the ravenous tourists when they alighted from the buses in the adjacent carpark. Old wine barrels, halved and planted out to a variety of herbs which added to the fragrance, were placed strategically in haphazard pattern along the well-worn slate path.

I thought if this was the servant's entrance, I was quite willing to be servile.

A remarkably rotund madame, wearing a spotless white outfit about which was tied a large apron, itself once upon a time also white and spotless, was busy a-simmering and a-broiling at the stove. I assumed she was both chef and illiterate.

She had obviously never read any of the thousands of books devoted to French cooking containing alternate pages of text and glossy four colour photographs which featured naked chickens, their heads still intact, hanging from the rafters by scaly legs. Nor were there any hares, in various stages of decomposition performing similar feats of endurance. Where were the braided bunches of Spanish onions suspended from wall hooks? The wicker baskets on benchtops, filled to overflowing with huge bulbs of Greek garlic? Not even a perfectly risen soufflé taken straight from the oven and placed strategically on a designer mat atop a red and white checked tablecloth. No marble cutting boards. No highly polished cedar kitchen table. Sacré bleu! The lady had never even seen a book, let alone attempted to read one with the help of a friend.

Her kitchen was Spartan, yet fully functional. It contained an old eight burner gas stove with two huge ovens underneath and an assortment of large stainless steel saucepans adorning shelves made of the same metal which encircled the room. The equipment, the floor and the shelves were as spotless as her uniform.

I knocked on the door and bid her 'Bonjour madame'.

‘Bonjour monsieur’ came the reply, ‘Comment ça va?’

It was the start of a wonderful friendship.

During my teenage years, I, like so many other offspring of penniless migrant parents, had to work at night in a multitude of restaurants in order to pay my way half through university. It was a career move I took up whenever I was short of money, and I’m sure it is why I’ve been employed in the industry ever since. I started as a waiter and eventually regressed all the way to chef.

It was whilst working as a kitchenhand that I got my first big break. The incumbent chef had been over zealous whilst taste-testing the madeira for his ‘special sauce’ and was now carefully inspecting the bathroom floor tiles from very close range. There was a dining room full of hungry patrons waiting to be fed and they were starting to eat the napkins. Immediately I saw the opportunity to fill the chef vacancy so recently created and did what any other sane kitchenhand would have done under the same circumstances. 

I quit and immediately left the building.

I’m not completely stupid.

This episode taught me an invaluable lesson. Never, never, under any circumstances trust a kitchenhand. Or a chef for that matter. Learn to do everything yourself, and when all else fails, ring your mother and cry loudly.

Marie Dubois was the name of our portly French chef, and she was a ball of extroverted enthusiasm. Her methods were the time honored ways of the traditional provincial restaurateur. She simply provided wholesome food that tasted divine. Her sauces were made from three sorts of stock. Beef, chicken and fish. It wasn't hard to work out which went with which dish because they were colour coded. Dark brown was beef. This usually went with beef dishes. Light brown was chicken. This usually went with chicken dishes, and you've probably guessed by now, the cream coloured one was for fish. Marie had designed it this way in case unforseen circumstances (viz taste testing the Napoleon brandy for the flambéed crêpe suzettes) should render her temporarily incapacitated. In that eventuality, her pet Chihuahua could step in and take over and no one would notice any difference.

The modest Marie had a wonderful way with words.

It was she who taught me to cook snails. Although considered a delicacy in the rest of the industrialised world, she confided to me that the French will only ingest them when all other living creatures have been consumed and expiration due to malnutrition is imminent. In fact, she said the only thing worse than snails was squirrel casserole. She said ‘Never, never attempt to chew snails, it is only the sauce which makes them edible and escargots are best taken orally, either with or without the shell.’

Fact: Tennis balls are made from adult snails. They are processed through a series of heavy rollers to flatten them, then they are cut to shape in a hydraulic press. Several weeks in a humid atmosphere encourages the fur growth on the outside of the ball and then the white lines are painted on. The green colour is natural and comes in several shades. Always practise eating tennis balls before going to a posh restaurant and ordering a dozen escargots. It helps take the smirk off the waiter's face when he stands by and sees you accomplish the task and survive.

Marie had many loyal patrons, and every Sunday, at about one o'clock in the afternoon, the dining room was full of regulars. Whole families of Gallic gastronomes descended on her establishment to sit at their usual table and enjoy her hospitality, but unlike the customers of other restaurants where I had worked, her patrons placed no orders with the waiters and waitresses.

 They arrived.

 They were seated

 They were presented with appropriate bottles of best Bordeaux.

 And then an appropriate quantity of wonderful food was brought. Several hours and several courses later, they bade us adieu and waddled chez eux, only to return like homing pigeons the following week for a return bout.

I enjoyed my time working for Marie, and the most hilarious part of all was my extra curricular activity. By day I was a waiter cum kitchenhand and by night I moonlighted as the local snail catcher. Marie purchased them all and fed them to the weekly busloads of Australian tourists who booked in to her establishment to experience authentic French cuisine.

  Life's like that isn’t it?

I owe everything to Marie. Had it not been for her, I might have returned to Australia, completed my tertiary studies and made a success of my life.

Instead, I bought a restaurant.

As a callow youth, each weekend saw both myself and my best friend camped under an old tarpaulin, waxing lyrical about the joys of rabbit hunting. Our rudimentary arsenal consisted of two very old small calibre single shot rifles slyly purchased from Mr Shylock's secondhand store. They were in an excellent state of repair considering their antiquity, and Duncan's even possessed the front and rear sight. Other pieces of equipment brought to our campsite in the boot of the old Morris sedan were a dozen fully functional steel rabbit traps and one semi functional ferret.

The ferret always arrived in this condition because unlike the other weapons with which he was imprisoned, he was quite susceptible to the carbon monoxide which escaped from the rusty colander we jokingly referred to as the exhaust pipe. The gas also permeated the interior of the vehicle because the floor was in the same condition as the exhaust. However, unlike ourselves, the poor little ferret in the boot had neither the luxury of windows nor the arms and dexterity to open the boot from the inside in order to provide himself with better ventilation, hence he reached his destination somewhat more docile than when he embarked upon his perilous journey. On cold and rainy days however, we all arrived in the same sluggish condition.

En route to our usual hunting grounds in the hills, we passed an old stone cottage which appeared to be growing by the side of the road. Long spiky blackberry tendrils had pushed their way in through the broken cross-hatched windows, only to reappear a little later through the eaves and make their way tentatively across the roof. Many years of winter rains had found their way inside the building via numerous rat and rust holes and had formed shallow lakes beneath the rotting floorboards of each of the four rooms. During the warmer months, this water would try to escape by osmosis and late summer would find the damp had risen right up to where the ceilings would have been, had there been any.

Every springtime, grass and weeds grew tall in the blocked gutters and met with the blackberries at the apex of the roof, giving the rusty old corrugated iron an appearance of thatch. A myriad of broken bottles decorated what once was a tiny cottage garden with shards of blue and green and generous passersby had kindly donated their unwanted electrical items to the immediate environs in order to complete the formal landscaping.

It was as pretty as a picture, although a picture of just what I’m not quite sure.

The locals told of a ghost named Elvira who inhabited the premises, but neither Duncan nor I ever witnessed anything untoward as we drove by each weekend and of course the ferret was always too cross-eyed to focus properly and therefore cannot not be relied upon to bear proper witness to any supernatural event.

I have Marie Dubois to thank for my purchase of that miserable rat-infested property, and I do sincerely thank her from the bottom of my bank balance which was plundered to previously uncharted depths in order to effect the restoration of that sad and historic building. An easier exercise would have been to toss gold ingots down a wishing well. I still remember her wishing me 'Bon Chance Alain!' when I excitedly telephoned her immediately after it was knocked down to me at the auction.

Gratitude is also extended to John, the local health inspector whose assistance and advice proved invaluable in meeting the appropriate building requirements and filling in the six hundred and twelve local governmental forms in triplicate.

John was not a man to trifle with.

Although ensconced in a position of considerable influence and power, John seldom allowed it to confuse his judgement and sense of fair play. He knew he could simultaneously close down every eatery in the region for even the slightest indiscretion or technical breach of the regulations and render the populace totally bereft of cordon bleu nosh-houses. He preferred however, to put the fear of god into a terrified proprietor by viciously extending his left index finger at the offending spider web or cracked tile, demanding that it be fixed post-haste or he would sit on him.

John was a very heavy man and had a unique method of upholding the law.

Compliance was of course immediate, and harmony was maintained.

I say his left index finger, because in a previous career, he had been a butcher and had lost an argument with a band saw whilst completing a customer's order for seven of his best forequarter lamb chops which her husband wished to cremate on the barbeque that weekend. Since that unfortunate day, John had only been able to count up to eight. The loss of digits however failed to loosen his grasp of the game of golf which he played like a professional every Sunday at a very swish club with an excellent dining room but an understandably nervous chef.

Being only a mediocre player myself, I admired John's handicap so to speak.

I always held the belief that the secret of his exceptionally sweet swing was the enormous amount of ballast he carried in front of his person, a result no doubt of the hazard of innumerable inspections at his various ports of call during each long working day. When this enormous weight was set in motion at the commencement of his takeaway, absolutely nothing could prevent a perfect follow through after the club’s contact with the ball. Alas, when later he trimmed his figure conducting considerable courtship with a younger maiden, his golfing prowess slipped from professional to just excellent, thus proving my ballast theory.

It was John who christened Mr. Puss.

A small black and white kitten adopted my restaurant not long after opening day and enjoyed the fare immensely over the ensuing months. He became my most loyal and frequent patron, becoming as sleek and as svelte as a well groomed aubergine. The kitten paid for his dinners with the only currency he possessed and the rats and mice which visited regularly from the river nearby decreased dramatically in number until they reached an acceptable level.

He and I became firm friends and developed the kind of close personal 'touchy-feely' bond usually only experienced by seasoned rugby players on tour.

Now it is well known that restaurateurs are not allowed to have cats (or dogs for that matter) on the premises. And so it was, that one day whilst John was sipping his strong plunger coffee with a dash of (skimmer) milk on the terrace under the vines after one of his strenuous inspections, that one of the most amazing things I have ever seen in my life happened right in front of my eyes.

Mr Puss was curled up on John's knee being stroked and cosseted as usual, when all of a sudden, he turned into an enormous black and white rabbit and remained a rabbit for the rest of his days, albeit most disinclined to forage on the weeds and wild grasses which grew in abundance on the riverbank and were greatly favoured by the other herbivores. Our rabbit preferred fillet steak.

John and I made a pact to remain silent regarding this phenomenon lest we both be ridiculed by skeptics who don’t believe in miracles; but now that John is no longer with us, I feel his residual spirit enabling me to share this information with you, trusting you too have the faith to believe.

  I found the new housing estate. 

It was one of those stylish new developments where the streets had been designed by a qualified town planner to closely resemble a bowl of spaghetti. They twisted and turned on each other interminably and one's brain became bolognese sauce trying to negotiate the way home to one's loved ones.

The houses all look the same and the people all have the same surname in these new developments. I believe this is a legal requirement so that the Bureau of Census and Statistics can increase its efficiency. Nowadays it just counts the number of suburbs on a map and multiplies by 4,000 and then by three point six. The whole process can be completed in fifteen minutes on an abacus and a lot of taxpayer's money is saved which can then be spent on overseas study tours for the management.

Anyway, I stood amongst the broken bricks and other building detritus in what would become the front garden of number 24, Photocopy Drive. I was watching the carpenters fix the roof. The walls of the new house had recently been completed and the doors and windows were in place. All that was needed to complete the structure was a roof on top (where roofs usually go) and the staples and glue in the corners to hold it all together until the warranty expired.

I watched the tradesmen. 

The tradesmen watched me.

I was the only one who knew what I was doing, standing there in the drizzle.

I was watching.

As was the case at number 24, the walls for the new rear section of Chez Alain were also complete. For several months I had searched creekbeds, road verges, neighbours' gardens and demolition sites, in fact anywhere that I thought I might find similar stone to match the original material that the first owner used when he built the cottage nearly two hundred years ago.

I wanted old stone, not newly quarried stone. It had to be of a particular size and texture and it had to have at least one flat face. Colour was important too. It was a good job I wasn't fussy, because good rocks were thin on the ground so to speak.

Whenever I found one or two stones in my travels that I thought would match, I borrowed them and put them in my car. Some days there was nowhere left to sit because I had come across a goldmine of excellent specimens in an absent friend's backyard and I had quickly loaded them up before he came home and noticed that his retaining wall was missing. I would then try to hatch a pyramid of sharp stones whilst driving erratically at high speed to the old cottage and disembark, disembowelled. Each precious egg was then taken lovingly from the vehicle and put into an appropriate pile according to size and shape, ready for mortaring into place in the new stone addition.

I had never done any stonework before, nor had I done much bricklaying. Chefs don't tend to do a lot of that sort of work in the kitchen. However after attempting and completing the old red brick terrace out the front of Chez Alain, I decided that if the health inspector ever revoked my licence to cook, I could probably make a similar meagre living as a paver. Thus, brimful of confidence in my incredible ability, I decided to tackle the walls myself.

It wasn't really a choice thing. My life savings had long since disappeared and now no one would dare lend me any money for fear of being certified. From here on in, this little black duck would become the plumber, the electrician, the carpenter and the painter. In fact until my cash flow started flowing again, I had to do everything myself AND try not to be caught whilst I was doing it.

I reminded myself that building a wall is simple. All I had to do was balance rocks on top of each other until they were all gone. Easy peasy. I could have read books on the subject, but I knew that artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity and so trusted my own good judgement and set to work.

I was never bothered by the weather when renovating or building outside, but I had a preference for rain rather than sun. I could escape the cold by rugging up, but there was no escape from the heat. So, one very drizzly week, when I thought I had collected (liberated) enough stones after months of searching after dark, I mixed my first batch of mortar.

Stonemasonry is quite easy really, and also fairly quick. All one has to do is put a row of stones down on a foundation, plop some mortar (but not too much) on the first row, then balance another row on top. Repeat ad nauseum.

And some people take a three year apprenticeship to learn that!

One also needs to remember to leave a gap where a door is to go, otherwise one would be a very silly little builder wouldn't one. 

That particular oversight was quickly picked up at the beginning of the third day, so the problem was able to be rectified with only a great deal of difficulty. And doors make it so much easier to enter buildings don't they? Especially if they are the right width. 

That little problem was rectified the following day. 

With even more difficulty.

By the end of the fourth day I was a master builder, laying stone at breakneck speed. But at the end of the fifth day, the word breakneck became more applicable, because in some parts, the wall was head high and whereas I had marvelled at my speed earlier, the pace was now slowing as the work became more difficult and dangerous. I now had to lift extremely heavy stones two metres up in the air, one at a time, very carefully.

It was after a most spiteful incident with a large aggressive cornerstone that I decided to go home and take a break. I deserved one anyway. I had been working in the drizzle for almost a week and had built more than half the wall. I was very proud of myself. A real stonemason would have probably built only half as much as me, perhaps even less.  

That night, in my dreams, I of course completed the wall and the building inspector, the Prime Minister and my mother all sent me letters of congratulation on such a splendid job. 

I awoke to a rather different picture and I now know why stonework is slow and a three year apprenticeship is required. Whereas bricks are porous and absorb moisture like a sponge, stones aren't and don't. Bricks and mortar make an almost instant bond. Stones and mortar don't. So, when mortar is plopped on a stone and another stone is balanced on top, it really does balance. And when the weather is very drizzly, wet and cold, the mortar takes a very long time to set. Days in fact. So when an amazing stonemason builds at twice the speed of light, he also performs (albeit unknowingly) an amazing balancing act. So when he comes to work on the sixth day after a wonderful night's sleep chatting with the Prime Minister in his dreams, he finds an amazingly big pile of rocks and mortar where his high wall used to be. 

So then he looks amongst the pile for the sharpest rock with which to slit his wrists.

Washing half set mortar off rocks after one has painstakingly rescued them one at a time from a slowly setting pile of slop is a very laborious and time consuming job. It's worse than marriage. It takes forever and then you have to start building all over again. Very slowly. There is no divorce.

My stonework was now completed, my wrists had healed and the wall was still upright. And that was why I was standing outside number 24, Photocopy Drive. I was watching. I had no intention of building a roof only to find that it had collapsed during the night. This time I would watch how real tradesmen did it.

And that was why the tradesmen thought I was a complete looney. I had been watching them in silence for seven days now. Just watching with my beady little eyes.

The drizzle was mere coincidence, thoughtfully provided once again in my hour of need by my friend, Mother Nature.

Until a little growth spurt occurring in my late teens, I was relatively short. And even after that, I was still short. Short of money, short of intelligence, but more especially, a little short in height. Suffice to say, when it came time to pitch and fix the roof at Chez Alain, being height challenged was a bit of a hindrance. And during watching week I began to realize that I might need some assistance.

The workmen from number 24, Photocopy Drive had finally told me to remove myself from the premises and stop bothering them or they would call the police. They had begun to get rather edgy of late and they also brandished very nasty looking power tools as they looked down at me threateningly from their lofty positions amid the timberwork high above. So not wishing to upset them further, I obliged; but before leaving, I noticed their ladders leaning up against the wall and so I laid them flat on the ground where no one would accidentally walk into them and hurt themselves. 

I like to help wherever possible, it's in my nature.

Also during watching week, I learned that a roof requires a main beam. This beam runs horizontally (if one remembers to use a spirit level) across the length of the roof. Other bits of wood with funny names like rafters, joists and noggins run at angles from this beam to the tops of the walls. These other pieces of timber hold the main beam in place about two and a half metres in the air above the ceilings, depending on the angle of pitch required, and one is required to swear loudly when hammering these into place. If these bits of wood don't fit very well, or at all, one just uses longer nails or more glue. Like professional carpenters do.

If this sounds too technical and difficult to follow, it really doesn’t matter, because I learned from watching real tradesmen that building a house always follows a set pattern. It is a continuum of mistakes.

The roof tiler blames the carpenter because the roof is out of square. The carpenter blames the bricklayer because the walls aren't plumb. The bricklayer blames the foundation layer because the foundation is not level, is askew or is the wrong size. The foundation layer blames the concrete provider because the mix was too dry, too wet or too late. The house owner blames the neanderthal builder for being too ruggedly handsome and sleeping with his/her partner, and the builder blames the architect because he knows theoretically everything but practically nothing.

When the blaming has stopped, the bank pays the builder twice what the house is worth and gives the proud owners a beautifully hand crafted millstone signifying the size of their mortgage to wear proudly around their necks on an elegant chain for the next forty or fifty years.

This item of high fashion apparel is worn by the house owners to all functions of any social standing and is flaunted outrageously. In fact 'millstoning' as it is termed, has become so popular that banks now issue them in a wide range of designer colours as well. This has the twofold benefit of increasing the house owners' competitive edge in the inevitable social duels which occur at barbecues and the like, and also makes these rock necklaces more attractive to the banks' customers by shifting the focus from the horrendous interest rate to the tonal match with their latest business suit.

Shortly after moving into the mill, one of the players of the home team purchases another aqua, taupe or beige coloured stone with which to furnish the lovenest. The other player then buys a third millstone of at least equal size in British racing green to complete the grounds with trees, shrubs and grasses which die within a few months because they really belong in other parts of the globe where there is better soil, better rainfall, better climate and a better gardener.

My own personal millstone is sculpted in the shape of a cottage and changes colour depending on the season and the angle of the sun.

All this happens beneath the main beam, and that is why it is so incredibly important. I think.

One can rent a very expensive piece of equipment from a building hire company to hold a main beam in place and keep it up in the air and stop it falling down whilst attaching the other parasitic bits of wood. Or, one can hire a Trevor machine.

A Trevor is a very heavy, but versatile four limbed piece of apparatus that was made in the Mediterranean, reared on lasagne, then transported in one piece to Australia in the nineteen fifties. It is not short. It stands almost two metres tall and is therefore eminently suitable for the job in hand. It is also very simple to use, but has one drawback. It needs constant lubrication, otherwise it seizes up and won't work properly. If it is too well lubricated it won't work properly either, so considerable skill on the part of the user is required to maintain the correct balance.

I had my Trevor firmly in place. He was standing on the wooden ceiling, his lower limbs spread to maintain good balance and his upper limbs extended to full stretch, holding the main beam to approximately the correct height.

I could have asked him to raise or lower the height by either standing on a box or squatting a little, but since the beam was incredibly heavy and he would have to hold it up in the air by himself all afternoon, (plus an hour and a half whilst I had lunch and afternoon tea), I decided to accept an approximate height as being near enough. I had no wish to cause him any duress.

All occupational health and safety regulations were met by the provision of one large straw hat to keep the sun off his bald pate, and because he was unable to move his arms, internal lubrication was provided by a heavy goatskin bag fitted with a long flexible drinking straw and filled with forty litres of Trevor's father's famous homemade red wine. 

I hung the bag around his neck to keep the workplace neat and tidy.

I had lured Trevor to the cottage on the pretext that I would teach him carpentry.

A tree had fallen over in his garden, damaging the roof of his garden shed on its way down and it was whilst he was relaying this story to me that I learned that the boy was sadly uninsured for damage caused by storm and tempest. 

Understanding his predicament, I generously offered to teach him how to 'fix' a roof since I now possessed all the required knowledge kindly bequeathed to me by the carpenters who still remained on the roof of number 24, Photocopy Drive.

The boy trusted me.

He now stood immobile, spreadeagled and upright, perched three metres above the ground holding a one tonne beam above his head in the blazing sun. A tube was stuck in his mouth through which he was able to suck almost enough hot liquid to replace that lost to evaporation.

Bubbles rumbled in the goatskin whenever he tried to utter words of thanks, and I believe I must have a gift for teaching, because I think he learned everything he wanted or needed to know that day. He certainly didn’t ask for extra tuition.

I enjoy sharing knowledge, it gives me immense satisfaction knowing that I have added to someone else's life, albeit in a small way.

I am told that Trevor can now move both of his arms freely and is regaining some feeling in the left limb.

The year of writing is now 2004, and the roof of Chez Alain looks just like a bought one. And if one climbs up into the attic and looks in the middle of the main beam, one will find the words 'Big Trev, 1986', written in a neat script by the ambulance man.

With the elapse of time and bucketfuls of money, the old stone cottage began to recapture the beauty and character it had lost over the last half century. Wistaria and glory vines wrapped themselves around the massive wooden posts of the new pergola covering the new red-brick paved terrace. In spring, cascades of perfumed lilac coloured blossoms descended from above, and in Autumn, the falling leaves provided an ever changing carpet of red, yellow-ochre and burnt umber. 

The rough-cut stonework, newly pointed with slate grey mortar, looked as clean and new as the day it was first laid by the pioneer mason two hundred years previously. There was a smart new roof wearing a thick coat of burgundy paint and the renovated woodwork of the fairy-story-book windows had received a heavy splash of creamy beige.

A new wing was added to the rear of the cottage in keeping with the architectural style of the era and the inside walls of it were freshly whitewashed. This room became the main dining room and held about forty patrons. Massive oregon beams rescued from a demolition site now stretched across its length and supported a dark jarrah wood ceiling. The end wall held a huge, feature stained glass window. It was generously manufactured and donated by my younger, more creative sibling, Paul the potter, who like myself had managed to survive the overcrowded nest and fledge successfully.

The other four original rooms each became 'The Private Room', seating 8-10 for meetings or intimate get-togethers; 'The Snug' holding just four tables of two clustered around an open fire and in close proximity to each other; the ‘Reception Room’, complete with a rustic bar fashioned from a three hundred year old redgum log; and ‘The Kitchen’, spartan of course in the true Marie Dubois style.

Previous panoramic views through to the rusted underside of the old roof were now obstructed by new white ceilings, and the winter Roman footbaths in each room had been replaced with freshly lacquered new wooden floors and proper drainage.

Antique lampshades in every room completed the transformation and the nostalgic smells of timber oil, fresh sawdust, candlewax and woodsmoke permeated the air to provide atmosphere.

A bold sign encouraging lovely little tourists to stop for a while was now fixed to the wall facing a car park, bordered of course by a scented hedge of intertwining rosemary and lavender bushes. Chez Marie had changed name by deed poll, migrated to Australia, settled in the Adelaide Hills and had opened for business to trade under the name of Chez Alain s'il vous plaît.

And the Bank was justifiably proud of its new possession.

The crane arrived on a Tuesday morning at 7.00 a.m. sharp, exactly one hour late. Normally I would be in my fourth hour of fitful slumber at that hour of the morning, contemplating the stupidity of drinking two or three cups of strong coffee just before retiring; however, in a moment of madness several months earlier, I had telephoned an air conditioning company to enquire about a special offer I had seen advertised in the local newspaper. It seemed that for the equivalent cost of several large established houses in a good suburb, I could purchase one of their superb machines in order to provide my clients with a controlled atmosphere in which to relax.

Much like apples in cold storage.

For a small surcharge, the company offered to immediately install this 'Winter Special for Summer Comfort'. An offer I found too good to refuse. 

I must have been drunk or recently returned from a revivalist meeting with a feeling of goodwill to all salesmen, because I signed the wretched contract I was presented with and so began the eternal wait for the appointed day of delivery, which was almost ‘immediately’, but still in plenty of time for summer. 

Hah! Of course the appointed day of delivery had long gone by the time I received the phone call to say the unit would be arriving the next day, and if at all convenient, would I please be in attendance on the premises to have all in readiness for the installers at, say, 6 a.m.?

The liar inside my head said he would be most happy to oblige and asked the young girl in her second day of work experience if she would pass on my fondest regards to the salesman who had been studiously avoiding me for several weeks now. With any luck, if the delivery actually did happen, it would be just in time for the third heatwave of a summer that had come a tad early this year.

Two interminable hours elapsed.

At exactly 9.00 a.m., a spotty young apprentice holding a caution flag was stationed in the middle of the road attempting to control the morning traffic. The morning traffic didn't wish to be controlled and was making that fact evident to the apprentice by repetitive blasts of car horns. It was far too early in the morning for this sort of noise and order was restored by the crane driver, a red headed man of prodigious proportions sporting very colourful pictures of skulls and snakes on the exposed parts of his body. He was also wearing a nose ring once used by a large Hereford bull. He approached the driver of the leading vehicle and politely asked for his understanding for several minutes whilst the air conditioner was winched over the roof to the other side of the building.

The driver complied. He was scared of cattle.

There were two pieces of equipment; one was the motor, the other was the heat exchanger. The motor was installed outside on a flat part of the roof above the toilets, but the heat exchanger took up residence on the ceiling in the attic, directly above the main dining room and was connected to outlets in all rooms by long tubes of very special, very expensive and very flimsy tinfoil, which I was assured would last forever or thereabouts. Approximately. 

I was assured of this by the same salesman who had guaranteed the delivery date.

The only thing I was really sure of, was that it couldn't fall through the ceiling and kill anyone dining below, because although the plank ceiling was made of old and recycled timber, it was supported by massive oversize beams, and a truck could be safely parked up there. 

I think.

And of course, it had previously supported a very heavy Trevor machine.

Unloading was accomplished in a few minutes, just as the bull had promised, and he rode off in the crane to rejoin his herd. Three electricians and one spotty apprentice then set about attaching blue wires to green wires and red wires to brown wires until there weren't too many loose wires left.

I, meanwhile, sat on the terrace thinking of all the holidays I could have taken with the thousands of dollars I had spent on this latest piece of hi-tech. My last significant item of expenditure had been a state of the art security system which was so good, it let every neighbour within a radius of ten kilometres know whenever a large moth or ant entered the building after hours. Not only were the neighbours enlightened, but the automatic dial-out feature also alerted both the police and myself of this significant event so that we could drive at breakneck speed to the premises and swat the intruder with a rolled up newspaper.

The restaurant hadn't been open very long, but it possessed the three most important things in business. Location, location, location.

Thousands of cars passed my premises every week on the way to goodness knows where. It didn't really matter where they were going, just as long as their curiosity was aroused and an enquiry was made at a later date.

Sure enough, the phone started to ring more regularly and local business houses began to make enquiries for their Christmas parties. I sent them a standard response, detailing the size of the restaurant, the number of rooms, maximum seating, cost per head, some usual menu items and standard starting and finishing times. I always included a sample dinner menu which was stamped 'For style only. Subject to daily change', in red ink across the diagonal.

Those businesses wishing to make a group booking would then appoint a competent organizer who would decide on a set menu with two or three choices of main course. The next day, the company accountant would telephone and say that the same menu could be purchased much cheaper elsewhere. On top of that, his boss had eleven children in good private schools and also needed a new headsail for his yacht. It was the poor accountant's job to (a) cut my price in half, and, seeing as how my business was only new, (b) tell me I should be grateful for their patronage. 

Having worked in restaurants all my life I knew that this was standard procedure, and so I made the standard response. The accountant was extremely happy with the offer of a free dinner for two at a later date and after a small adjustment to the tariff, the final menu and specific seating arrangements were entered in the appointment book. And a copy was sent to the organizer.

Quite straightforward. 

Very simple.

What could possibly go wrong?

The first employees of Harbottle Smyth Pty. Ltd., arrived for their Christmas function. It was late December and humid. The temperature outside was forty degrees Celsius, however inside the restaurant, it was a cool twenty-one. And it would stay that way too thanks to my brand new million dollar reverse cycle airconditioner and my attentive staff who rushed to the front door to close it whenever an idiotic guest left it wide open. Even the kitchen, normally a sauna, was maintained at a constant twenty-one, enabling Amanda, my voluptuous young kitchenhand to remain fully clothed, (much to the chagrin of Andrew, my youthful head-waiter and chief of staff).

There were eight earlybirds. Guests had been expected at seven thirty as arranged, but this (loud) party, led by Mr Giovanni AlfaRometti, had been fortunate enough to possess extremely fast cars and thus arrive a full three quarters of an hour before the organizer and the rest of the party were expected.

I received them warmly. I had to. They just stood in the doorway and marvelled at the cool temperature inside whilst the outside air rushed in past the motionless guests in an attempt to cool itself. I was par-boiled by the time I had dragged them all inside and handed them over to Andrew. 

At twenty one years of age, Andrew was completing his fifth degree at university. He had been working for me since he first started his tertiary studies at age nine, and was considered by most to be fairly bright. Unfortunately he had a bad habit of using his initiative. I recently learned that this can be cured by a term of employment in any government department and so I shall write to him accordingly, advising of this fact. I hope he finds it most helpful. 

Mr AlfaRometti and his entourage were given their complimentary glass of champagne and shown through into the main dining room.

As discussed, arranged and contracted with the organizer, (who was not yet present), the restaurant had been set for tables of six. Nine tables of six. Fifty four persons in total. Confirmed numbers.

A knock at the door signalled the arrival of more early comers and they were, as luck would have it, a considerable number of Mr now extremely Ebullienti's closest friends. Andrew dragged them inside and shut the door. He poured the bubbles, gave them a glass each, then ushered them through to the main dining room to join their jovial amigo. He then returned to the kitchen to assist staff with their preparations.

Simple. 

Everything totally under control.

No sooner had he commenced helping, another knock was heard. What a lot of earlybirds, we thought.

On this occasion neither Andrew nor myself were fast enough to beat Mr now extremely Ebullienti to the door. He welcomed the remainder of his closest friends and asked if they would like champagne. The reply "Does a one legged duck swim in circles?" indicated the affirmative, whereupon Giovanni requested several bottles from the bar.

I was partway through my explanation that there was just one glass per person when the literate Giovanni pulled a photocopy of the agreed function menu from his inside jacket pocket. He stabbed with his finger at the bottom line which read, and I quote, 'Complimentary champagne on arrival'. My literate buddy made it quite clear to me that the word 'glass' made no appearance in the text and therefore he and his colleagues had arrived early in order to be well and truly complemented by the time the food or the other guests arrived, whichever was the earlier.

Everything was now not totally under control.

There is always one more imbecile than you counted on, and dear Giovanni proved the rule. However, before he could work himself into a lather, a couple of extra bottles of shampoo were supplied and we returned to the kitchen, allowing our new 'Maître de' to ply his skills with his friends in the dining room.

Several minutes later, Andrew showed his initiative and went to check on the revellers, only to find that it was not only him who had been showing initiative. Giovanni, it seemed, possessed that same quality by the bucketful, and seeing that some silly fool had set lots of little tables of six instead of big ones, he had enlisted the strongest of his workmates to assist in rearranging the tables so that his own group could all sit together and enjoy each other's company at close quarters.

A bit like sheep in a pen.

They had done well, and those of his group used to eating with a knife and fork had even managed to arrange some of the cutlery. The lace tablecloths had presented some difficulty, but with the assistance of some of the more female looking guests, the leftover tablecloths had been folded and carefully placed in piles with the superfluous cutlery on some of the other tables.

We sensed control slipping away.

It was whilst we were surveying this mayhem that the rest of the group and the organizer arrived. They were thirsty and hungry, requiring champagne (which we had aplenty) and requiring a seat each. Unfortunately Mr Algebrati wasn't as numerate as he was literate and had neglected to notice that every time he joined two tables together, the two end places were lost. When this process was repeated five times to accommodate a whole herd of bovines at one long table, ten places were lost. Quite simple mathematics really. Unfortunately Mr Algebrati wasn't quite that simple and noticed no problems whatsoever. On the other hand, the organizer and the newly arrived did notice otherwise. Able to find chairs but no table to match, they began to complain in a loud voice about the lack of organization.

Mr Agitati et al looked on and agreed, offering to call for more champagne and fresh glasses to smooth the situation for the organizer. Andrew, bless his little heart, referred the organizer to Mr Antagonisti who had rearranged the dining room and suggested they discuss the matter of seating arrangements together.

All staff then retired immediately to the haven of the kitchen until the sounds of scraping furniture died away completely and we felt it safe to return. A few people still sat on laps, but at least everyone now had a seat of a sort at each table.

They say bad luck comes in threes.

We were up to number six.

Chez Alain was a non-smoking restaurant, a fact usually apparent to even the most feeble minded patron. It was signified by a plethora of signage stuck on every vertical surface, a wholesome smell, and a total absence of ashtrays on tabletops.

Unhindered by this information, Mr Affluenti reached into the infamous inside pocket of his (smoking) jacket and extracted a fine Havana which was lit with a flourish. His personal assistant, Mr Elephanti, (who was equipped with a more ordinary, but no less offensive article), let out a piercing whistle to attract Andrew's attention. It certainly attracted Andrew's attention. And mine. And everyone else's not in possession of a perforated eardrum.

The collective question from the animal kingdom was 'Where can we put our cigarette butts?'

Before Andrew could use his initiative and tell sir the exact location where sir could put the items, I intervened, advising sir of sir's infraction and suggested both he and Mr Alfresco promenade on the terrace whilst indulging.

The front door was left wide open on the way out.

Of course.

Everything nearly out of control.

Andrew took out his notepad and began to take food orders from our carefree little group. The menu, as discussed and agreed with the organizer, had been developed on the KISS principle (keep it simple, stupid), and so it contained three choices - beef, chicken and fish, all cooked to perfection à la mode, and featured Marie Dubois' special sauces.

Mr Affluenti finished his expensive cigar and returned to the fold, (leaving the front door wide open on the way in). He was a hungry little boy and was looking forward to his din-dins. 

I really should have offered him a job on the spot, because not only could he pour and serve drinks, he was also extremely attentive to the comfort of my other guests. Noticing that the inside room temperature was beginning to climb, he turned the air conditioner thermostat to two degrees above freezing, thus obviating the necessity to keep closing the front door. What initiative.

Andrew now approached Mr Affronti for his order.

'Will sir be having the beef, the chicken or the fish?

'Lasagne' was his reply.

Although all semblance of control had now disappeared, Andrew was not just a pretty face. In fact he was not a pretty face at all, but he did have initiative. With complete equanimity, he enquired as to whether any of the other assembled primates wished to have a serve of special 'Christmas Lasagne'. Two or three raised hairy arms to signify assent. Andrew solemnly wrote down the order and delivered it to the kitchen.

He looked quite smug.

On this occasion he had been unusually brilliant. 

Several months previously, we had held a staff bonding session on the premises and Andrew had contributed two large lasagnes baked by his little sister Fiona which she had made at her home-economics lesson at school. She had made others before and that is why the family suggested Andrew take them away. After consuming half of one, we all felt very bonded indeed and the remaining gem had been consigned to the freezer. Thereafter it had been used as a temporary doorstop whenever the need arose. So, before you could say "Defrost in a microwave," Andrew had prepared a meal fit for a thing. Or more particularly, four things in the dining room. 

He was so cool under pressure.

The kitchen was now in full swing with mains. I had hoped that this function would be memorable and that other custom would flow from word of mouth advertising, but it now seemed unlikely. The best I could hope for now was to finish the evening in time to go to midnight mass and seek absolution for the thoughts I had been having for the last hour which involved Mr Alcoholi on all fours and a long pointed stick. Certainly worth at least a hundred Hail Marys. And I’m not Catholic.

Andrew poked his little blonde head through the door and interrupted my train of thought by asking for a bucket. I directed him to the laundry and continued with my work at a frenetic pace. Five minutes later, he popped his cute little head around the door again, with the same request. I stopped what I was doing and thought. 

I thought 'Don't ask why'.

I offered him a large saucepan and returned to my work a somewhat troubled chef. A few minutes later he reappeared just long enough to hoist the two largest saucepans from the uppermost shelf and exited just as quickly. On his fourth visit, I could contain myself no longer, and asked “Why, Andrew?” 

I didn't really want him to reply, but he replied anyway.

He told me that there was a leak, but it was all under control now and I could return to my cooking and not worry about it.

I am not prone to involuntary flatulation, but something inside me was trying to escape. I was hoping it was nothing more than a small scream for help, but the growing unease in my stomach told me that Andrew had been using his initiative again and more than one large scream might be in order. I downed tools and followed my chief of staff to the dining room.

Tables had been deftly moved from the centre of the room and had been repositioned wherever they could fit around the perimeter. Some of those patrons in receipt of their main course ate in a bemused state from their laps, others ate in a more regular restaurant fashion from relocated tables.

A large woollen blanket that Andrew had fetched from his car lay spread out in the centre of the room. It had managed to soak up a great deal of the water that lay in pools upon the slate floor. The bucket and four large saucepans were strategically arranged on the blanket to collect most of the water which poured down in small rivulets from small cracks in the wooden plank ceiling at one end of the room, however the water was progressing at a steady pace through similar cracks and knotholes towards the ceiling fan in the centre of the dining room.

Mr extremely Effervescenti and associates were once again seated at one long table, laughing their heads off, using their empty champagne glasses for ashtrays.

As I stood transfixed, the river pouring down from above reached the middle of the room, and began to flood through the hole that had been bored through the ceiling planks in order to install the fan. Unfortunately, the large fan located immediately below the hole was in operation. It had been turned on at the beginning of the evening to assist with air circulation. And, as I watched, the slowly rotating blades now began to assist with water distribution as well as air circulation. A bit like a like a horizontal water wheel, and within a very short space of time, every client was being given a cooling shower. Continuously. Whether they wanted one or not.

Customer comfort is absolutely paramount at Chez Alain.

The best was yet to come. A lady patron who had obviously been to university and majored in electrical engineering made the connection between electricity, water and human bodies and began to scream hysterically that we were all going to die of electrocution if we touched each other. Fortunately her screaming broke my trance and I strode to the centre of the room and placed a chair under the fan. I then mounted the chair and firmly grasped one of the rattan blades.

The little fan motor promptly expired and water streamed down onto my head.

This was no doubt the time to show my leadership skills to Andrew. He looked up to me, (but only because I was still standing on the chair). So I dismounted. Without a word, I walked outside, beckoning him to follow. There was no need to beckon twice, no one in control of all his faculties would have wanted to stay a moment longer than absolutely necessary in that catastrophic room.

Out of earshot to all but Andrew, I issued my instructions. Firstly, distribute more than enough champagne to get everyone completely legless. Secondly, laugh loudly. Thirdly, send out for a box of cigars and distribute them generously.

He was brilliant. He laughed so much, even I thought it was funny. Mr Effluenti joined in until he fell off his chair and onto his friends at repose on the floor. Others began a game of 'Toss the spoons into the bucket of water', and one skillful lady managed to score multiple points with one of my fine china saucers. I even complimented her on her dexterity.

The bubbly did its job. We managed to avert a riot and just after midnight, we poured the lot of them into taxis, promising to look after their cars in the car park until the following day.

Nothing mattered anymore. 

We turned up the music, drank champagne and feasted on the leftovers. Amanda lit up a cigar and we laughed until the tears came. 

There was no semblance of control at all.

The next day, a trip to the attic found the cause of the problem. A drip tray was situated directly under the heat exchanger and collected all the water taken from the humid atmosphere in the restaurant. A small diameter pipe took the water outside the building from the drip tray. During installation, a small piece of insulation material had managed to block the drainage pipe. The tray filled with water, then overflowed. The rest is history.

A letter arrived from Harbottle Smyth Pty. Ltd. a few days later. I had been expecting it and had been in constant contact with both my insurers and my lawyer. However, the contents of the epistle took me by surprise. Harbottle's staff had all agreed that it was the most memorable evening they had ever had and would like to rebook for the following year.

Everything once again totally under control.

Note:- When one has an intellect as sharp as mine, one has to keep one's business methods extremely simple so that the two are compatible. 

Accordingly, I have only ever hired waiting staff (except Andrew) with a similar mental capacity to that of myself. That is to say they had to be used to walking in the upright position for extended periods and had to be able to count up to twenty without the removal of footwear. Usually university students studying medicine.

Fortunately for most, the entrance exam for a job at Chez Alain was simple. It consisted of just one night's trial, and at the end of the night, those who believed that a well balanced meal was one which arrived at the dining table on the same plate as that on which it left the kitchen, were the ones that could cut the mustard, so to speak. The remainder, which was the majority, were thanked profusely for their efforts and rewarded with a bottle of wine. Their names were also taken, just in case they managed to pass medicine and I was unfortunate enough to get sick within their jurisdiction.

The lissome Amanda was one such young hopeful. She was upright and honest, fair of face, and amongst other items of considerable interest, was in possession of nature's full quota of digits.

One particularly busy Saturday night, Amanda was teamed with the experienced Andrew. They were to work the main dining room together and as is the usual custom in the restaurant trade, they split the workload between themselves instead of both serving the same patrons. The experienced Andrew took the majority of tables, leaving just two for little Amanda owing to her amateur status. He also believed that if he could impress her with his prowess at being able to handle a huge workload, he would be in with a chance at the end of the evening. However that is another very interesting tale which I shall leave for another time, for I fear it would cause me to digress and there is neither time nor space to go into the finer details of that particular saga. In this story anyway. 

The main reason for allocating only a small workload to trainees was to increase their confidence, for once they realized they could successfully serve four or even six patrons throughout the course of a whole evening, they gained enough self belief to return for another bout of equally oppressive work the following week. The fact that their mother had probably managed to do the same for their own family every night with her eyes closed for the last twenty years totally escaped them. Nontheless, at the close of business, the trainee or potential employee was duly congratulated on a magnificent effort and some improvements were tactfully suggested which might prove mutually beneficial in their future endeavours within the confines of a busy and bustling dining room. 

Improvements such as - 

1. Salt and pepper pots, although made of very elegant china and a striking feature of every table, are not usually required with dessert and their removal is unlikely to bring howls of protest from even the most truculent of patron.

2. Patrons sitting at the same table tend to wish to eat on the same day as each other, so the taking of extended toilet breaks whilst delivering six maincourses to one table is not usually viewed with favour, (even if one dilligently washes one's hands several times with both hot water and soap and informs the patrons of that fact). 

3. When laughing uproariously at a customer's joke, please try not to spit. 

4. When a customer asks your opinion of the lambs' brains, DO NOT give your opinion of the lambs' brains.

5. All rings should be removed before service. This includes those located in eyebrows and noses.

Snippets of information such as these, when tactfully pointed out in this sensitive manner, always help put the potential new employee at ease and make him/her really feel an integral part of the team. This is very important.

Amanda was one who had survived my little training session and I thought she would work well with Andrew. One could tell at a glance that she was far from intellectually challenged. In fact, even before the end of her first trial evening, I felt that in a few years' time when she became a doctor, I could quite confidently be sick in her waiting room. 

And so it was that night, with the confidence of knowing I had extremely capable staff, I engrossed myself with my cheffing duties in the hot kitchen and paid particular attention to the placement of the garnish as is so incredibly important to a chef who has had the benefit of French influence.

Tables have table numbers. 

This makes it much easier when waiting staff are delivering food. One doesn't have to say "Take this to the fat bald man by the windows" and suchlike. It is so much easier to say "Table three, the table with the fat bald man by the windows!"

However, from time to time, table numbers are wont to change due to differing seating configurations, and so each table is equipped with an enchanting Art Deco 'gizmo' signifying its specific number for that particular evening's service. These beautiful gizmos are provided gratis to all establishments willing to accept a particular brand of credit card. Of course once an establishment has enough gizmos, the establishment no longer accepts that particular card. 

This is an industry rule.

Tables in the main dining room that evening contained gizmos numbered from one to eleven. Amanda was allocated numbers three and four, and Andrew took the rest. Other staff serviced the Private Room and The Snug. 

We were busy. Very busy. Fully booked. Chock-a-block. The sort of night, dear reader, where garnish placement reaches its zenith of importance as you will no doubt become aware should you have the pleasure of visiting a romantic 'Ooh-la-la' restaurant such as mine in the middle of nowhere on a very busy night.

Orders came into the kitchen thick and fast and soon my order board was full. Amanda had performed brilliantly and had successfully extracted dinner orders from a total of six people, two from table three and four from table four, whereas Andrew was being somewhat tardy with his quota of forty two garrulous patrons who were insisting on enjoying themselves. 

In fact Amanda had performed so well that I sweetly suggested if she could find the time, she could perhaps lend a hand with the small township Andrew was trying valiantly to assist. The young lass gave me a winning smile and vanished through the crushed velvet curtains to render assistance to her hero.

Apart from her extreme good looks, her excellent attitude and her quick mind, Amanda had one other quality I enjoyed. She had legible handwriting, and whereas Andrew's looked like a slug had committed a misdemeanour on a piece of paper, Amanda's looked as clear and legible as the address on the envelope one receives from the police department for one's speeding fines.

I quickly disposed of the orders for tables THREE and FOUR. Then came table FIVE, - one chicken, two rabbits, one beef pie. An excellent piece of work, obviously an order from my new trainee who had found herself capable of a massive increase in workload. The writing was as clear and legible as the two previous orders and was just as quickly attended to by the busy chef. What's more, the lovely waitress took the beautifully cooked meals to the grateful patrons whilst they were still hot and the busy chef continued with his work, laughing and whistling to himself all the while as busy chefs do on a Saturday night in a hot kitchen. The completed order docket for table five was then forwarded to its place of eternal rest in the waste bin along with other bits of equally useful debris and detritus from incoming plates. 

It was about thirty minutes later that another main course order was completed. It was for table SIX and was written in slug script - one beef pie, two rabbits and one chicken.

The shrill 'Ping' of the service bell indicated that Andrew's order for table SIX was ready, and he duly collected the meals and disappeared into the ether. Meanwhile, moi, the whistling chef, continued at a frenetic pace and had the next two tables ready to go by the time a perplexed Andrew returned with the meals which had so recently embarked on their short journey from the kitchen to their intended destination in the dining room where they were to meet their oral demise. They were untouched. Undemised, so to speak.

I sensed a problem, and in my most caring and sharing way, asked whether or not I might be of assistance to the young man.

He dutifully informed me that table six was already eating.

At this point in time, I might point out that if I do have one major failing, it is that I am known far and wide for possessing the patience of a saint, and so in my usual dulcet and tolerant tone, I suggested that he was mistaken. I continued to say that it would be obvious to even the dimmest of garden gnomes that table SIX could not possibly be eating because he was at that very moment holding all their meals in his hot sticky little hands and would he therefore please return from whence he came and dispose of said meals. And, if he would be so kind, I would consider it a great favour if he would please be quick about it because there were now several more meals to deliver to other tables and they were getting cold. 

I sensed that my renowned patience was beginning to show through my sweet smile and the abashed Andrew departed immediately, only to return again minutes later, laden with the same four exceptionally well garnished maincourses.

At this point in time, since I have already shared some of my innermost personal character traits with your good self, dear reader, I feel I ought to make mention of one other, albeit more minor quality that I possess, even at the great cost of laying bare my soul to you. I have an excellent sense of foreboding, and at that very moment I guessed Andrew was about to tell me that once again he had taken the food to the wrong table. Sure enough, right on cue, he confirmed my thoughts.

I am a gentle man by nature and I abhor violence, especially within the close confines of a commercial kitchen where costly breakages might occur and upset me. So in order to avoid any such problems, I searched for and found Andrew's completed order in the bin where all completed orders are duly filed. I carefully removed the small pieces of salad and flecks of gravy adhering to the paper and handed the correspondence to its author with an instruction to solve the problem because I didn't want to see those meals ever again. The order, written in his inimitable handwriting, plainly stated 'Table SIX, one chicken, two rabbits and a beef pie.' 

I may be mistaken, but I do believe Andrew thanked me for my show of equilibrium and he once more departed carrying one beef pie, two rabbits and one chicken.

It would have been a good ten minutes later that an unmistakable sense of foreboding began to gnaw at my ulcer. The usual hubbub which emanated from the dining room was considerably reduced and Andrew was noticeable by his extended absence. I sensed something was wrong.

Sure enough, Amanda popped into the kitchen to cheerfully announce a little mix-up had occurred and provided me with the simple explanation. It was all my fault really. I had misnumbered the tables.

Whilst she was assisting Andrew with his workload as I had earlier requested, she had made the logical assumption that his table number FIVE would follow her table number FOUR and she had taken its order. Unfortunately, her assumption was wrong. There was no art deco gizmo loudly proclaiming a table with the number FIVE that evening. She had in fact taken the order for table SIX as the gizmo next to the cruet set screamed out to her, but had mistakenly labelled it FIVE on the kitchen order form because she thought my numbering system was silly. 

She had also neglected to inform Andrew that she had helpfully taken his table's order because she didn't want to hurt his feelings because "you know what men are like when they need help from a woman". 

She continued to say that Andrew for his part had dutifully taken the order for his table SIX and the stupid, stupid patrons hadn't told him that their order had already been quite professionally taken by the very competent Amanda. And so of course when Andrew delivered the meals to his table SIX, they of course were already noshing on the fare provided by herself because it really should have been table FIVE.

It was all quite simple really,

I thanked the young maiden for her eloquent explanation of my stupidity and incompetence and continued with my work for several seconds until I remembered that I had told Andrew to solve the problem.

I prayed that Andrew was not using his initiative again and I bolted for the dining room where I was met by my beaming young man holding a plate of rabbit casserole aloft, cajoling the diners with the aplomb of a most experienced auctioneer to take this last sumptuous meal off his hands. It was, ladies and gentlemen, a once in a lifetime opportunity.

My look of shock must have caused him some consternation, for he immediately reassured me that all was well. He had in fact managed to offload the chicken dish to a man on table eight who would eat it before his entrée arrived, one of the rabbits to a gentleman who was only halfway through his dessert and seated at table three, and the beef pie to a rather stout lady on table one who had enjoyed that very same dish not two weeks earlier and who said she would eat it right after she had polished off her Rainbow Trout poached in champagne. 

Andrew assured me it would only be a matter of minutes before he found the remaining dish found a good home. It was all a matter of salesmanship.

I returned to my kitchen praying it was all a bad dream.

A growing business usually has many strings to its marketing bow. My business was no exception.

Friday and Saturday nights had become extremely popular, requiring patrons to book at least two weeks in advance to secure a seat and four or five weeks in advance for their favourite table. Latecomers and other unfortunates lucky enough to incur the displeasure of the proprietor were seated with much grace and fanfare next to the toilets or the front door, where they were able to avail themselves of continual zephyrs of reasonably fresh air created by the constant arrivals and departures of the more preferred guests, or those with enough foresight and intellect to book.

If my memory serves me correctly, a famous politician once said that the general public doesn't have the brains of a sheep. This is not so. They do have the brains of a sheep, and it is interesting to reflect on those patrons who started at the front door and who with successive visits over several years, gradually worked their way to the prime seats next to the fire in 'The Snug' by very slowly learning the booking procedure. These four tables and the single table in the 'Private Room' were quite special and reserved for only my very best customers.

The ambience in those two rooms was as romantic and intimate as the warm lingering caress of one's favourite lover, and it wasn't only the embers of the fire that were glowing and warm to the touch at the end of the evening when the once tall candles peeped over the rims of their holders, signalling the time to repair to the warmth of the electric blanket at home and continue muted conversations in much more privacy and at much closer quarters.

Ah! Romance. 

The very thought of it pressed all the buttons of my cash register.

Sunday lunch had also become a very popular session, but after the 4pm exodus, the restaurant was silent and many were the occasions I checked the telephone to see whether or not the line had been cut.

It seemed no-one wanted to dine with us on Sunday evenings. All the little tourists had scurried home to their lodgings in the big city far away. The locals were in their domiciles, preparing to retire early in order to be fully rested by next morning, ready for another week of arduous toil in the saltmines to earn the mortgage money. The younger carefree and hormonal generation just preferred to sustain themselves with a simple meal of fermented hops obtained from the local hostelry.

Necessity is the mother of invention, ergo Sunday night 'Romantic dinners for two' in 'The Snug' were created and added to my marketing mix. They consisted of a sumptuous three course cordon-bleu dinner, plus coffee, for romantically malnourished couples. Excellent wine was included, and all at an excellent price for all concerned. Given the atmosphere supplied by the candles, the dim lighting, the Persian rug wall hangings and the roaring fire in the cosy confines of the restaurant's tiny premier room, the four tables were eagerly sought. 

I especially remember one particular couple, obviously unmarried because they were deeply in love. When booking for their fifth or sixth visitation, they asked whether or not they could have the table in the 'Private Room' for their Sunday night dinner.

Although immediately adjacent to 'The Snug', this room was seldom used on Sunday evenings since it contained just one table, always set for eight or ten. Four each side and one at either end.

The couple were however excellent customers who always tipped well and so Monsieur was naturellement most happy to oblige. Places were set at opposite ends of the highly polished antique cedar table and a large ornate silver candelabrum with seven candles was acquired to grace the centre.

Owing to work commitents, they made their particular booking for quite late in the evening, at a time when the other Romeos and Juliets would be either desserting or deserting, but I considered this to be more of a bonus than a drawback, because it would allow me more time for preparation and therefore less stress in the kitchen.

The evening duly arrived and as always, romance filtered through the ventilation system and into the pre-dinner drinks. Things were progressing quite swimmingly in The Snug when my last couple arrived. They too had been swimming before their arrival at my establishment.....................underwater in a vat of gin and for quite a while too by the looks of things, and being unable to hold their collective breaths for extended periods, they had unfortunately suffered the misfortune of swallowing large amounts of the liquid when they surfaced gasping for air or extra slices of lemon.

The physical exertion of swimming whilst fully attired in evening dress must have been very taxing for them, for it was with most unsteady legs that my two guests shuffled into 'The Private Room' and gingerly took their seats. 

Eventually, their eyes met across the table and recognising each other almost immediately, they began to whisper 'I love you', sotto voce. A murmur only just audible to myself far off in the kitchen, but thankfully much clearer to the rest of the clientele seated nearby in 'The Snug'. And this endearing refrain was repeated at regular intervals for the next thirty minutes.

For everyone’s entertainment.

The other diners quickly took their leave, relinquishing the pleasure of that melodious chant to me, the lifeguard, and I was left with the high probability of a very, very long evening with a fascinating crossword puzzle in the privacy of the kitchen, whilst my remaining two paramours slobbered over each other within earshot.

It is at this juncture that I digress dear reader.

Bear with me…….

Bread has two fascinating properties.

University tests have proved that if a loaf is lowered into a sterile plastic bucket containing exactly thirteen litres of fluid, only one and one quarter litres of fluid remains in the bucket when the loaf is removed. This experiment was found to hold true no matter what size of loaf was used, however wholemeal bread did sometimes soak up less than white bread, depending on the amount of residual yeast after baking. 

That night, my knowledge of this little known fact, so educationally provided by the collective skills of twelve governmentally funded PhD students, proved invaluable. And, within a short space of time, one little complementary freshly baked sourdough roll (with just a smear of unsalted butter) had managed to absorb four or five litres of the offending gin, plus a half bottle of tonic (probably swallowed by mistake). Thus, before the entrée of smoked salmon crêpe gâteau had been completely demolished, our loving couple was still amorous, but a little steadier on their feet as between mouthfuls they traversed the short distance between each other to deliver reasonably well aimed kisses to several anatomical regions of the other party. Telltale smears of lipstick and salmon pinpointed the direct hits.

Entrée was followed by lean thigh of duckling, braised in a black soy/onion sauce with an infusion of rosemary. Fresh asparagus and yellow button squash were the accompaniments, as was a bottle of exceptional McLaren Vale Petit Verdot. 

My tactful and much repeated offer of a further basketfull of rolls each to enjoy with the wine was declined, and a short while later saw our almost legless little tadpoles sniggering at each other through the candelabrum and blowing wet kisses across the length of the table. My crossword puzzle in the kitchen became more and more fascinating.

I took the fine china littered with the debris from their maincourses to the safety of the kitchen and quickly returned with a simple crème brulée, staying only long enough to watch the start of a very charming routine which they had probably practised together regularly at the beach with warm chips when sober.

A spoonful of wobbly dessert was lovingly but laboriously transported the length of the table by one of the party, where the majority of it was deposited into the gaping beak of its anticipating mate. Bits that tumbled to the floor soon disappeared from view. They were spread by the shuffling feet that had begun to wear a deep rut in the wooden floor. 

I had retired once more to finish my crossword and had taken several extra minutes to tidy the kitchen, stack the dishwasher with intact china, sweep the floor and commence the ritual of coffee making for my guests, whilst the turtledoves billed and cooed in the privacy of the Private Room. Nothing,dear reader, absolutely nothing, can beat the nostril flaring aroma of freshly ground and brewed top quality coffee and I always looked forward to that time of the evening for two reasons. Firstly and most importantly, it meant the guests would soon be gone and I might be able to catch the last half of the football replay. Secondly, I could make a strong cup for myself and relax whilst I contemplated the day's events and the morrow's requirements.

A time for quiet reflection.

Drugged to the eyeballs with caffeine.

I entered the Private Room bearing two plungers of New Guinea's finest medium roast, and distinctly remember two specific events which immediately followed. 

(A) I remember asking 'Would you like your coffee now?'

(B) I also remember noting with horror that the candelabrum had been relocated to the side of the room, hard up against the Persian rug wall hanging and small brown spots were beginning to appear on the rug where the flames were invading its personal space. 

Those two events are imprinted indelibly in my mind.

All the more so because of the fact that my two guests were now fully occupied with each other on the table, and by using rudimentary mathematics I was able to count ten toes up and ten toes down.

I immediately did three things, all of which went unnoticed by my preoccupied guests. Firstly, I reached forward and removed the candelabrum. Secondly, I returned the coffee to the kitchen, and thirdly, I turned up the volume on my radio and caught the last fifteen minutes of talkback gardening which was appropriately about sowing spring seeds.

Neither of the party questioned the magnitude of the account they were presented with an appropriate time later, nor did they ask for coffee, being now quite replete. I took the liberty of telephoning a taxi for them and returning to the safe harbour of my kitchen, I opened a fresh packet of the strongest Brazillian coffee I could find.

Considering what I had just seen, I thought a nice Brazillian seemed to be in order.

Most nights when I wasn't open for business, I would be alone in the kitchen preparing dishes for the following day or re-stocking the freezer for future functions. Elvira, the ghost who inhabited the building would keep me company, and from time to time remind me of her presence with loud creaks and groans, the result of which was a considerable volume of soiled clothing for the laundry. 

My restaurant was developing quite a name for itself in the district for the variety of game which appeared regularly on the menu, and with my background it was no surprise to me that this was so. Creativity had become instinctive since childhood for I survived my youth as the second of eight, by trading food at mealtimes with my six brothers and sisters. I say only six and not seven because I no longer fancied the excellent breast milk still being partaken by the baby, plus it also would have involved tactful negotiations with an adult third party.

Fixed price contracts were entered into prior to being seated at the very long dining room table, but more casual deals were done in situ with a surreptitious glance or a slight nod of the head. On Wednesdays, I could swap a small potato (they were in constant demand) with my siblings, for three or four brussels sprouts. Of course the brussels sprouts could never be on-traded, so I learned to enjoy them, washed down quickly with a beaker of water. Wednesdays meant I would survive throughout Thursday and possibly until Friday when with any luck, sprouts would once more be on the menu.

As I grew older, but not much heavier, I began to augment the family diet with meat. I caught pigeons, rabbits, ducks, fieldmice and tiny slow marsupials. In fact our diet became so varied, my mother began to entertain the hope that the majority of her offspring might survive. The local farmers however, from whom the majority of this protein had been liberated, did not.

This night, I was dressing game. It was almost duck season and so the larder contained several fresh wild ducks, the ubiquitous bunnies, a dozen fat little stubble quail, and a very large hare which had been gifted to me by Henry, a short sighted friend and neighbour who had shot it on his property by mistake thinking it was an impala. He was an enormous, well hung specimen. And so was the hare.

Henry’s gifted hare was skinned and dressed, then wrapped in plastic film and deposited in the freezer to be used later on.

Whenever hare appeared on the menu, one question was always asked. 'Where do you source your hares?'

The general public should never trouble their pretty little heads with questions. They should just eat and enjoy.

My initial reply was always 'At the local hairdresser's'. Sometimes this would elicit a faint smile, at other times just a roll of the eyes. It was an answer designed to deflect further interrogation, but not always successful. 

Another ploy was to tell the truth………….

Late at night, after work, I would travel the backroads to my den in the countryside, bearing tablescraps for my hungry vixen and her cubs. On occasion, a hare out for his evening constitutional, would be transfixed by my headlights and meet an untimely and unfortunate demise if I was quick enough with my rifle. Or the front left tyre. If not too bruised by the encounter, seven or eight pies might result which would then be sold in the restaurant with both alacrity and vegetables, thus providing the wherewithall to purchase a schoolbook for the cubs to share or perhaps even a few pieces of chalk to use on the slate I bought for them at Christmas. A brace of hares so obtained and disposed of, once even provided a pair of new sandals for my second born, greatly facilitating his daily eight mile romp through the bush to the local junior primary school. The little fellow loved to romp.

The look of horror on the patron's face was always worth the story. I would wink and say I was only kidding, and that the hares were really flown in from Alaska as individually frozen units, and so I apologised for any slight loss of flavour that might be noticed. I was always assured of no noticeable decrease, due no doubt to the miracle of modern refrigeration and air transport. They chuckled at the ridiculous notion of me actually shooting them myself.

It was whilst labouring at my workbench that I heard a knock on the front door. Elvira never entered or exited by the front so I guessed it was a lost soul looking for directions, or one of the many customers who regularly failed to notice that all the outside lights had been turned off, the 'Open' sign now read 'Closed', the cat-rabbit had been put out and the romantic music in the dining room had been replaced by a very loud football commentary on the radio in the kitchen.

I opened the door and was confronted by an elderly lady sporting an excellent standard of footwear. I could tell she was from one of the more affluent suburbs, because not only were the uppers made of leather, but also the inners, soles and heels. This old dear was my kind of customer. She had all the accoutrements of the grand lifestyle. Several kilogrammes of precious gems draped themselves around her throat and upper torso, the lower strings nestling themselves in the fluff of her non-allergenic mohair sweater. Her hair was coiffed, her eyes watery and both her vowels and fingernails, clipped.

It appeared her acquaintances had acquainted her with “a quaint little eating house in the country, where a rather odd little man served unusual but decidedly delicious fare”. She went on to enquire as to whether this was the same establishment and I, the same odd little man.

I replied in the affirmative, motioning to the game currently being prepared on my bench. I agreed that my menu was diverse and that I had developed somewhat of a reputation for offering 'different' fare.

She sniffed a little haughtily and said she was considering a “girls' night out” soon, but would need to inspect my premises first before deigning to bring the whole flock of hens to grace my humble roost.

The subsequent tour of inspection was punctuated by several sniffs and a few snorts, indicating that either her sweater was not true to label, or that my premises were deemed adequate. She then graciously flustered over to the bar where she could supervise me whilst I entered her name, address and telephone number in my black, dog-eared, mock-leather appointment book. I wrote in my best cursive, but in a sans serif face, whereas a lady of her breeding and station usually required the more appropriate serif. This flagrant error was gratifyingly deliberately overlooked by la madame.

Elvira is a very naughty ghost, and has a lot to answer for. She had overheard the grand-dame say that she was interested in 'different' menu items, and whilst I was embossing Mrs Upmarket's name in my book, she leaned over and whispered the suggestion in my ear that I invite the old chook into the kitchen to show her my latest prize, wrapped lovingly in a cocoon of cling wrap and resting regally in the freezer atop the rigid barramundi, some of which were close to legal size.

Both my invitation and her curiosity transported my potential patronne into the kitchen, where she came to rest in front of my big chest-freezer.

I lifted the lid with a flourish and stood back beaming.

"Look at that." I said. "Isn't it a beauty?"

The old chook peered in cautiously, and blinked until the body came into focus.

"What on earth is it my good little man?" was her royal response.

We could have said a hare, which it was. We could have said an impala, which it nearly was. But.........

"A Corgi," said both Elvira and I in unison.

Mrs Upmarket's chins began a harmonic wave and her jaw dropped, revealing enviable dental work. A strangled shriek escaped her bejewelled throat and she escaped through the front door in a clucking flurry.

Have you ever had one of those days when you knew that everything was going to be just perfect? That particular Tuesday was one of those days. I had awoken refreshed. My daughter, prone to showers of at least several hours duration, had decided to leave me enough hot water to not only initially cover my tired old body in a delicious wave of liquid, but also almost enough to rinse all the soapy lather from that same old body. It was a surprising and most welcome start to the day.

My poached egg was soft, as I like it. It perched happily on a slice of fried tomato which in turn was perched on a slice of crispy bacon atop lightly toasted wholemeal bread. God was in his heaven. The sun was shining, the birds were singing and my car, parked peacefully in the driveway, decided to start without the usual verbal coercion from both myself and my small terrier dog which is often mistaken for a large rat or apprentice beagle.

The sunlight had been streaming through the car window since early morning, landing its rays directly onto my seat and the warmth radiated through my clothes, caressing me in a most private manner as I drove off to work.

It was going to be a most perfect day.

A day when the tourists would be out and about, meandering at walking pace in their shiny new vehicles through the picturesque hills countryside, burdened by heavyweight gold and silver coins, Visa cards and paper money adorned with pretty pictures. Looking for a restaurateur to whom this treasure could be bequeathed.

And so it came to pass, that after one or two hours of gob-smacked amazement at nature's wonderland in the guise of cute farm animals and multi-coloured autumn leaves, both of which littered the roadside, four little touring flies alighted in my car park and strayed into this little spider's webaurant.

It certainly was going to be a most perfect day. The sun continued to shine, the birds continued to sing, and everyone was going to enjoy a wonderful lunch. Me, the lovely little tourists and most important of all, my bank manager who of late had been sending me terse messages through the postal service.

They were a quartet of ladies, neither girls nor matrons, and certainly not what I in my more sexist moments, term 'Yummy mummies'. Three of them had rather full figures, suggesting both regular and robust visits to the dining table, but the fourth was obviously in the thirteenth or fourteenth month of pregnancy. It was also obviously going to be twins or an extremely large child. Perhaps the unfortunate result of hybrid vigour? Etiquette however prevented me from asking after the ethnicity of the father, for these days one can never be too politically correct. Just give an understanding smile and keep the telephone number of the local emergency services handy in case the table of four needs to be reset for five. That is of course if Dr Ramsay is not too busy playing golf. 

I had noted their shoes. Excellent leather. Italian. Expensive. Polished to a high gloss. Each shoe containing a very adequate foot, a product of good feeding throughout its little life. My heart began to sing.

Would it be soup, entrée, maincourse AND dessert? Or would it be a more restricted diet of soup, entrée, maincourse and 'No, no we shouldn't, we shouldn't really! Oh, what the heck, (giggle) you talked us into it you old smoothie,..... Four chocolate mousses followed by plunger coffees, but no cream please, we're on diets!'

But of course, I was forgetting something. The lady threatening childbirth at the table had very little room left inside her. Still, I thought three out of four wasn't bad, but still made a mental note to encourage her to eat heartily, 'for the baby'.

Preliminary chit chat amongst the group ensued about a recent ski trip to Switzerland (of course) where one of the party had found this GOOORGEOUS  little restaurant just OOOOZING with atmosphere, not unlike this one actually, and had stayed there all afternoon, spending the equivalent of the gross national product of a small Pacific nation.

My knees trembled as I asked whether or not they would like drinkies.

Now although it has been said of me that I certainly enjoy the benefits bestowed upon one by the accumulation of coin of the realm (to whit money), I also value children, inasmuch as I have had many children myself, by an assortment of wives. To this day, I continue to love them (the children), and it was for that very reason that my little heart skipped a beat when mum-to-be asked for a glass of Chardonnay.

Although I had picked her as a Riesling or Moselle, it wasn't her surprise choice of Chardonnay that caused the palpitation, it was those damned television documentaries.

Working very late hours as one does in a restaurant, one is inclined to watch television at silly hours of the morning, and so it was that at 4 a.m. or thereabouts one day not so long ago, whilst eating reheated venison risotto (with just a hint of rosemary) made the previous day whilst I was bored, that I saw that fateful documentary. Suffice to say, the nub of the programme was that alcohol was bad for unborn babies.

  Very bad.

Ultra bad.

Hence I was faced with a monumental problem. If I duly served the glass of straw-coloured, dry, gold-medal winning Chardonnay (with overtones of American oak), I could be responsible for an intellectually challenged child. One which may eventually turn into a politician, or even worse, a lawyer. On the other hand, the monetary difference between a glass of wine and the bottle of mineral water (which my conscience pricked me to suggest), was almost half the pocket money I so philanthropically bestowed at monthly intervals upon my collective offspring.

Mon Dieu! 

What a dilemma!

How do I get myself into these situations?

After what seemed to be hours of soul searching, I eventually decided to forgo the profit and suggested what I considered to be a more appropriate aperitif, under the circumstances. I went further, and in a spirit of camaraderie from the knowledgeable and caring father and grandfather that I am, I enquired as to how many days she had to go before the happy event. I went further, and added that should she return for a christening celebration (hopefully with an entourage of many rejoicing relatives), I would be happy to provide complementary champagne to both herself and her husband at that juncture.

The look on her face told me that Arnold Schwartzenegger had just walked into a gay bar.

The words “I'm not pregnant” resonated throughout my dining room, ricocheting off the polished slate floor, the stained glass windows, the spotless glassware and every other solid object that could reflect sound.

My perfect day had just ended.

It was not quite twelve thirty, and for the next thirty minutes I prepared and served four of the most exquisite chicken liver pâté entrées, in a silence usually only experienced in a sixteenth century European cathedral before dawn. 

They ate quickly, then left.

I made a mental note to call the automobile association to assist in starting my car for the journey home.

I love children. 

Either pot roasted or pan fried if they are young and tender. It doesn't really matter which, as long as they are accompanied by suitable vegetables instead of their parents. Princeton Elliott was one of my more successful pot roasts. 

This is his story.

There are several approaches by road to Chez Alain. Most are typical meandering country lanes with an occasional bend or two and exist only to connect the general public's point (A) to my restaurant's point (B) in a more or less direct way. One route however, is a torturous goat track of interconnected switchbacks, hairpin bends and blind corners; the style of road much loved by today's young temporary inhabitants. Motorcyclists who want to get closer to God as quickly as possible without physically attending church. This circuitous route gives a very well-to-do suburb access to my establishment that it would not otherwise have enjoyed, and there is a relatively frequent stream of visitors from this area that braves the journey on a Sunday in order to join us for a quiet and intimate lunch. 

Adult company. 

With no children of course so we can enjoy our adult luncheon.

This is not to say Chez Alain is a child unfriendly environment. Far from it. As I said before, I love children, and we enjoy our visits from the odd little darlings perhaps three or sometimes even four times per annum. In total. For which we are truly grateful.

Sadly, my establishment is under-equipped with the playthings and novelties that littlies commonly enjoy at the other, more brightly coloured food outlets which pose as restaurants, so Chez moi is less favoured with the fellowship of our underage companions and remains the poorer for it. Often, the time delay between visits of society's junior members seems so interminable to me, that I can occasionally be seen standing morosely at the windows looking out across the car park in the forlorn hope of espying a couple of patrons who might be arriving for a romantic interlude in my secluded, intimate restaurant, accompanied by one or two playful little kiddies.

The very thought of it, even now, brightens my day immeasurably.

Like catching leprosy.

Mr Elliott was a stockbroker. He lived in the well-to-do suburb at the end of the torturous switchback road to Chez Alain and because he had sired one child, a son, some years previously, he had built a dwelling of appropriate size to house his enormous family. There were five double bedrooms, (all with ensuites of course), three dining rooms (two formal), two family rooms and an outside undercover spa which could double as an Olympic swimming pool. I'm sure his son (Princeton) had hours and hours of fun playing hide and seek with himself in this sumptuous abode and I'm equally sure he will be eternally grateful to his father for providing him with such an elaborate playground during his formative years. It certainly assisted in moulding the lad’s fine character. And the personality to match.

Mrs Elliot on the other hand, was a homemaker, not a stockbroker. She was a quiet country lass who happened to marry a stockbroker, and while Princeton amused himself around the house, she enjoyed hours and hours of fun, rigorously cleaning every superfluous square kilometre of the edifice. She had tried on many occasions to convince her husband that a more moderate dwelling might be more appropriate and provide her with fewer hours of entertainment, but her illogical argument fell on deaf ears. He reasoned that it gave her something to do to occupy her mind. 

And Princeton agreed with his father.

It was one balmy Sunday afternoon that I had the pleasure of meeting the Elliotts. All three of them.

Mr Elliott had just taken possession of a large piece of costume jewellery for his driveway, and although not quite as large as the house, the silver Mercedes Benz had enough room inside to accommodate the passenger list of a Concorde. It was also equipped with a cockpit and flight-deck to match that of the aforementioned aeroplane in leather and mahogany trim.

As a treat, Mr Elliott decided to take Princeton on the vehicle's maiden flight and land at some spot in the country for a little luncheon. He also took Mrs Elliott on this inaugural voyage and as a token of his esteem for her, she was offered the full use and privacy of the rear business section entirely to herself, whereas Mr Elliott and young Princeton had no similar indulgence and were required to share the plush leather, individual hand-crafted pilots’ seats between themselves.

Princeton and father had a wonderful drive. The cockpit was festooned with a myriad of dials, switches and buttons which operated the latest technological advances in motoring. There was even a Global Positioning System included in case Mr Elliott became lost in his long and exceptionally well landscaped driveway and had to be rescued by the 24 hour Mercedes Benz Roadside Assist Package (standard with all executive models.)

Another standard feature, included for passenger comfort, was the bank of buttons on the armrest of each seat which operated the tinted electric windows and obligatory sunroof, and young Princeton entertained himself throughout the ride opening and closing all the apertures in rotation and at regular intervals. 

After enduring this for twenty minutes or so, the rear business class passenger tactfully suggested to father Elliott that he perhaps encourage the little fellow seated next to him in first class to desist. The pilot in reply gently chided the passenger for the lack of understanding she showed to his inquisitive little co-pilot. And the windows continued to go up and down like a bride's nightdress.

And so it was that our happy party duly arrived in the car park of Chez Alain…. Princeton, resplendent in his smock coat (with polished silver buttons), dun coloured corduroy trousers and a sporty little cap perched on his sporty little head. Mr Elliott, dressed in more moderate attire of immaculately ironed pin striped weekend business shirt with matching trousers (of fashionable length) and handmade Italian leather shoes. A lovely touch, not unnoticed by myself, was the pair of Mercedes Benz silver cufflinks, the Mercedes Benz polished brass belt buckle, the monogrammed Mercedes Benz handkerchief (noncholantly folded and tucked in the shirt pocket) and the monogrammed leather Mercedes Benz driving gloves. All were tokens of esteem from the dealership, so that Mr Elliott could remind himself (and everyone else he encountered) what type of car he had bought.

Mrs Elliott arrived sporting a new hairstyle, courtesy of the howling wind she enjoyed at regular intervals throughout the journey as Princeton mastered the electronics. Being in the front seat, Princeton was also in control of the override switch, (a feature standard in the executive model), thus relieving his mother of the burden of opening her own window with her own button. Or shutting it for that matter. She also wore her best frock, although I do believe I was the only one to notice. Mr Elliott appeared not to be a frock noticer.

We were quite busy that particular lunchtime, and although Mr Elliott had not been able that month to find the thirty seconds it usually required to make a booking by telephone, I was delighted to be able to fulfill his loud request for my very best seating and immediately led him to a beautifully polished jarrah table with sparkling glassware, colour co-ordinated napkins and soft cushions on the seats of the antique bentwood chairs. Although not quite in the centre of the room, nor by the windows overlooking the garden, the table nonetheless had a commanding view of the coffee percolator and the entrance to the ladies rest-room. The coffee percolator was imported from France, and as far as coffee percolators go, it was quite a work of art and it operated reasonably quietly as well, unless we were busy.

Mr Elliott ordered an eighteen-year-old malt whisky. 

“Quickly, waiter!”

The ten year old ordered a cola. In a wine glass. “And quickly too!”

The lady quietly requested a mineral water and two aspirins. “Please”.

Princeton summoned the menu, and after considerable perusal he informed his father that there was nothing to eat. At that point of time I almost invited the little man into the kitchen to assist chef with a pot roast he was preparing for the following week's menu, but I thought better of the idea and suggested the parents might like to read the menu themselves. Which they did. 

They seemed to find items of food written on it.

Mr Elliott ordered soup, then fillet of beef (cremated); then he passed the menu to his wife, who ordered fish. Please.

Mr Elliott then ordered a large plate of chips and a schnitzel for his little companion. 

I took the menu from the table and read it several times to make sure no-one was playing a little tricky-wicky on me. No, not anywhere could I find ‘schnitzel and chips’, not even in the tiny fine print at the bottom where I advise all patrons of the horrendous Sunday and Public Holiday surcharge. The menu appeared to be the same old boring five star food that my regulars enjoyed so much, and I sadly had to inform Mr Elliott that we were in fact not a ‘chip and schnitzel’ restaurant. And also, through a dreadful oversight, neither did we have any tomato sauce on the premises.

Princeton was not a happy chappie, and made the matter known to me. 

And to all the other nearby diners. 

Loudly.

Mrs Elliott called me aside and had a quiet word with me. She recounted the pleasant drive down and her exasperation with the current situation and asked if there was anything I could do to help. 

Please……………?.

It is my job to serve, and after so pleasant a request, I decided to see what I could do to rectify the situation. I suggested to young Princeton that he might find one of our very rich chocolate mousses more to his liking whilst pater partook of his soup. And another cola. Tout de suite of course. And in a fresh wine glass of course for our aspiring little shit. 

Young Princeton brightened measurably with my suggestions and servility, and thanks to private lessons in percussion that he received each week from his expensive tutor, he was able to entertain the majority of the main dining room with an exhibition of his phenomenal prowess, using just my cutlery and tabletop as instruments, until I arrived with his rich mousse. 

And yet another cola.

Elliott senior joined in the conviviality, acquainting all nearby diners with his new purchase of expensive vehicular transport and suggested that they too might be fortunate enough to own one themselves. One day.

Mrs Elliott politely requested another mineral water. And further aspirin. Please. I returned with her order, and with a knowing wink to Elliott junior, slipped another very rich chocolate mousse to my little friend to ease his hunger whilst dad finished off his soup. 

And another cola of course. In a fresh wine glass.

Main courses arrived for mummy and daddy, and in the absence of there being anything remotely edible for young Princeton in the main course department, I returned with a very special Sticky Date Pudding with Butterscotch sauce (which chef had made for him personally). And another cola, although I did notice the previous cola wasn’t quite finished yet.

Little Princeton was in seventh heaven, and he avidly set about demolishing his special mainfare whilst I left to fetch another scotch for papa.

Mrs Elliott had by now brightened considerably, and I engaged her in pleasant conversation while father and son busied themselves with the type of man talk that was beyond mere womenfolk. And waiters like myself. 

Everything was going very well indeed now, and I offered the dessert menu.

Father thought that perhaps the youngster had had enough, but I was insistent that everyone really must try the exceptionally light (and exceptionally rich) lemon meringue pie that chef had made that very afternoon. And of course some more liquid refreshment for the little fellow to help it go down.

When the desserts arrived, I considered severely admonishing myself, for I appeared to have made a gross error of judgment in slicing the pie and the serve that landed with aplomb in front of young Princeton would have ordinarily fed three or four Bulgarian weightlifters; but with all the skill and servitude of a genial host-cum-mere-waiter, I encouraged the young man to eat every crumb, even though it took a little longer than usual and a great deal of effort on both our parts. 

Plus just another half cola. 

Because we were feeling a bit full were we?

I decided that the party was ready for the return journey now, and after they had settled their account, I escorted them to their shiny new vehicle in the car park and bade them goodbye. Princeton and father in the front, and mother once again at liberty to avail herself of the comfort and indulgence of the rear seating compartment during the torturous, spiralling trip home.

I really am an old softie when it comes to children, and when no-one was looking, I was able to slip several of our famous (and extremely rich) hazelnut fudge chocolates into my little friend's sweaty hand, with strict whispered instructions to try to save one or two until he got home of course. 

I don't know whether or not it was gentle rocking of the independent suspension (standard on all models) or the fact that the automatic ambient temperature control inside the cabin (standard on executive models only) was set too high when the new vehicle left the dealership, but not long after leaving the restaurant, and after negotiating twenty or so hairpin bends, little Princeton was violently ill. Luckily, Mr Elliott was an excellent driver and although he was quite surprised by the sudden outpour from the little fellow, with a deft wriggle and a swift lurch to one side, he neatly avoided the unwelcome gift from his favourite son; unlike the mahogany dashboard and the plush pile carpets (standard on only the executive model) which were not so lucky.

A wise man once said that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction, and as Mr Elliott lurched to one side, so did the vehicle, and to use a financial metaphor, the stockmarket crashed. Into a small post on the other side of the road, causing an immediate and sharp depreciation in Mr Elliott's recent investment.

The altercation with the post was but a minor event, however in the blink of an eye, the wonders of German technology (that Mr Elliott had discussed in interminable soliloquy with his fellow diners not thirty minutes previously), sprang into action, and the front airbags (standard all models) inflated inside the vehicle, causing Mr Elliott to enjoy at extremely close quarters that which he had deftly managed to avoid not a fraction of a second before.

Of course, being seated in the rear, where she was able to indulge herself in privacy, Mrs Elliott was not privy to the generous distribution of dividend which had now occurred evenly between the pilot and co-pilot (courtesy of the standard feature airbags) and an unsoiled Mrs Elliott was able to ring the 24 hour roadside assist number on the hands-free mobile phone (executive models only) to request help.

Mrs Elliott also rang my number to advise me that the aspirin had worked a treat, and she now felt soooo much better.

Thank you.

Australia is a wonderful country with a colourful and diverse multicultural society. We are peopled by every skin colour, religion and language, occasionally even within the same family. And at any point in time during the conduct of one's personal business, or in the workplace, one is liable to meet a new migrant or refugee from some foreign land and be confronted with a slight language difficulty or other minor cultural obstacle to conquer.

We call these people 'New Australians' and we love them dearly.

I wish that I could say that addressing and overcoming these tiny communication problems with our New Australian playmates makes for a better, more tolerant society, but our own culture, as much as any other, tends to suffer from the fear of the unknown, and oftentimes in face to face situations there is reticence by one person or the other to indulge in meaningful dialogue in order to accomplish understanding. This of course leads to the usual generic societal problems which I liken to living in a population made up entirely of teenagers with menopause. 

Australia’s main difference from other countries is a fantastic climate, which enables one to play golf almost every day of the year. And for those such as myself, unencumbered as I am by an ever attentive darling to fulfil one's each and every whim, golf provides an excellent substitute and costs far less, even at the most exclusive clubs where I am only an occasional visitor except when wealthy friends take pity on me and invite me to play with them on a course with lots of real grass and motorised transport.

It is on these warm and balmy days for which Australia is so famous, (with the occasional puff of breeze to push tiny profiteroles of cumulus about an otherwise azure sky), that an exceptionally hard working Australian restaurateur such as myself will sneak off to the public golf course for a slow eighteen.

In my case, it is a very slow eighteen holes, because although I am now a fully grown man and in possession of a rather full beard, innumerable 'smile lines' all over my face and greying hair, my brain remains that of a small child. I am easily distracted, and during my round I can be led astray by the intrigue of rabbits, snakes, lizards, juvenile birds, small and large insects, women golfers in tights and almost any other thing that could amuse an eight year old with arthritis and fading libido.

Lateral water hazards too provide an endless supply of interest. They contain fish and frogs and eels, and best of all, other golfers’ lost golf balls.

I consider it my environmental duty to remove these balls from the water hazards and sell them for as much as I can get on the open market to my friends who probably lost them there in the first place. It is not, as some mean spirited people suggest, that I am too tight to buy my own golf balls. 

Fishing for golf balls is an art. They are elusive little fellows, and a keen hunter's eye is required to spot them lurking in the pond weed or hiding in the muddier sections where they think they won't be noticed or captured. On windy days, even the more experienced fishermen like myself have difficulty in spotting them swimming in the shallows because the surface ripples distort one's vision, (I believe it is called error of parallax). However, with patience and the right equipment (such as a ball scoop), one can pluck the legal bag limit of balls on even the most overcast and blustery of afternoons.

It was after an exceptional day's trawling for balls at my local club that I returned to the restaurant with my catch. It had been most rewarding and perhaps one hundred and twenty firm little white balls lay gasping for air in my wicker basket, ready to be cleaned and sorted ready for sale the following day.

I am by nature a very creative (lazy) man, and rather than scrub each ball by hand with a small scrubbing brush to remove the mud and grime to return the balls to their original lustre and considerably enhance their value, I had discovered that tossing them all into the washing machine for half an hour with a large sponge and a litre of washing up liquid accomplished the same result. And with minimal effort. A bit like putting the family poodle in the tumble dryer for ten minutes after his/her annual flea bath. Makes his coat all curly again.

The restaurant possessed a high quality front loading washing machine and according to the manufacturer’s directions, it had a maximum capacity of either two hundred golf balls or ten fine linen tablecloths. So, whilst the ball cleaning was in progress that afternoon, I decided to clean the outside male toilet at the rear of the premises. This was not a task I would normally spend more than five or ten minutes on by choice, but the washing machine as I previously mentioned was of a very high quality and came complete with a stainless steel bowl, so the sound of one hundred and twenty golf balls flying about inside it was absolutely deafening. Akin to spending thirty minutes in the front row at a West Indian steel drum concert. 

Thus, I was able to derive much pleasure from the sterilization of 'The Little Boy’s Room' outside the building, a long way from the din going on inside.

And so it was that day, I re-entered the building through the rear door about half an hour later, just as hostilities ceased inside the washing machine and relative silence once again descended on the restaurant. I was whistling blissfully to myself as I pushed through the crushed velvet curtains that led to the reception room.

Instead of walking into a very empty room, I walked right into a very fullsome woman. She had apparently entered the restaurant whilst I had been busy being the MC in the WC, and I assumed her calls for attention had gone unnoticed due to the cacophony from the washing machine.

I apologised for the collision and by way of explanation, said that I didn't hear her entrance because I had been busy washing my balls in the laundry.

It was at this juncture that although she looked like a very well-to-do lady who had come to discuss an expensive function, I guessed she must have been a very recent arrival to our shores, a poor refugee or similar, because she just fixed me with a wide eyed stare, obviously not comprehending my excellent English, and she slowly backed out of the restaurant, never to be seen again.

The Peabodys were regulars. That is to say they came every year without fail on the same day of the same month, and by simple deduction, I reached the conclusion that it was the celebration of nuptials held some thirty years previously, when each had found the other attractive. However, with the benefit of spectacles kindly provided by their mutual health fund, their eyesight in later years had improved markedly. They had then each been able to view their life and life partner with more focus and clarity, and the blissful joy of yesteryear had mellowed to some extent, inasmuch as it was now more resignation to their fate and acceptance of lot. 

Basically, a lot of fatal resignation.

They reminded me in an abstract way of twin calves born to a quiet natured cow that I had had the pleasure of owning for several years on the farm. This docile dam was an integral part of my herd and had been mated to a similarly quiet natured Angus bull of extremely generous proportions who had served the lady well, and she in return had repaid his efforts twofold. Her calves were a pigeon pair. A little boy and a little girl.

For those of you unacquainted with larger animals such as a cow and unable to picture one in your mind, I can really only describe one as an animated vaulting horse with a leg in each corner, a head at one end containing an entrance chute for fresh herbage, and a tail at the opposite end, underneath which is located the exit chute for pre-loved herbage.

The original cow was of course designed by a local council town planner, because sited immediately below this exit chute is the udder. Why on earth one would locate a school tuck shop immediately adjacent to the town sewage works is a fact only a local council town planner would know and a complete mystery to everyone else. Unfortunately, many long years of very careful selective breeding by eminent geneticists have been unable to correct this serious design fault, so calves have been required to work around this nightmare of town planning at mealtimes themselves. Their usual solution concerning the method of approach to mother's in-house restaurant has been to attack from the flank, thus avoiding being anointed with warm compost by her beatitude whilst having their morning milkshake.

Luckily for twins, a mother cow is in possession of two of the aforementioned flanks, and so the calves ordinarily decide to approach mama simultaneously in an orchestrated pincer movement, each attacking the defensless udder from either side to prevent the mobile café from relocating. Only as a last resort is the rear offensive undertaken, for the obvious reasons of good grooming, personal safety and social hygiene.

Unluckily for the male of my twins, his mother had a bad habit of preparing herself for her offsprings’ double snack attack by bracing her side against any available solid support, thus limiting the directions of the mealtime assault to just one flank and the dreaded rear. The result of this restriction leads me to believe that chivalry does indeed exist in the animal kingdom, for the male calf became a very hesitant feeder owing to his gallant decision to always allow his sister first choice of feeding site. She, unfettered by any need to show any appreciation and being in possession of a full quota of female wisdom, always chose the flank.

Always.

Unsurprisingly, the male calf's normal growth pattern suffered dreadfully due to this noble gesture and his masculinity nosedived as well. To say that he became timorous would be to considerably overstate his bovine bravado, and although he was continuously given copious quantities of several types of high grade nitrogenous fertilizer by his doting mother whilst he enjoyed his lunch, he failed to record the same excellent growth pattern as his un-anointed sister. She, on the other hand, before long began to assume the same voluminous proportions as her exceedingly well bred father, Sir Aberdeen the Third.

My initial reaction to Mr. Peabody was that he was the male calf twin who had remained under the tail section for the whole of his life and his size and character had suffered accordingly, whereas Mrs. Peabody had been the one who had received the full benefit of both excellent genes and unfettered access to nutrition. Sadly though, Mrs. P was not overly endowed with good nature, for I believe she must have opted for a double dose of belligerence instead when God was handing out character traits.

Mrs Peabody would stride into the room leading her poor unfortunate husband by an invisible rope attached to his nose ring and on the order of 'Stop!', he would stand quietly to attention and ruminate, as he did every year, while his sweetheart ascertained the booking at reception.

I would then lead the lady into 'The Snug'. She in turn would bark 'Walk on!' to Mr P, who would dutifully continue his furtive shuffle into the bowels of the restaurant, a respectful step or two behind his wife until he received the dual commands of 'Stop!' and 'Sit!', whereupon he would take his annual seat at the little table next to the fire.

As he did every year.

The well suckled calf would then order her usual gin and tonic “With two slices of lemon if you please...................!”

"And your husband....................?" I would enquire.

"He will have a light beer" she would respond.

Mustering all the manliness he possessed, a hesitant Mr Peabody would beseech his better half for something a little stronger, then lower his eyes as she considered his request.

The larger calf would snort loudly and stamp her high heeled hooves, leaving cute little dimples on my polished floorboards, but a resigned sigh a few moments later would indicate that the little man's request had been granted and she would order him a half brandy to replace the light beer.

"Certainly madam, right away madam", I would say and retire to the bar to attend to her order.

I don't know why it was, but on every occasion that the Peabodys attended Chez Alain, I managed to misplace my pesky spirit measure, the one that all restaurants are required by law to have to ensure that the customer receives the correct amount that he or she is paying for. Of course, under the circumstances, I had to pour the gentleman's measure by pure guesswork, and not wishing to be imprisoned by an overly zealous licensing inspector should he decide to have a snap inspection of my premises, I may have deliberately slipped an extra splash or three into Mr P's glass.

Mr P always enjoyed receiving his half brandy, and before you could say 'Open Sesame', he would grab the glass with his little hoof and make the contents disappear in a flash down his throat.

As he did every year. 

I once had a neighbour who was a racehorse trainer. He used to give his timid neddies a full pint of apple cider vinegar with their evening meal just before a big race, and I won a lot of money backing those particular horses. Unfortunately for Mr Peabody, I had no apple cider vinegar and so he had to make do with my best brandy. Though not a full pint of course. Just a half.

Being the incredibly genial host that I am, and noticing his empty glass, I would enquire as to whether or not ‘sir’ would like another?

A curt "No, he would not!" from Mrs Peabody was my cue to leave.

A calf encourages a cow to let down her milk by bumping her udder. This bumping process can be long or short depending on the attitude of the mother and the perseverance of the calf. Another response other than the giving of milk can be a swift kick in the head for the calf if it oversteps the mark or fails to recognize the onset of PMT in the mother.

Mr Peabody commenced udder bumping. 

Figuratively speaking of course.

Two things worked against Mrs Peabody giving her husband the second of the standard cow’s responses. Firstly, her movement was restricted by a close fitting evening dress, and secondly, she was in the public domain where there were several witnesses. She decided to give milk, and signalled to me to come over and take a second order for Mr P's pre-dinner drink.

"………another half brandy? Certainly madam."

Once again I looked high and low for that pesky spirit measure, but it remained lost and I once again had to resort to guesstimation.

I am usually fairly confident when estimating volume, but the loss of a liquor licence for a major infraction such as pouring a patron's measure one or two millilitres short could have spelt doom for Chez Alain, and so once again, against my frugal nature, I decided to err on the generous side as I filled the little calf's bucket with excellent brandy. 

Sometimes I can be generous to a fault.

The calf avidly accepted the bucket and thirstily plunged his muzzle into the amber liquid, drinking noisily until the receptacle was once again completely empty.

Mrs Peabody shot a glare at her husband, but he just reached over, placed his little hand on her massive forearm and gave it a soft pat, indicating that all was well. The glare was transferred to me as she felt her control slowly slipping away and the seat of my antique bentwood chair on which she sat lost a coat of varnish as she visibly squirmed. I swiftly departed, because I have bred cows for many years and have developed enough sense to give them a wide berth when they are agitated in the cattle yards.

I returned a short while later with the wine list and presented it to madame, who without consultation with her husband ordered a Chenin Blanc "to go with our fish."

Mr P expressed surprise that he was to be ordered fish that evening and tenderly suggested to his partner (with an appropriate udder bumping forearm pat) that he be allowed to have meat instead.

"But I always order fish for you," came the response, “Lemon pepper flathead is your favourite.” 

"That's right" he said, "but tonight I think I shall have meat."

The little male calf was making a concerted push to feed from the flank.

Some things in life are never forgotten. 

I remember being returned to school one day by the truant officer and deposited in the chemistry laboratory where my more studious classmates were being taught chemical reactions. Some were carefully pouring concentrated sulphuric acid into little test tubes of alkali and carefully recording the reaction. Other students who ordinarily sat right at the back of the class for other reasons, were carefully conducting their own version of this experiment by pouring small amounts of the same acid out of the window onto the roof of the chemistry teacher's car which was parked one floor below in the staff carpark. They too duly noted the reaction. Mr Borthwick took to driving his wife's car in second term.

(The Borthwicks divorced at the end of third term). 

Mr Borthwick also had the habit of trying to maintain our waning interest by telling us factual snippets of information of a chemical nature. One of these unusually interesting snippets was that an explosive substance similar to gunpowder could be made from common agricultural fertilizer mixed with one or two other easily obtained compounds. 

Plus a catalyst. 

It was obvious from first impressions that a lifetime of various organic fertilizers had regularly been dropped on Mr Peabody from a great height, and now, with the addition of a little brandy as catalyst, a chemical reaction was taking place.

"Steak please," he said in a firm voice, "RARE," and handed me his empty glass. Mrs P said nothing, although her eyes widened and her nostrils flared a little.

This time I looked a little harder for my spirit measure, because I also remembered Mr Borthwick strenuously telling the class that if one added too much catalyst, the results could be catastrophic (and I didn't fancy scraping bits of Mr Peabody off the walls and ceiling if he exploded).

The little herbivore voraciously ate the raw meat I put in front of him, whilst his more voluminous partner toyed with her fish. The Chenin Blanc was returned and a gutsy Shiraz was reordered. 

By Mr Peabody. 

And a more demure Mrs Peabody began to wax eloquent with her darling about his excellent choice of wine. The nose, the colour, the fruit, the lingering finish on her palate; “……..Altogether a much better choice than a nondescript white my darling”.

Mr Peabody smiled a knowing smile and reached for her forearm once more. Soft and rhythmical udder bumping began in earnest and continued throughout the meal.

I don't know whether or not it was the patting which caused the madame to lean closer to her partner, or the laws of physics which state that an object of her size and weight must eventually push one of the chair legs through the wooden floor and accordingly list to one side; however the couple became nonetheless more proximate by the minute and any thoughts of further dining were soon forgotten. Mr P called for the bill whilst his darling sat quietly and obediently by his side, albeit now at an angle of forty five degrees.

As the couple paid at the bar, I enquired as to whether or not sir and madam had enjoyed their meal, since they appeared to be departing somewhat early.

Mr Peabody assured me that as usual the meal had been of an exceptionally high standard and that the same table would be required next year. The reason for the sudden departure was that he had just remembered he had urgent business to attend to at home.

"Hurry up" he said to Mrs P as he held her coat, "there's work to be done my pet."

"Certainly, my industrious darling" she replied as she picked an imaginary piece of lint from his lapel, "there is a great deal of work to be done and it could take you all night."

She handed him the rope which he slipped gently around her neck, and Sir Aberdeen the Fourth led her to the stock transport.

As he did every year.

Winter in the Adelaide hills is attitudinal. 

If one has a bad attitude, it is either rainy and freezing cold, with bleak winds howling through lifeless trees during interminable grey days, the boggy ground awash with muddy water because there has been so much rain the ground can't soak it up any more. Or, after several glasses of attitude modification, it is freshly washed countryside, dyed a multiplicity of dewy greens, with swirling mists that reveal intermittent teasing glimpses of fat cows puffing snorts of steam through hairy nostrils. It is little rivulets of fallen rain which run bubbling and weaving by the roadsides. And in the late evenings, it is pinpricks of light which appear like tiny fireflies dancing in the crisp night air as they escape through the heavily curtained windows of distant whitewashed cottages dotted about the steep hillsides.

Especially inviting on a cold winter's night, is the golden halo of light surrounding the entrance to Chez Alain. It extends just far enough to entice visitors with the wisps of redgum woodsmoke which curl from the brick red chimney pots, and it shows glimpses of the chiselled sandstone quoins adorned with a bottle-green patchwork quilt of velvety winter moss. It also shows the old front door with 'Welcome' written on it in big bold letters.

However, I was neither traveller nor hungry romantic. I was a restaurateur hurrying to work on a très miserable day and the annoying patches of lingering fog caused me to drive to work with my headlights on for reasons of safety, and at a very sedate pace. It was Saturday afternoon and I had a lot to prepare for that evening's session. I would be late. I felt like the white rabbit hurrying to the Queen of Hearts' tea party. There was so much to do and so little time in which to do it.

Firstly, the mulled wine with which to greet and warm my guests on their arrival had to be made.

Several litres of excellent local claret needed to be simmered for a couple of hours with a cupful of leatherwood honey and two or three teaspoonsful of mixed spice, whilst a half dozen or so cinnamon sticks floated quietly on the deep crimson pond in order to impart their je ne sais quoi, but at the same time very important flavour to the brew.

Secondly, fresh crêpes had to be made for the striated smoked salmon tiers which were to be sliced and later served for entrée as wedges, topped with both black and red caviar and accompanied by a dollop of sour cream and a smidgin of wasabi.

With both prep and service, I knew I was going to be a busy little chef that night until way past midnight, however with hard work and the right attitude, I knew I would get through. I just needed to work on my attitude a little that's all, and whilst adriving along, I somehow noticed not the multiple shades of dewy green which carpeted the meadows, nor the glistening raindrops which tumbled headlong into the roadside pools causing an ever changing art nouveau gallery of concentric tremors on their liquid canvases.

Quite poetic really, but the aforementioned Keatsian-style poesy was entirely wasted on me that afternoon. I hurried to work and pulled up in the car park a little late and flustered, although I must still have had some wits about me because I remembered to grab several stalks of fresh rosemary from the hedge as I made a dash through the rain to the sanctuary of the dry brick terrace just a few metres away. 

I would love to say that it was an eventful evening, but it wasn't. Everyone had the usual stupendously wonderful time. Wine was drunk. Food was eaten. Company was enjoyed. Music was played and listened to. Jokes were told and some people laughed. Some laughed again when the jokes were explained.

Everyone, as I said, had a stupendously wonderful time and it was past one o'clock in the morning when the last diner departed, leaving the housekeeping to myself and the staff.

Just before two a.m., when the restaurant was clean and tidy and reset for Sunday lunch, I bade goodnight to my hardworking and weary helpers and returned to the kitchen to both collect my thoughts and stocktake for tomorrow's trade, because experience had taught me that those several minutes alone in the restaurant with my thoughts (and Elvira the ghost) are worth every second. One's head clears and important items that need to be remembered, (like picking sprigs of fresh rosemary from the car park) come flooding into one's mind.

Other, more unimportant things which one might have recently forgotten also come flooding into one's mind, such as remembering to turn off one's headlights when one parks one's car and leaves one’s vehicle for an extended period. This fundamental procedure is oft forgot, more especially if one drives with one's lights on in the afternoon (for reasons of safety of course) and if one is born genetically a fool.

When my tired little body arrived at my tired little vehicle I feared the worst, and sure enough, my fears were confirmed almost immediately. Luckily for me though, a faint orange glow still warmed the filaments of my once bright headlights, indicating that I would still be able to start my car. Next week perhaps, after it had regained its strength.

It was now a quarter past two, the ambient temperature in the silent car park was fractionally above zero and my loved ones were snugly tucked up in their beds fast asleep, twenty minutes drive away by a motor vehicle that worked. I blessed them silently. I also blessed the left headlight of my car with my steel capped chef's designer boot and commenced the deep breathing exercises recommended to me by my yoga teacher. 

I returned to the solitude of The Snug and settled myself down comfortably in front of the glowing embers of the once roaring fire. There were of course no blankets. Neither were there any pillows. Not even a cuddly waitress.

And so it was that I stared into the fireplace and waited for dawn to break. In the meanwhile, I slowly utilised the total contents of a large bottle of attitude readjustment fluid plus a steaming mug of mulled wine.

It was really poetic. 

And I really like poetry, although that particular poem gave me a very bad hangover as I remember and left me with a wry cheesy smile.

One of the three busiest days of the year is Mother's Day. The others are St. Valentine’s Day and Christmas Day. 

John, the local health inspector, is every bit as successful as myself with members of the fairer sex and so I have never had the pleasure of his company at my restaurant on any St. Valentine's Day. Nor on Christmas Day for that matter, although I do remember his attendance one Mother's Day, accompanied by a mother at least ten years younger than himself which led me to believe that she was probably someone else's mother, not his.

By all accounts John was very fond of this yummy mummy and needless to say, he was unaccompanied by any of his siblings that particular afternoon, preferring to engage this mother in filial conversation in private. Tête-à-tête. 

On these exceptionally busy days, we generally chain the chef to his workbench in case he deserts his post, never to return and since it was my turn to be chef that Mother's day, my leg irons were shackled at 11.45 a.m., just before session commenced and the first diners started arriving. In my absence as Maître de that afternoon, Sister Sarah was assisting with waiting duties, and dressed in her black and white garb, she looked every bit the catholic nun as she attended to the 'meet, greet and seat' arrangements. 

She seated most patrons in the right places too, but since my chains would not allow me any further than the kitchen door, I had to trust to providence that somehow all would end well without my divine intervention and I had to allow her to conduct the job in her own special, quite unique way. 

Sister Sarah was not in fact a nun. She was in fact my little sister, one of the three dozen live young born to my mother shortly after meeting my father. And as is my wont nowadays, I distinguish between the sexes of my brothers and sisters by inserting the simple word 'brother' or 'sister' in the appropriate location. On other occasions in the distant past, such as periods of factional rivalry at the dinner table when teams were formed to win the favours of a half eaten potato or crust abandoned by our parents, heavier, sharper implements other than words were inserted. Anywhere. And it was the pitch of the scream by which I distinguished between the sexes. Sister Sarah, herself a victim of many stabbings in the past whilst playing for the other team, was eternally grateful that I had changed to a more discreet method of differentiation and prayed that I would stick to it religiously.

  (Unless you are from a very large family yourself dear reader, I am sure you have no idea just how much damage can be done to another's person with blunt cutlery). 

Sister Sarah is a happy person by nature, and chattily went about her duties in the reception room a-meeting, a-greeting and a-seating, whilst I crossed myself in the kitchen and attended to the first soups and entrées, unable to interfere (assist). I felt another ulcer developing.

Although in God I trust, I am not the sort of man who ordinarily leaves things to chance and in order that considerable extra attention could be given to an area that I thought might need it, I had written John's name (and job description) in the appointment book in capital letters, in red, felt tipped pen. Not even Sister Sarah could miss it.

This had two effects. 

Firstly, it drew every single staff member's attention to that particular booking. 

Secondly, it made most of the other bookings almost illegible, because Sister Sarah had a habit of resting her glass of alcoholic holy water on the appointment book and the moisture from the bottom of the glass smudged the red ink, causing a lovely damask colour to spread over the whole page and become intimate with the navy blue ink of my fountain pen in which the other bookings were written. It bled through to the other side as well and enabled many future bookings to acquire the same fashionable mauve hue. It also enabled those future bookings to be just as unreadable.

Praise the Lord.

From the kitchen, I could hear the staff at the bar, (organized by Sarah), take a vote on how many ice cubes to put in a glass of beer and discuss at length whether or not a Cabernet Sauvignon or a Sauvignon Blanc was a white wine, and whether or not it would matter anyway after a few glasses.

I blanched.

A sauvignon kind of blanch.

I wouldn't say I was frustrated, just resigned. Incarcerated in the kitchen as I was.

To tell the truth, I might have been just a little frustrated.

I'm sure you know the feeling. You are looking out of your lounge room window into the street one rainy day, and you observe your neighbour slowly reversing his vehicle down the road and into the front of your car which is parked immediately outside your house, only a short distance away. You can bang as hard as you like on the lounge room window, but it will have no effect whatsoever on the brake pedal of the aggressive vehicle. When this actually happened to me, the only thing I managed to 'brake' was the lounge room window, thus adding another hundred dollars to the total damage bill.

The restaurant kitchen was starting to feel like a lounge room.

And Sister Sarah was driving a large truck.

I muffled an anguished wail as I fingered the spot on my stomach where my ulcers were trying to bore their way to freedom and I prayed that a collision would be avoided.

I rang the service bell and the usual lifetime elapsed before any waiting staff attended. Luckily the first attendee was Sister Sarah and I impressed on her my desire that our V.I.P. was looked after and to please give him a little bit extra, if she knew what I meant.

Sister Sarah nodded and tapped the side of her nose with her index finger to either indicate her understanding, or to dislodge accumulated tissue in her sinuses. I don't really know which one it was, but at that exact point of time, the health inspector and his young mother arrived, hand in hand. John knew the way to my kitchen blindfolded because of his many annual inspections, and before being shown to his seat by my younger sibling, he popped his head around my door to say hello and ridicule my current golf handicap. He also tendered several other insults in the affectionate Australian way. 

I gave him a friendly smile, the smile I normally reserve for the tax man and the liquor licensing inspector, and said I would join him and his lady friend later. (If, God willing, my little nun hadn’t had too much holy water already and seated them both at the same table.)

Amazingly, everything went well. We ended up with just enough tables and chairs for everyone, and even those people who were accidentally or deliberately separated seemed to get on reasonably well with the stranger they were seated next to. It's nice meeting new people isn't it?

Sister Sarah thought so anyway.

Even orders and drinks that got mixed up were gratefully accepted by patrons in good moods and I was kept informed of the session's excellent progress by my waiting staff as they flitted in and out of the kitchen like butterflies, although one or two of my little butterflies might have been sipping a little too much nectar from the bar in my absence.

I concentrated on my breathing and reminded myself that it would all be over in just two or three more hours and rubbed some extra virgin olive oil on the chafe marks where my leg irons were beginning to cut into my ankles. It is a little more expensive than other oils, but much easier to wash out of my socks.

Breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out. 

Repeat. Just like the yoga teacher said.

At about one thirty, when the kitchen reached its height of frenzied activity, one of my little helpers popped into the kitchen to say, 'There's a problem', and promptly popped out again. She was an experienced waitress. That was why she left.

My head was in the oven at the time, retrieving half a dozen magnificently risen blue cheese soufflés which immediately collapsed as I banged the oven door shut and said 'Problem?' to the empty room.

One minute later, a second helper flitted into the kitchen saying ‘There's a problem in the dining room, a man's got bugs, but it's OK, Sarah's got it, it's one of her tables’. She then grabbed my deflated soufflés and raced out, leaving me similarly crestfallen.

My mind raced. Sister Sarah had four tables. One was very special.

God forbid!…..

I smashed my leg irons as hard as I could with my wooden mallet. 

I even tried to saw through the chains with my best serrated bread knife, but to no avail. I remained bound fast and had to continue to cook food at top speed while I mentally haemorrhaged as my mind replayed in slow motion the videotape of my neighbour backing his car into mine, over and over and over again.

Portugal is a wonderful country. It is securely fastened to the left hand side of Spain and prevents the rest of Europe leaking into the Atlantic ocean, causing a very real and present danger to shipping. It is also responsible for a couple of well known exports.

Portugal gave us Mateus Rosé, a beautiful, light quaffing wine that was a favourite of mine during my youth. It comes in an unusually shaped bottle. You can stick a candle in the empty bottle and give it to a young lady as an inexpensive gift.

Portugal also gave us the Portugese millipede. A horrible little insect with four million legs. This horrible little fellow is absolutely harmless and lives on composting vegetable matter wherever it can find it and from time to time they breed to plague proportions and migrate. We wish they would all migrate back to Portugal, but since they are unable to swim, this is unlikely to occur. So they remain here to pester us. And each and every Spring and Autumn when the weather is perfect, seventeen trillion millipedes go a-visiting on billions of little legs.

Mother's Day is in Autumn.

Millipedes, like Mateus Rosé, apparently also come in bottles.

Occasionally, one of these migrating little critters will somehow negotiate the doors of the drinks fridge to carry out a snap health inspection to make sure there are no bugs in there and will go mountain climbing up one of the water bottles. On reaching the summit and suffering the combined effects of altitude sickness and exposure, our intrepid little traveller will fall into the bottle through the open top, do a reverse float and drown.

I would like to say that these snap inspections by our little multi pedded friends are rare occurrences. They are. But they do happen from time to time in all country establishments that don’t have the brains to put stoppers on their bottles of water in the fridge. The problem of lack of stopper is easily overcome however, with just a little vigilance on the part of waiting staff before they deliver the water bottles to the patrons.

That is if staff are not too busy chatting with each other and sipping the holy water at the bar instead.

Whilst I was frantically trying to free my foot from bondage, my first little helper reappeared to say that the health inspector was on his way to the kitchen with a bug in a bottle.

“A bug?” I enquired.

“A big millipede,” she replied.

“And my sister?” I enquired.

“She's locked herself in the ladies toilet”, came the reply as my helper quickly left the room. 

"Good move Sarah", I thought. "Start to pray my little sister."

I stuck my head in an unused oven and turned on the gas, just as John's face appeared in the doorway. He held a half full water bottle in one hand. The other hand was wagging a half finger at me.

“You rascal” he said. “I promise never again to insult your golf handicap, only you would think of a trick like this,” and he chuckled loudly.

The little nun's prayers had been answered, because the health inspector obviously thought that this catastrophe was a deliberate prank on my part in return for the insults he had handed out to me earlier.

I joined in the fun and laughed and laughed with him. It was the nervous laugh that I generally reserve for jokes told to me by the tax man or the liquor licensing inspector, and whilst we were both laughing, I quietly slipped my best filleting knife into my pocket. When Sister Sarah reappeared from her refuge she was going to be stabbed to death, if I could ever work my way free.

And so passed another successful Mother's Day, although the patrons all had to use the male toilet for the rest of the afternoon because Sister Sarah remained safe within 'The Ladies', clicking away with her rosary beads until the end of session.

Sister Sarah had worked for me before.

Termites at close quarters are not a pretty sight. They are funny looking little guys with soft, fat white bodies, not unlike mine really and with a very hard head, also similar to mine, to which is attached a massive pair of mandibles or forceps with which they rip apart anything made of wood. Six tiny little legs stick out from underneath their enormous little body and somehow carry the little beastie about inside narrow mud tunnels under the ground or within the material they just happen to be demolishing that afternoon. 

The reason they amble about inside these tunnels is twofold.

Firstly, they are blind and the tunnels help stop them getting lost. And secondly, sunlight tends to fry them, a bit like English people on the beach in Spain, and so the tunnels protect them from the sun's harmful rays.

I saw a late night documentary once that classified termites in the same family as alligators, crocodiles and the Patagonian tooth fish, which at the time seemed to stretch Darwin's theory a little, however the film went on to show a croc ripping the leg off a zebra and then a bunch of termites ripping the leg off a chair and I could accept the comparison. I happen to own a great many wooden chairs. 

In Australia, termites are colloquially called 'white ants' and they live in an organized colony with workers, soldiers and generals etc. They also have a queen as the head of state just like us, so I suppose they are really tiny little Australians. 

During its 150 years of existence, Chez Alain has been attacked by these little Aussie battlers four or five times and each time, different parts of the building have been eaten. White ants can be fussy little eaters, just like four or five year old children. One day the kids like pumpkin, another day they like toast and honey and another day they surprise everyone and try broccoli. For thirty seconds.

The upshot of these previous attacks was that before I bought and renovated my sad hovel, all the parts of the building made of termite chocolate had been eaten, leaving just the bits which tasted like brussels sprouts. And broccoli. Unfortunately I didn't personally taste test each piece of material with which I renovated the cottage and unwittingly used floorboards, skirting boards, doors, architraves, mantelpieces and cupboards made from the most exquisite termite ambrosia.

This was to prove unfortunate.

I believe the original cause of the problem was my patrons. 

It was their fault. 

If they hadn't childishly demanded to be kept warm during the freezing winters I never would have brought in (at great expense to the management) tons and tons of beautifully seasoned firewood (which tasted like chocolate) and stored it outside on the brick terrace against the wall in a big pile where it remained all winter like a block of ice in the sun, getting smaller and smaller until in late spring it melted away completely.

What I didn't know, was that just as my regulars would grab a log to toss in the fireplace as they entered the building, so would my little underground mates grab a log and distribute it evenly amongst the masses. Everyone was eating five star à la carte, but only the above ground group was paying for the privilege. Springtime however, saw the subterranean menu deteriorate markedly until all that remained on the blackboard menu was Termite brussels sprouts. And broccoli.

I found the broccoli detesting termite scouts looking for truffles in the Private Room. They had built a little mud tunnel along the top of the skirting board at the back of the room where they thought they wouldn’t be noticed and when I put my ear to the tunnel I could hear them tearing my expensive skirting board into little bits so they could carry it away more easily.

I'm sure, dear reader, that you have seen pictures of termite mounds in remote locations of Australia with a battered Land Rover parked alongside them to illustrate their size. These mounds are actually suburban houses that were spirited away bit by bit during the night whilst the home owner slept blissfully unaware. 

The homeowner generally awakens to the sound of schoolchildren laughing at him asleep in his bed surrounded by nothing but a large mortgage and thousands of little holes in the ground. If one were to follow these secret passages they would lead to a desert in the Northern Territory some thousand kilometres away.

I picked a hole in the little mud tunnel with my index finger and had a quick discussion with the scouts and we agreed that if they poked their heads out of the tunnel, I would squash their heads in with that very same finger. This satisfied my anger for quite a while, but as night time was fast approaching and the stream of white ants continued apace, I thought that either the purchase of a trained Echidna or the assistance of a pest extermination company was called for, because my finger was beginning to throb and get very sticky.

I telephoned five companies and set aside time to listen to the sales pitch of each representative. The salesmen were impeccably dressed in suit and tie with highly polished shoes and well combed hair. And all of them said 'sir' at the end of every sentence, which filled me with absolute confidence that I could trust them to crawl about under the floorboards amongst the mud and spiders, spraying every nook and cranny with poison.

Their quotes ranged from horrendously expensive to extortionate, so I chose the latter, since that company had the franchise to use a radically new termite exterminating hormone made from termite chocolate which was put in little boxes in holes in the ground. I was reassured that this process, besides being totally unobtrusive, would not require the use of standard toxic poisons. On top of this, the salesman added, the whole process was guaranteed and would only take a few weeks, sir. A few months at most, sir. Much quicker than the usual methods, sir.

I began to think I had seen him somewhere else, selling air conditioners.

With a fleeting glance he thoroughly inspected the site and said that the following week, two other men from "The Termite Terminator Company" would arrive to dig little holes around the building and pour termite chocolate, termite raspberry cream, termite almond nougat and termite hazelnut fudge into the holes, sir. The termite scouts would be attracted to the hormone and radio for backup from the worker ants, then together they would carry all the sugary treasure back to the queen who would issue them all with knighthoods just before she had dinner and died a violent death, sir. All the bait holes would be covered so that no one would ever know they were there sir, and in the blink of an eye sir, presto sir, no more white ants, sir. Just sign the contract here, sir. And here, sir. And here, sir.

Thank you sir.

And all this for the price of a round the world trip for two with three nights' stopover in Hong Kong for duty free shopping, I thought.

The workmen arrived as promised. Two strapping fellows in immaculate dungarees, fully equipped with the latest technical equipment which consisted of a posthole digger and a box of chocolates. They started at eight thirty in the morning and by lunchtime had one little hole nearly half dug. Just another twenty two and a half to go. They knocked on the door and asked me very politely whether or not they could use my telephone to call head office and get someone to deliver some more technical equipment. A large crowbar.

It seemed that the salesman, who was currently spending his commission in the Carribean, had neglected to notice during his thorough inspection of the site that beneath two or three centimetres of topsoil, the building rested on solid rock, and it was whilst I was casually eavesdropping on the conversation with head office that I learned of another use for a large crowbar which sounded rather painful to the receiver of said 

implement, who in this case would be the salesman on his return from holiday.

The next day and another half hole later, the workmen held a team meeting where a vote was taken to install the holes above ground. I told them that I had never heard of an above ground hole before, but something about their demeanour told me not to labour the point and I retired to the kitchen to make crêpes. I am not by nature a technical man.

On my return from the kitchen I found to my surprise that the speedy workmen had completed their arduous task and had gone home. However, instead of lots of hidden underground bait stations, I now possessed a front terrace full of big white plastic mushrooms where a brick had been removed and a white plastic box full of termite choccies had been inserted, three inches in the ground and six inches above. The bricks which should have covered the in-ground bait stations, (thus rendering them invisible), were stacked in a very neat pile by the door. For my convenience.

I made a quick call to ‘The Termite Terminators’ and reached the bulldog who stood guard at the manager's office. She bit my head off for my lack of compromise and understanding of technical difficulties and suggested a field of plastic mushrooms all around my restaurant was a small price to pay for the almost instant elimination of my termite colony with their patented system, which just happened to be the best in the world. Sir.

I threw a bone down the phone and hung up.

At the very worst I supposed the plastic boxes would be a talking point and at best, my clients could play Hopscotch as they approached the front door and work off the calories in advance, as well as afterwards when they left my premises replete.

One just needed to look on the bright side. Didn’t one?

Hopscotch continued for several months and at every routine inspection by men from ‘The Terminators’ whose sole job it seemed was to remove any termite dentures left in the treacle toffee or almond nougat by hungry white ants, I was advised to be patient. Sir. These things take time. Sir.

Unfortunately for me, my colony appeared to be a collective of strong willed diabetics who preferred the skirting boards AND the floorboards in the Private Room to the luscious treats in the bait boxes littered all around the building. Worse still, I was told by the supervising Terminator that with the onset of winter, now just a couple of weeks away, the colony would become relatively dormant and eat very little of the bait.

I noticed he didn’t say they would eat very little of my building.

It was at about this time that I began to doubt the veracity of the salesman's pitch, but since I had already re-mortgaged the restaurant to effect the cure, I had to continue the treatment. I also now had to continue to play Hopscotch with the bait boxes to and from the front door each day for the duration of a very long winter.

And so did my clients.

Spring sprang. And so did my little houseguests. They sprang into the adjoining room and commenced disassembling the pantry cupboards that I had painstakingly made out of recycled 100 year old oregon. My little hexi-peds just LOVED oregon and ate heartily right through spring, when they ran out of wooden shelves and the groceries fell in a heap on the floor.

I telephoned the general manager of "Terminator Co." and lied to the manager's bulldog that I was a new client. She put me straight through without so much as a bark and I was able to discuss my problem with him in the calm and rational manner for which I am famous. I also asked whether or not it would be too much trouble for his company to fulfill its part of our contract and get rid of my white ants. Please.

Honey dripped down the telephone and oozed into my ear.

"Certainly sir. You are our absolute priority sir. We just need a little more time sir. The termites need to start eating ravenously after their winter recess before the baits will have full effect sir. As soon as that happens, sir, ‘wipeout’ sir. No more colony sir. You will have absolute peace of mind sir. Very soon sir. We are working on your problem as we speak sir.

I thanked him profusely in words of one syllable and hung up.

Methinks he said 'Sir ' a few too many times.

The general manager was correct. 

Almost.

When he said 'We are working on it as we speak' what he really meant was that the houseguests were working on my building as we spoke. The hungry little perishers had worked their way along the floor joists of the second room and had now commenced work on the third room. Little mud tunnels appeared on the walls linking the woodwork of the floor to the window frame mid way up the wall and pieces of framework were disappearing daily, leaving just glass and putty supported by fresh air.

A second call to the chief exterminator, (again bypassing the bulldog with a clever ruse) had me believing that the termites would indeed change their diet soon.

They did.

They commenced eating the antique cedar fireplace surround in the reception room.

I frantically rang Mr T, but this time the bulldog was waiting. I told her that I wanted the white ants nuked, rotisseried on little pointed sticks, drowned, suffocated, squashed flat, anything but fed to death at a ripe old age on my building.

The bulldog was not amused. She informed me that the manager was not available and unless I changed my tone he would never again be available.

I lowered my voice an octave and tried again. 

She hung up.

Denied access by public telephone, I then wrote a letter to Mr Terminator expressing my concern and listed the damage caused over the last year and a half. This included the recent unwanted breast reduction that had occurred to a priceless mahogany figurine which used to stand on the fireplace in the Reception room and the many claims for public liability from hopscotchers who had taken a tumble and broken limbs. I refused to beg, but my letter did have a plaintive note about it. I eagerly awaited his response.

Eventually, as a gesture of goodwill, the company sent its youngest and most recent employee on a fifteen minute service call to my establishment and he went about the usual inspection, casually throwing a kick at the bait boxes with his size eleven boots to see if they rattled. A rattle would indicate that his foot had actually made contact with the box, but little else worthwhile. However the company believed that this strategy would keep me quiet for a few more weeks until they could change their trading name and address or go into liquidation.

I retired to the kitchen and began to cook myself a last supper before taking my own life. I also prepared a small tray of late afternoon tea consisting of freshly brewed coffee, a small chocolate soufflé and a few wafers of crisp almond bread for my dextrous young exterminator.

It was whilst sharing afternoon tea with the young man that I learned he was a single gentleman, a bachelor so to speak, and he had been vigorously pursuing a nubile young nymph for quite a while, but to date, all his advances had been spurned. He suggested he might commit suicide.

I suggested he take her to dinner instead at a romantic restaurant, where there was soft music, candles, beautiful food and the atmosphere of love in the air. A restaurant not unlike this very one.

He said he would certainly love to do so, but was currently quite impecunious owing to a large hole which had recently appeared in his bank account and through which all his savings had made good their escape.

I for my part lamented that no-one had yet been able to rid me of my unwelcome visitors and that the cost of eradication had made a similarly large hole in my personal account at my own financial institution. I too was contemplating suicide. However, should a person, any person, be capable of ridding me of these infernal pests then I might just be disposed to offer that same person a beautiful 4 course dinner for two (with appropriate bubbly refreshment) completely gratis at my romantic restaurant. 

On the house so to speak. 

Free.

The penny dropped, and my new friend raced to the company truck to call the bulldog on his two way radio. He told her that he had a flat tyre which he would repair himself, although it might take a little while, ergo he would be late returning to base. He then donned a full body rubber suit, a pair of goggles and a helmet complete with attached miner's lamp and struggled back to the restaurant dragging power tools, a pump, a generator, twenty metres of thick rubber hose and a large drum of synthetic, biodynamic, biodegradable, fire resistant, shrinkproof  pyrethrum poison which ordinarily costs a zillion dollars per litre. No expense would be spared he told me. But I had to promise not to tell his boss. Or the bulldog.

I promised.

He then cut a hole in the floorboards in each room and disappeared from view underground whilst aboveground, the pump and generator worked in unison to supply him with the necessary liquid with which to conduct warfare on the opposition below. 

Several thousand litres later, he emerged from the new swimming pool beneath the floor, dripping with perspiration and grinning from ear to ear. "Halfway there" he said, and raced to the truck once more, returning a short while later with another large drum, this one filled with the incredibly expensive hormone. He dug a shallow moat around the building which he filled with half the contents of the drum and then for good measure, he dug a similar moat around the car park in case the termites decided to try and escape the onslaught by motor vehicle.

A week later, there were no white ants. There were no black ants. There were no green ants. In fact there were no living insects within a two mile radius of the cottage, either aboveground or in the first three metres of topsoil. And I am fairly confident that my building will never ever suffer from the ravages woodworm or death watch beetle in the distant future. I am also quietly confident that none of my patrons will ever again suffer from intestinal parasites or head lice.

My benefactor and Miss Pursuee attended Chez Alain exactly one month later and were shown to one of my very best tables, right alongside Michael and his good wife who attended every year on their wedding anniversary. Michael worked for the local council and was only allowed to collect one rubbish bin per week from every establishment.

I had two.

Alongside Michael's table was a foursome consisting of the two workmen from the Water Board (plus wives) whose job it was to apprehend trespassers who illegally fished in the reservoir. This foursome thoroughly enjoyed their annual dinner and I thoroughly appreciated their deep friendship and understanding.

At the far end of the room was a quiet table where the government valuer and his wife always sat. It was his job to regularly revalue my premises and based on his valuation, my annual council rates were assessed.

Apparently my premises were worthless.

I had a full house that night, but I made very little money due to the prevailing rates of exchange. 

But…….c'est la guerre n'est ce pas?

I spent most of my boyhood reading books about wildlife, frontier living and survival in the wilderness etc, and used to go to sleep dreaming about catching beavers, moose, caribou and other large herbivorean quadrupeds with snares made from woven grasses or overhanging lianas that I had hacked down with my trusty machete. On other more daring days I would hunt assorted carnivores with rudimentary bows and arrows and tan their skins back at my warm log cabin, to make the most fetching of fashionable garments for my squaw who was most grateful and would thank me in a way which always made me appreciate secret women's business.

My tiny mind processed all the information I avidly read as best it could and I put it into practice during my playtime and I remember once breaking my father's leg in a bear pit that I had dug in the middle of one of our favourite walking trails.

I had spent a couple of days digging the hole with one of my mother's purloined mock silver kitchen forks and had then covered it over with criss crossed stalks of thin but sturdy twigs. The camouflage was completed with a lot of dried leaves and some rabbit droppings borrowed from the neighbour's hutch under cover of darkness. 

All I needed now was a bear.

As I cast my still tiny mind back to that moment in time, I realize that a small terrier dog would have been able to jump out of the hole with consummate ease had he had the misfortune or stupidity to fall in, but to a nine year old warrior, the job was a masterpiece of both design and execution.

It was with bursting pride that I wished to show my father my laboriously acquired bush skills, and it was not by chance that I noticed he was approximately the same size and weight as a bear. And so, one evening just before nightfall, I suggested he come for a short walk with me because there was 'something special' I wished to show him. And like a lamb to the slaughter he followed, bleating all the way.

As we approached the spot, I could hardly contain my excitement and started to giggle. I foolishly believed that my father would not see the danger ahead, would fall down the hole, would be astounded by the incredible hunting skills of the seed of his very own loins, and would then congratulate me roundly on a job well done. He would be so proud of me.

I was almost right.

With ten metres left to travel, I started to skip. 

There was a devilish cunning to this quickly formulated plan - I would skip right over the hole and father, not being a skipping sort of person, would not. He would disappear into the abyss and I would not. I would then lean over the edge and help him out, being complimented and congratulated profusely by him all the meanwhile. Thus works the simple mind of a nine year old boy who has read a lot of literature which should really have been restricted to adult book shops or at the very least should have required strict parental supervision. Perhaps the censors were asleep when 'Born Free' hit the bookshops in the fifties and sixties. Certainly someone should be held accountable for what happened that evening.

Things did not go exactly according to plan. My father, a tall man, had a very long stride and as luck would have it, he stepped right over the hidden danger and continued on his merry way. I was nonplussed and several metres further down the track, I stopped and tugged at his paw. I pleaded stupidity and said that I was mistaken regarding the whereabouts of the 'something special' and that we must have passed it in the fading light. Having known me since birth, my father accepted my plea of stupidity and returned with me along the track. He really should have bought a ticket in the lottery that week for the lanky grizzly once again stepped right over the crevasse and continued to lope homeward with his little airhead son stupidly skipping along beside him pretending to search for the 'something special' by the side of the track. By now, I was almost frantic with the thought that my days of elaborate labour would all be in vain.

I decided to tempt fate. Unlike myself, father was not known for his patience and I preyed upon him yet again to turn once more and walk the original course with his brainless little boy. He looked at me as if he truly regretted the union he had had with my mother nearly ten years ago and followed me with a sigh of resignation. 

A combination of good fortune, poor light and less vigorous strides on my father's part resulted in him finding the 'something special' that I was so hoping he would find.

His right leg snapped clean in two just below the knee and what I initially mistakenly took for loud compliments at my amazing bushcraft skills, in fact turned out to be his cries of extreme pain as he fell to the ground believing he had been (a) hit by a truck, or at the very least, (b) shot with a large calibre firearm by an unknown assailant.

Oblivious to his pain, I approached my prone daddy-bear, clapping my little hands in glee, feeling every bit the successful hunter as I approached to inspect my captured beastie.

Unfortunately for me, the bear was not yet dead and it grabbed me with its front paws in a vice-like grip. I am unable, dear reader, to print the verbal accolades he awarded me when he realized that the cause of his excruciating agony and sudden loss of stature was his sudden vertical integration into a trap deliberately set for him by myself. However, suffice to say I was sorely rewarded on the spot for my efforts, just before he fainted.

In fact, I believe I was the most continuously rewarded boy in our street for the remainder of that year.

If I do say so myself, my hunting skills are legendary and although my methods are not always the most orthodox, they are nonetheless effective, and later in life I considered it my duty as a parent to impart my knowledge and skills to my own offspring so that they could survive off the land for several years in case of world famine, civil unrest or just being kicked out of home by myself if I was in one of my nasty moods. 

Snails were of course easy prey and even the most sluggardly of my children soon mastered the art catching the slippery little suckers as I had taught myself to do many years before in the wilds of France. We progressed in true French style to the capture of feral amphibians and you dear reader cannot imagine the bursting pride I felt as my youngsters returned home with their first catch. A bucketful of tadpoles. Of course, we had to wait quite a while until they grew legs and their tails disappeared  before they became edible, but nonetheless my little boys had done well. They would never again go hungry should I meet an untimely death, perchance falling down a bear pit whilst out for a walk and be unable to provide for them. At the very least they would snack well.

The hunting lessons continued and as God is my witness, I remember the exact day when I truly felt that I had done my job as a father to the very best of my limited ability. It was the day I taught the children to fish.

We had a family outing to a trout farm. That is where families go to commit financial suicide in order to watch fish take turns in committing actual suicide on a blunt hook tied to two metres of line attached to a short rod. The rod is in turn attached to an equally short child who enjoys repetitive tasks. They are trained to enjoy repetition by their mothers who tell them to do things over and over and over and over and over and over and over again.

These particular trouty fish were fed daily at exactly 4 p.m., and unknown to the general public, every one in five of the fish in the dams was equipped with a waterproof Rolex and had been taught to tell the time.

We, the general public, were as gullible as the trouty fish, because after paying an exorbitant fee for 'family admission', we shelled out an equal amount for rod and line hire. I also thought that asking for a deposit on the bait was a bit over the top, but I didn't want to cause a scene in front of the children and so paid up, wondering how on earth I would get my deposit back.

What we didn't know at the time, but realized almost immediately we had handed over the money, was that the 'bait' was the fishes' daily ration, to whit standard pelletised fish food mixed with a little water to form a thick paste which would stick to the hook when applied by eager children. We found it also stuck to children’s clothing, car door handles and any other solid object that was able to be reached by small children.

Not only were we being blindly ripped off right left and centre, but the farm management was also saving on casual labour costs by getting us unsuspecting fools to feed the fish for them, and when I factored in the cost of the 'trout ice-creams' and the 'trout chocolates' that the children forced me to buy, I made a mental note to ring my broker the next day to invest in that particular farm and try to recoup some of my cash in the form of an annual dividend.

Fishing was allowed from 3.30 p.m. to 5.00 p.m.

Under the water in the ponds, the trout clustered around the more senior fish which were entrusted with the timekeeping, and they all waited just beneath the surface in nervous anticipation of the signal that dinner was about to be served.

The general public on the bank waited with equally nervous anticipation, especially the wallet holders who had been made patently aware by management that every landed fish had to be purchased and not returned to the water.

When the first line was cast by an excited child just before the legal time to commence, mayhem ensued and fish fought savagely with each other for the right to be the first to die, frightening some of the more delicate children and their parents who were used to comparatively more gentle and less vigorous animals such as rottweilers. 

I utilized the farm's duty solicitor to take out a second mortgage on our home in order to pay for the tonnage caught by my children that hour, and hired a tandem trailer to transport our catch to our abode, the title to which we now shared with an international bank and a trout farm.

Yes, we all learned a lesson that day and I am reminded of it every time I go to my fridge and see the 'Trout Farm fridge magnet' still stuck firmly to the door.

Several years later, one sunny summer's morn, I was seated on the brick terrace at the front of the restaurant deep in thought as I partook of a particularly aromatic Arabic coffee and one or two freshly baked shortbreads.

I was contemplating that afternoon's luncheon menu which was written in a very neat hand with white chalk on the blackboard leaning up against the wall. I reflected on the contributions that my progeny had made to it and the items that I had recently purchased from them at a very good price. They had caught and dressed the pigeons that now featured in prime position at the head of the main fare offering and the young rabbits that they had ferretted from the surrounding countryside were listed directly underneath. Then came the Indian doves (roasted and sold by the brace), which had been netted during a raid on the local dairy farmer's grain silo.

Yabbies too were featured. These underwater armadillos are a type of freshwater lobster and are highly prized and sought after by both international tourists and locals alike. The boys had caught them the previous day in the dams on our own farm with yabbie-pots made earlier in the week from old wire netting that they had fashioned into fairly respectable replicas of commercial crayfish pots, pictures of which they found in my old fishing magazines. I don't know where the wire netting came from, but shortly after the manufacture of these pots, a local councillor who lived nearby lost several fat hens to a fox which had managed to cut a very large hole in the wire netting perimeter fence which used to protect his hen house.

I did not purchase the fat hens. 

I believe the fox sold them to an undisclosed buyer.

There was a space left on the maincourse menu. This was deliberate and I hoped that the children would soon return with the ingredients I required to fill in the blank space.

Opposite the restaurant, just 50 or so metres away was a beautiful little river. It was smaller than it should ordinarily have been, because many years earlier, the Water Board had built an enormous weir upstream to catch the majority of the annual flow in order to supply the downstream suburbs with enough water of good quality with which to wash their four wheel drive vehicles in the street each Sunday. 

Of course no-one was allowed to trespass on the land surrounding the weir. It was private land. One was certainly not allowed to fish there either. However, if small boys wandering aimlessly in the hot sun for several hours became disoriented and accidentally happen upon my favourite fishing spot (as described on the map I equipped them with when I dropped them off that morning).........

I also included in their equipment several frozen orange juices and a bagful of orthodontically approved freshly baked shortbreads for morning tea. Plus of course, rods, lines, hooks and worms.

To my absolute surprise, shortly before twelve (as arranged) and just in time for lunch session, my little predators arrived at the restaurant bearing six or seven of the freshest river rainbow trout that one could imagine. Poissons magnifiques!

Asking no questions as to how on earth they had been procured, I extracted my wallet and paid the young entrepreneurs post-haste. Soon, the menu board read.......'Rainbow Trout, freshly poached, in champagne'. 

It is amazing what a difference just one adverb and one tiny little comma can make to a sentence.

Michael Havers always polished his shoes. He was quite polished in many other aspects too, although on first impression he appeared to be a little straight laced. He was well versed in all things cultural, had an excellent pedigree and was if you will pardon the cobbler's metaphor, extremely handsome to boot.

It was staff that first drew my attention to Mr Havers due to their dreadful gambling habit. Staff would bet small amounts of money each visit as to the probable or improbable vocation of particular patrons and Mr Havers had been chosen as a target, and by the time I guessed correctly, there was a considerable sum in the kitty. Of course I could have guessed correctly many visits earlier because Mr Havers always paid me with a gold credit card with the word 'Doctor' embossed on it directly preceding his Christian name and it was only myself who took the money at the till. Staff would have only squandered the money if they had won it anyway.

I certainly remember in vivid detail the first young(ish) lady who partnered him on his inaugural visit to Chez Alain. Her name was Nicci. Petite, about thirty, with high cheekbones, gold rimmed glasses and close cropped auburn hair in the style of publishing editors and marketing managers. The type of sparkling eyed woman with whom I feel most uncomfortable because of my uncontrollable urge to offer marriage within the first thirty minutes of meeting her. This has a tendency to greatly upset the person with whom the lady is dining at the time and so I generally try to refrain from attending that particular table, leaving it instead to a trusted waitress who will report back to me faithfully on my stunning guest's every movement and nuance. I certainly remember little Nicci.

I also remember Olga.

And Emma. And Yuki and Meredith and Suzanne and Hilary. All stunning beauties and all unsuccessful pairings with Dr Havers. Professionalism always prevented me from slipping poison into Michael's food when he attended at frequent intervals with these magnificent specimens of womanhood, although I must admit that the thought had often crossed my mind.

As a chef, I knew that Michael would be an excellent catch of the day for any young lady. His manners were impeccable, his wardrobe spoke of taste, his voice was warm and relaxing and best of all, his gold credit card swiped through my machine with no apparent discomfort, suggesting it would do similarly with all other machines at surgeries of retail therapy. Unfortunately for Michael and his young(ish) ladies, there was always something not quite right with the relationship. Perhaps they were too pushy. Too tall. Too short. Too quiet. Too loud. 

Whatever the reason, Dr Havers remained the most eligible bachelor we had ever known, but after several years, staff began to despair that he would never find his perfect partner. It was even suggested that he might be too fussy. Perhaps it was the way many of the ladies made their single status known to him in the hundred subtle ways known only to the opposite sex. Such as saying "I'm available darling. Now."

I thought of slipping him a note, asking him for a list of all the names and telephone numbers of his rejects so that I might personally convey my condolences to them, but once again my professionalism intervened and prevented me from consoling the young(ish) ladies so abandoned. 

“Why, oh why am I so professional?” I ask myself over and over again and resign myself to watching late night documentaries tout seul. Documentaries are probably more interesting anyway. Like beekeeping and macramé. And mathematics by correspondence.

I noted Michael's phenomenal success at attracting the opposite sex and started polishing my own shoes. I polished the back AND the sides, as well as the bit on top where the laces are threaded. In fact I began wearing the same type of clothes that Michael usually wore to the restaurant in the faint hope that soft corduroy trousers and cashmere sweaters would be less expensive than extensive plastic surgery on my face.

I should have spent the extra money. 

Another ruse did work for me for a short while though.

I was invited to attend an industry seminar on hygiene. 

Not really invited, I was compelled to attend after an unfortunate incident regarding a corgi.

It was sponsored by the Department of Health and representatives from most food outlets were invited. Even those modern food outlets where the managers are not yet old enough to wear long trousers or sit for their driving license.

I thought it reasonable to wear a name tag, the better to stimulate or facilitate conversation and so wrote my name in big bold letters on a piece of card and attached it to my cashmere sweater with a safety pin. I also added the prefix 'Doctor' to my name in case any clones of the Doctor Michael rejects might be out and about looking for a mate.

It was whilst feasting regally on crackers and a substance which closely resembled cheese so generously provided at half time by the Health Department, that I caught the eye of a Haveresque young(ish) lady and I sidled over to introduce myself before anyone else did. Noticing my name tag, she asked me in which field I worked and in my best agricultural sort of response I dug up the first thought that came into my head. 

“Microbiology”, I said.

You can imagine my surprise and delight when she replied that she too was a microbiologist and began to discuss her latest research on little wriggly things that multiplied by division.

I smiled my exceptionally happy smile and glanced at my watch, only to find to my great relief that it was half past my bedtime and that I really had to dash. I burned the name tag when I got home and dyed my hair another colour lest I ever be recognized by her in the future.

Michael continued to frequent my establishment with incredibly attractive women, but none managed to ignite his fire, let alone fan his ember and after several years of continual failure, he ceased to come anymore. We were all saddened. Staff were saddened that he had been unable to find that one special person to make his heart sing and I too was sorrowful that he was no longer able to make my cash register sing.

And unable to find a suitable partner as well, of course.

Two long years passed before I noticed Dr Havers' name in the appointment book again. He had booked his usual table for two in the privacy of 'The Snug' and had requested a dozen long stemmed red roses for his partner on their arrival. They would be celebrating their first anniversary. Staff sensed the importance of the event and looked forward to seeing Michael once more and especially his new partner.

The couple arrived, hand in hand, Michael wearing his trademark cashmere sweater plus one of the broadest smiles I have ever seen on a man's face. He radiated happiness and was eager to introduce his new partner to all the staff.

His new partner's name was David. 

And he just LOVED the roses.

  One of the great benefits of owning a restaurant is being able to shop at the large wholesale grocery warehouse where hooligans dressed as shop attendants are paid good money to race up and down the aisles with forklift trucks whilst assiduously trying to jab the shoppers with those long industrial grade hypodermic syringes attached to the front of their vehicles

 The warehouse doors open (race begins) at 7.30 a.m. precisely and they close (race ends) at 6.00p.m. sharp. A race winner is declared daily. He is the multi tattooed young driver who has managed to create the least carnage and his name, police serial number, identikit likeness and parole officer’s telephone number are then displayed for all customers to view on every checkout screen. He also receives a gold star with sticky stuff on the back of it to glue to his certificate of competency.

I am told that this encouragement award may lead to increased efficiency and fewer instore pedestrian deaths.

I have my doubts. 

And it is because of these doubts and the fact that I value my life highly, that I try to shop in person at the warehouse as infrequently as humanly possible, although sometimes it is unavoidable. When Chez Alain first opened for business, I continued to shop at my local supermarket for a year or so because not only did I feel comfortable with the store layout and the fact that I knew where all the items were on the shelves, but also because I really fancied a rather cute young lady who worked in the meat section and was rather dextrous at handling smallgoods. It was only when she was transferred to work in another store that I felt more inclined to shop around elsewhere so to speak and was referred to the wholesaler’s by a business acquaintance.

I soon realized that it was much easier buying in bulk rather than purchasing hundreds of dinky little packets and boxes at my local supermarket and more often than not, the prices were a little cheaper too, though not always.

Later I was to learn that everything has its cost, in more ways than one.

After the initial few personal visits to establish some credit and get to know the types and quality of goods they sold, I began to telephone my order through or I would pay a local child to send it through via one of those computer thingies and the whole order would be delivered to my door. Gratis. All children know how to work even the most complicated of computers and so I have the kiddies from the local Primary school on a roster to help me.

Often the delivery would arrive with other goods having been substituted for those that were specifically ordered but out of stock at the warehouse. Sometimes there would be quite unbelievable mix ups, but thankfully they were rare and we could all have a good laugh afterwards, like the time I ordered toilet rolls and they sent me computer paper. We certainly had a little giggle at that one.

The best little mix up occurred the day before a big function. I had contracted for a large wedding reception on the Saturday and had been furiously preparing all week. On the Friday, in the late afternoon, I was expecting my usual delivery from the warehouse including some fresh salmon with which to make the salmon mousse entrée. Chez Alain, as you are no doubt aware, is located right in the middle of nowhere and so the delivery driver always makes my restaurant his last port of call, at the very end of his long run.

It was a dull grey winter’s morning that progressed into a very rainy afternoon and the delivery driver didn't reach my establishment until well after dark because he had to reduce his usual breakneck speed to a more sedate pace. My boxes of goods were unloaded and he bade me adieu, leaving me to unpack. I unpacked amongst other things, twelve dozen tins of sardines.

But no salmon.

The warehouse closes at 6.00 p.m. sharp.

Just before dark in winter.

It reopens on Monday.

I realized that this was one of those hilarious little mix ups that I was somehow going to have to solve without the kind assistance of my helpful warehouse storeman who obviously thought that all species of fish starting with the same letter of the alphabet also tasted the same. And I had just a few hours to find a solution. When the warehouse reopened on the Monday I would certainly remember to tell him that he was mistaken and that it was not in fact the case. That it was in fact, a fallacy. An urban storeman's myth. Quite erroneous. And we would probably have a good chuckle  together about the whole incident.

Meanwhile, I needed to find a solution.

Luckily I had a large jar of exceptionally fine red chilli powder in my pantry and several bunches of fresh coriander picked that morning from the farm herb garden and I resorted to an old tried and true recipe that I had had occasion to use before. I chopped the coriander fairly coarsely and mixed it with the boned sardines and one or two other secret ingredients known only to chefs in my predicament. I then added about a kilo of the chilli. Enough to completely obliterate any person's taste buds. And also enough to remove any tartar or plaque that had built up on their dental work over the past few years. And clean or dissolve any amalgam fillings.

I then renamed the dish 'Thai salmon mousse' and located hundreds of pitchers of iced water (with slices of lemon) on every horizontal surface in the dining room. I also arranged several beautiful posies of coriander in little vases on the bar and in the reception room to give authenticity to the dish and add atmosphere when the guests arrived.

Those persons still able to make audible squeaks with their vocal chords after consuming their entrée assured me they had never tasted anything quite like it before. I wondered whether or not they would ever taste anything again.

It was at about this time in my life that I started taking tablets.

I bumped into the storeman first thing on the Monday morning and we had a little laugh together outside the freezer room where all the ice cream and frozen fish is kept. Ice cream and frozen fish and storemen now. He was found on the Tuesday, still as fresh as when I locked him in there, thanks to the miracle of modern refrigeration and with a much better knowledge of fish. 

The wholesaler's warehouse is big. 

Not ordinary big. Very, very big. As big as the humungous pimple which appears on your nose just before an important date with a new girlfriend or boyfriend. That big.

On my first visit I was overawed by the size. The shelves were made out of scaffolding and soared about five metres in the air. Hence the need for the forklift trucks to load the shelves with the bulk items contained in large cardboard boxes. These same forklift trucks are also required to assist shoppers to remove the large boxes from the shelves and load them onto specially designed shopping trolleys that look like small tray top trucks and can carry about as much.

I have since learned that in order to obtain a forklift driver's licence, one of the young colourfully decorated gentlemen must collect a specific number of tokens from the inside of cornflake packets and then send the tokens off to the Ministry of Transport. A provisional licence is then sent by return mail and a full licence is not issued for six months or four pedestrian deaths, whichever occurs first.

All the cornflake packets in the warehouse have been opened.

And all the forklift drivers have full licences.

It was whilst dodging a particularly vicious and unwholesome looking young man on his metal steed that I noticed an old lady standing quite still at the end of aisle three. She was just staring at me. Then she started to sob.

I walked over and asked her what the matter was and you could have knocked me down with a feather when she said I was the spitting image of her dead son and the very sight of me filled her with emotion. Vanity prevented me from asking her if I looked like her son before he died or after he died, and so I just stood there looking quite silly. She then asked me to give her a big hug and say "I love you mum" just like her son used to. I could see it was going to be one of those odd days.

To say I felt foolish would be an understatement, but I acquiesced to the dear old lady who began to look uncomfortably like my granny and gave her a hug etc. She then suggested I might like to help her with her shopping and once again I acquiesced, now quite revelling in my new role as boy scout and newfound son, although I began to feel a little self conscious when she gave me those long forlorn stares and kept calling me ‘son’.

The dear old lady had quite a mountain of shopping, as did I, and we both lined up in the same checkout queue and chatted away whilst the shoppers in front of us completed their purchases and paid. It was during this chat that the old dear asked me a very special favour. She said that I had brightened her life (what was left of it) immeasurably, just as her son used to and asked whether or not I would say "Goodbye mum, see you soon" to her as she left the store, because she would probably never see me again and I did so much remind her of her dear departed son in every way.

I was so glad she didn't ask for a kiss goodbye that I readily agreed. Besides which, I could see that she wasn't long for this world and would soon enough be reunited with her lost son and it was the very least I could do whilst she was still counted amongst the living.

And I am known for doing the very least.

She pushed her mountain of goods through the checkout and then leaned over to the checkout lady and pointed at me, saying "Goodbye son". She also waved and blew me the type of kiss only a mother could blow in a crowded room. I remember blushing and responded as I had promised earlier with the words "Goodbye mum, see you soon" and the old dear staggered off to the car park pushing her trolley full of goodies. I hoped that I had done my good deed for the day and made a tired old lady blissfully happy.

I also wondered whether or not I would ever see her again and I uncharitably hoped not. To relieve myself of these rather selfish thoughts I struck up a conversation about football with the gentleman waiting in line behind me whilst my own mountain of goods was processed. About ten minutes later, when the last cardboard box had been scanned and recorded, I was presented with the bill. 

I made an involuntary and quite anti social noise when I saw the total and said there must have been a mistake, it was nearly triple the total I had been expecting.

I was assured there was no mistake and the young lady offered to scan the items through again. Which she did. After a further ten minutes of careful scanning she assured me that my goods still came to exactly the same amount and that when added to my mother's bill, it came to the same total as before.

As my ‘mother’ had left the checkout, she had apparently told the young lady that I would pay her enormous account at the same time as I paid mine. And that I would follow her home shortly.

It took a little while, but finally the light came on in my dim little mind. I had been scammed. I tried to explain this to the checkout girl but she would have none of it and insisted that I pay my mother's account immediately. I of course strenuously denied any relationship with the old tart and said so vociferously but the gentleman waiting patiently in line behind me begged to differ. Both he AND the checkout operator had heard me say "Goodbye mum, see you soon". There obviously was a relationship. And I was just as obviously trying to avoid paying the account. Or commit fraud.

I had been well and truly shafted.

One reads about this sort of thing in the newspaper but one never ever expects to become a victim oneself. I know that I never did. I panicked and started to stutter. It was the best scam I had ever had the displeasure of being involved in and I decided that the only course of attack was immediate retreat, otherwise I would have to part with nearly a thousand dollars for my 'mother's' account. Unfortunately for me, a large security guard had heard the commotion and had come over to investigate. He appeared to be a large tattooed cousin of the forklift drivers and looked equally unwholesome.

I started to scramble over the mountain of goods now stacked neatly in front of me on my trolley and just as neatly blocking my escape. I had nearly surmounted the pile when I felt the grip of the security guard on my jacket and I wondered how all this would read in the evening tabloids.

"Well known restaurateur caught shoplifting".

With a deft twist I broke free and leapt over the last box, only to be caught once again by the security guard. This time by the leg. I kicked out wildly as one would in blind panic to try and free myself once more and wished the old lady and her son reunited that very minute. But still the damned security guard held fast. I have never before in my life felt so foolish. So humiliated.

The security guard just kept on pulling my leg and pulling my leg.

Just as I am pulling yours, dear reader.

Doug is reclusive. 

This is now the nicest adjective I can think of to describe him. 

I used to think of him as kind, considerate, friendly, interesting and thoughtful, but the plums changed all that.

I thought Doug was a friend of mine. We had a lot in common. We each owned a farm, were the same age and both enjoyed the finer things in life, like golf, wine and good food. We were also both bachelors at the time of our friendship and we were both 'Greenies'. That is to say instead of chainsawing down every last tree on our respective properties, we planted them instead, thus providing a wonderful habitat for God's gorgeous little creatures.

We were successful greenies too and within a few years, thousands of chattering parrots, galahs, cockatiels and cockatoos swarmed about our acreages, delighting in the smorgasbord of native foods provided by the maturing eucalypts and enjoying the relative safety of our thick shelter belts of smaller shrubs and groundcover. As well as the birdlife, little marsupials were also attracted to the new bushland. Tiny pygmy possums, sugar gliders and ringtail possums frequented the treetops and at night they could be heard scrambling about the branches, playfully jumping from one tree to another.

Unfortunately for us, not only did the cute little birdies and fluffy possums enjoy the nectar, flowers and fresh shoots of the native trees, but they also enjoyed the fruits of our other labours, namely nearly every last thing that grew in our respective orchards. Peaches, nectarines, plums, apples, cherries, apricots and berries all went down the same gullets with gusto and all that was left each season was a pile of debris consisting of half eaten fruit and bird droppings underneath each tree. This of course made excellent mulch for the trees, but the combination looked dreadful in the fruit bowl at dinnertime and remained untouched even after the cheese and coffee had been served.

There is however one fruit that is left alone. It is bird broccoli, more commonly known as the wild bitter plum which I'm sure it is a close relative of the damson or sloe because it is about the size of a damson, is a similar bluish black in colour and has rather a large stone for a fruit of its size. This particular wild plum is quite inedible before it ripens and barely changes taste when it actually does ripen. The only really noticeable change is the mood swing of the fruit from green to black which says 'eat me if you dare, punk'. I tried to eat one once and all four of my cheeks puckered so much I had to force a wooden spatula into my mouth to prise them apart. 

I shall apprise you of the incident forthwith.

Quite unknown to me at the time, Doug had quite a number of these plum trees on his property. They had been planted by the original settlers in the district who had unbelievably preferred the plums to scurvy. These particular trees have since managed to propagate themselves along a creekline by the dead bird method and I'm sure that if they continue at their current rate of unhindered expansion, they will enter my own property several kilometres away within the next few years. I can't see anything apart from a shortage of birds or a bushfire that will retard their slow but inexorable progress. 

The dead bird method:- Every now and then a young and stupid bird will pick one of the plump ripe plums and fly into a nearby tree to eat it. The bird will then gag on the taste and if it is lucky, it will manage to drop the plum. If it is unlucky, the bird will die of plum poisoning and the plum will fall off the perch along with the bird. The fallen fruit then germinates and the plum tree march continues unabated. Most birds are the unlucky type and provide a more than adequate amount of fertilizer for the germinating seed.

It was on the thirteenth hole at Doug's golf club that I raised the subject of our pesky birds and the fact that both of us would probably never reap the rewards of our years of blood sweat and tears in establishing our orchards. We toyed with the idea of galah goulash or cockatoo casserole as we meandered down the fourteenth fairway to hit our sixth shots, but came to the conclusion that the colourful creatures were only saving us the laborious job of picking the fruit in the hot summer sun anyway. Besides which, at our age, we had better things to do. 

We completed our game and retired to the nineteenth hole to do one of those better things.

Doug was thoughtful. He was also considerate. He also knew that I used copious quantities of fruit at Chez Alain with which to make my incredibly famous fruit coulis and summer ice-creams. These summer delicacies were known for hundreds of metres throughout the countryside and were the sole topic of conversation of the neighbouring dairy farm. So, in his kind and helpful way, Doug decided to replace that which the birds had stolen from me. He really is too kind. Kind to a fault.

One fine summer's morning before the sun got too hot, Doug put on his wide brimmed hat, some sunscreen cream, a pair of gardening gloves and his long boots in case he trod on one of the many brown snakes that lived down at the creek. He walked down to the wild plum tree grove and proceeded to fill two large sacks with the fruit. Doug was a country boy and in his schooldays had spent many long hours fruitpicking during the long summer holidays. He, like all the other pickers, was always paid for the weight of fruit he picked and so he learned to pick fast. He also learned to pick sticks and small branches and lizards and anything else that weighed more than a plum and pop these into the sack too.

Doug was no fool. Had he not been picking the plums for me, I'm sure the occasional housebrick would have found its way into the bags as well, but because these plums were to be a special surprise present to a friend, I had to be content with more general arborial debris.

Doug arrived in my car park about mid morning quite unannounced, with a big smile on his face. He looked fairly flushed from his exertion and beckoned me over to the trailer attached to his vehicle in which two sacks full of fruit lay on their sides like two dead hippos. Some hippo juice seeped through the bags in some places due to the crushing weight and it wasn't until Doug told me that the sacks contained plums that I stopped considering involving the police. Until then I thought the bags might have contained another trespasser from his property, but I shall refrain from mentioning that particular incident because Doug has long since repaid his debt to society and it would only open old wounds, so to speak.

I didn't know what to say, so I tried "Goodness me Doug, you appear to have two huge bags of squashed overripe plums that look like dead hippos in your trailer."

I thought that he had been in the sun too long that morning and was about to offer him a glass of water when he said the plums were a gift for me.

Once again I was stuck for words. 'My, my!' I thought 'What on earth am I going to do with three hundredweight of squashed plums? What an extraordinarily generous present.'

I even thought of thanking him.

I had not at that point in my life ever tasted a wild bitter plum and so I tried one. Had it not been for the fact that I had been making some herbed and garlic mushrooms on the stove when Doug arrived and I still held the wooden spatula in my hand with which I had been stirring them, I might not be alive today. My cheeks touched each other from the inside and my face still looked like a fish fifteen minutes after that first taste. 

I invited Doug into the restaurant for a little sit down in the shade in case he had taken leave of his senses. Often a short rest can work wonders at our age. Just ask our lady friends, we often invite them for a little lie down for exactly that reason. And they think we have taken leave of our senses too.

Business had been a little slow for a week or two at Chez Alain and so all the jobs that normally get put off when we are busy had been taken care of. Therefore, my apprentice, a strapping young fellow called James was relatively free and so I asked him to slowly escort Doug back to his vehicle and on his return journey from the car park, bring in the sacks. I should have said 'one at a time', because about half an hour later, my herniated apprentice fell over the threshold carrying nearly half a ton of hippo meat on his broad shoulders. The phrase 'thick as a brick' may have escaped my lips as unfazed, I rolled him off the bags and dragged them one at a time into the kitchen and began the long job of deciding what to do with them.

My good friend, Dr. Tamuel O'Shanter is Scottish and so I rang him for his advice. I have been to Scotland and so I know for a fact that the Scots will eat anything. I almost ate haggis once myself by mistake thinking it was food. Tam advised me to invest in a truckload of sugar and allow my apprentice to indulge himself in his creative urges with the dead hippos, then take two aspirin and call him again in the morning.

I did as the good doctor advised and allowed James free rein in the kitchen and for the next few days he lovingly washed and sieved the fruit, then slowly simmered it in great cauldrons on every burner on my very sticky gas stove. Purple stains began to appear on all walls and the ceiling where little flicks of juice landed as bubbles burst in the pans of boiling plums. My apprentice warmed to the task and ordered every cook book imaginable that had any reference to plums and charged them all to Chez Alain's account. Another freezer was required to keep the fruit puree wholesome and so a week later, a large expensive chest type freezer arrived that James had taken the liberty of ordering on my account, with just enough capacity to hold the one and a half tons of plum stuff that he had made, if one included the weight of the sugar.

I shall not bore you dear reader with the fun we had disposing of the plum stuff, suffice to say that for the next year we had wild bitter plum ice-cream, wild bitter plum pudding, plum stuffing in all game meats, plum sauces, plum coulis, plum custard crêpes, plum jelly, plum jam and wild bitter plum cookies served with coffee. I even gave bottles of plum chutney to all my neighbours as Christmas presents.

The kitchen was redecorated and my apprentice was relieved to learn from Dr. O'Shanter that his bad case of acne was in fact just spatters of plum sauce which had managed to gain a foothold upon his person and would vanish with the spring rains or when he next washed his face, whichever was the sooner. 

Finally, after twelve long months, I was rid of the damned plums.

I'm sure you can imagine my horror when I arrived at the restaurant after a strenuous game of golf one summer's afternoon the following fruit season, to find not two dead hippos in my kitchen, but four. My apprentice had arrived earlier in the day and had assisted Doug to unload his latest surprise present. James had obviously once again tried to bring all the bags in at one go and had suffered a mental breakdown because he had not only made Doug a cup of tea and failed to charge him for it, but had ordered another new freezer and a further library of cookbooks, quoting my credit card number over the phone to the delighted salesman. Larger saucepans too had been ordered from my suppliers and he advised me they would arrive shortly, probably that afternoon. He had also driven Doug home. Thoughtful lad.

I ran to the telephone to ring my senile golfing friend and asked him in the nicest of tone what on earth had entered his wizened brain this time. Had he taken a dislike to me? I said his latest present was extremely thoughtful but I really couldn't accept it, he was simply too generous. I would return the precious fruit immediately. Including the juice if I could mop it all up from the kitchen floor.

Doug would hear none of it and insisted it was no trouble at all on his part to give his good friend a little gift, and if I was so insistent that he had been too generous then he would be more than happy to accept a free dinner for two in return if I offered it.

I was gobsmacked.

The new truckload of sugar that James had so prudently ordered arrived in the car park at that instant, presenting me with a further problem and I resigned myself to another year of creative menus and walls with measles.

A year went by and even the most jaundiced of my patrons took on a somewhat ruddy complexion, a legacy no doubt of the warm plum juice with which they were greeted on arrival instead of the usual mulled wine.

The third fruit season, I decided to nip the problem in the bud so to speak and telephoned Doug to say that we had had elegant sufficiency of his lovely plums and that owing to my desire to include considerably more roughage in my diet, I would be unable to accept his usual summer gift.

He sounded a little offended and I assured him it had nothing to do with him, it was just that I felt dreadful accepting such a magnanimous gesture and said that I would contact him if I ever wished to see another plum again in my life.

There must have been a very severe drought in Africa that summer, because a week or so later, a large herd of dead hippos leaned against my wall early one morning, seeping hippo juice all over the red brick terrace. Under threat of death the apprentice was told not to drag the animals inside, but to hire a trailer and reload them. Which he did. I then drove straight to Doug's house, only stopping once to have a short conversation with a constable who gave me a ticket for overloading.

I proceeded to my ex friend's abode and could tell by the way he had parked his motorized golf buggy at an odd angle in the creekbed that he had just returned from an exhausting nineteen and was now most probably inside taking a quiet nap to sleep it off.

I am not by nature a mean man and having no wish to disturb his peaceful slumber, I piled the dripping sacks up against all the exits so that he could not fail to find them when he awoke and returned to the restaurant to wash up and change my purple clothes.

I'm sure I shall hear from Doug again when he eats his way through the mountains of fruit which block his escape from a house becoming more mauve by the minute as the juice flows under the front and back doors, however at this point of time, I shall just call him reclusive.

People do not read signs.

Chez Alain has several signs erected for the sole purpose of providing the local canine population with somewhere to relieve themselves. My expensive signage is definitely NOT for the purpose of providing information. Neither do people listen and I don't know how many times I have been disturbed from my peaceful cheffing duties in the kitchen by a knocking sound coming from the vicinity of the front door. Even though the sign says ‘Closed’.

There are two very large tourist information signs dedicated to Chez Alain on the main road, one on the north approach and the other on the south approach. They each say "Historic Cottage and Restaurant", and indicate that the restaurant car park entrance is about 100 metres further on. In the car park itself, there is a sign for the mentally incapacitated which indicates that the flat bitumenised area equipped with nothing but a series of parallel white lines painted on the ground in which their car is now stationary, is in fact a car park. This sign says "Car Park".

Another canine urinal equipped with professional lettering indicates the footpath to the restaurant. Unbelievably this reads "Footpath to Restaurant" and a small arrow points in the correct direction in case the general public mistakes the river for my establishment. Outside the restaurant, at the beginning of the terrace, is a large blackboard. To the general public blessed with sight, this blackboard is occasionally recognized as a menu board and those of them fortunate enough to have attended more than two or three years of primary education sometimes try to read it. This large blackboard menu is only put out when an equally large "Open" sign has been placed on the footpath. The "Open" sign indicates that living people are currently inhabiting the restaurant and helps prevent the blackboard being stolen. Again.

Further along the red brick terrace, outside the front door (which through an oversight is not labelled as being a door) is another menu board for those who did not read or trip over the other one. There is also a "Welcome, please enter" sign pinned to the front door when we are open. It is written in English because Australia is an English speaking country and the usual credit card company transfer stickers adorn one of the front windows to suggest that we accept credit cards as payment for our services as well as the preferred legal tender.

Further to our standard restaurant signs, we provide more sensory indicators. Cooking smells, like roasted onions and rich beef stock with steamed bouquets garnis escape through every keyhole and open window, suggesting that our establishment is not in fact a university, because universities smell like sweaty adolescents. Nor is it a shoe shop, because shoe shops smell like sweaty socks and leather.

The historic cottage called Chez Alain is in fact a restaurant. Just as the huge sign kindly donated by a local brewing company and nailed to the side wall says. Hard to believe really.

I answer the knock at the front door.

The first intelligent question posed by the caller is usually, "Is this the way in?"

If I have already had my tablets that day, I am inclined to reply in the affirmative, however a man in my condition is quite unreliable and more often than not I have neglected to take my medication. If this is the case, I am liable to consider the public person's question seriously. I will carefully gauge the man's height and weight and then if I think he will fit, I say "No, this is not the way in. This is in fact the front door", and I suggest he try to enter through the window instead. In December, I have been known to suggest that the person try to climb down the chimney with a sackful of toys and enter the restaurant that way.

There is usually a short pause before the gentleman continues his scintillating conversation. "Do you serve meals here?" is always the equally intelligent follow up question.

Unless I am holding an implement, my general response is "No sir, I'm sorry, we don't. This is a petrol station," and give a little apologetic smile as I wave goodbye. If I AM holding an implement, my apprentice will rush over to restrain me and continue the discourse with the public person himself, whereupon our establishment gains a new patron and enough revenue to pay some of my apprentice's unpaid wages.

I too am a member of the general public when I am at large and I remember a little incident concerning signage in Spain when I was travelling with my ex second wife. Some Basque terrorists had been having some very frank but not too open discussions with some army generals when the discussions had turned quite nasty, inasmuch as explosives had been used in their concluding argument and a number of generals had met a most unpleasant demise. It was a particularly upsetting time in Madrid and quite understandably there was general unease. There were long road blocks everywhere for many hours as traffic was brought to a standstill by the polizia and each car was checked for hidden terrorists.

At the time I wondered why escaping terrorists would stay hidden in a vehicle for four or five hours waiting for their turn to be discovered, but I was unused to Spanish police methods and remained silent. Night fell and we remained stuck in a queue some kilometres long on the freeway, awaiting our turn to be searched. She who must be obeyed was in desperate need of an ablution block, for my darling was disinclined to relieve herself on the front off tyre of the vehicle, a custom which she discovered to her horror was usual in these parts when a motorist was faced with this reasonably frequent predicament.

With the generous assistance of the neighbouring motorists who carefully moved their trucks, vans and motor vehicles to allow us to sidle across the other lanes, we were able to leave the highway and look for a place to camp for the night. I was the driver, my darling the navigator.

As night fell, my navigator found a large bitumenised area with a great many parallel white lines painted on the ground. She said it looked like a car park. She had seen car parks before. 

I distinctly heard her say “Let’s park over there. In the car park of that bus depot.”

The driver did as he was told and proceeded through the very wide and open gateway.

The German word ‘Verboten’ means a big ‘no-no’. It is usually followed by a red circle with a diagonal line drawn through it. This crossed out circle is an international symbol for ‘no-no’and means the same whether or not there is a Spanish or an Italian or even a Russian word in front of it. I have seen this symbol in James Bond movies and so I know it to be true. In Spain however, one can expect a Spanish word in front of the red circle with the diagonal line which may confuse the less multi lingual, but this is not an acceptable excuse in a court of Spanish law. The only worse symbol is a skull and crossbones which means mega no-no. All over the world. With no exceptions.

Even in Tasmania where two skulls are featured on the sign. 

All this informative ‘no-no’signage which decorated the chain link fence surrounding the carpark went unheeded by my darling navigator who spoke no international at all. But to be fair to the lass, we had been searching for a public toilet for several hours and there is a slight chance that she had other things on her mind at the time.

I parked the Blue Jellyfish which wobbled to a stop in a perfect exhibition of parallel parking between two of the white lines on the bitumen, whereupon my good woman hastily disembarked to make an close inspection of one of the ornamental shrubs on the perimeter. On her return we made dinner on our single burner stove in the campervan, relieved to be off the highway. My wife was especially relieved and once refilled with three bowlsful of paella and a large slice of parmesan frittata, she prepared herself for bed by upending the dining table, repositioning half a dozen large cushions and drawing the cute little curtains all around the van windows.

She then snuggled down into our big double sleeping bag, assumed her usual foetal position and fell asleep instantly. She always left just enough room down one side of the bag for me to insert almost all of my left leg. This leg always kept very warm and has continued to be my good leg throughout the rest of my life, for which I am truly grateful. Had I had my wits about me at the time I would have alternated legs each night, however we can all be wise in hindsight.

At about midnight, there was a loud banging on the side of the van. The engine had been turned off long ago and so the mechanic in my brain said that it was nothing to worry about. However it was something to worry about, because the banging continued and became more strident.

I got my left leg out of bed, crawled to the front of the van and climbed into the front seat. I pulled back the curtain and met a very agitated gentleman dressed in a very smart looking uniform. He was holding a pistol. The pistol was pointed at my head.

Although I speak little Spanish, I could tell by his gesticulating that he wanted me to wind down the window. Immediately.

I obeyed. Immediately.

My darling slept. Soundly.

The uniformed gentleman poked his (automatic) pistol through the window until it came to rest against my head. The uniformed gentleman had several friends standing nearby dressed in similar smart uniforms who either smoked or chatted, or both. None of them looked pleasant. He turned to his friends and sought their advice. Some said “Shoot him” and continued smoking. Another of the party suggested he check my passport first. If he had asked me what he should do, I would have said "Please shoot the mad woman currently snoring peacefully in the sleeping bag," or something equally funny I'm sure, but he didn't ask me because he thought I was a terrorist. I was beginning to pick up Spanish fairly quickly.

The gun began to feel very cold against my forehead. And my darling too began to feel cold because she awoke and asked me in her gentlest manner to please close the window and ask my friends to call again in the morning because the night air was affecting her health.

I tried to position myself such that if I was actually shot, the bullet would pass right through my head and kill her as well.

Senõr Pistola succumbed to the influence of his amigo and demanded my passaporta. I called to my snuggly darling that there was a gentleman at the door who held the mistaken belief that I might be a terrorist and that he would like to see my passaporta. I also added as an afterthought that he had a gun held against my forehead and asked her whether or not it would be too much trouble to find the required document reasonably quickly and deliver it to the front seat.

Only one person in the world could grumble that I was a very inconsiderate man and that I would be made to pay for disturbing her sleep. After what appeared to be a lifetime of searching, my darling in her loudest voice asked which passport the gentleman wanted to see. 

It seemed that Senõr Pistola did speak a little English and became very interested in my passaportas plural. He asked me how many I had and he led me to understand that terrorists usually carry several. It was at that very instant in time that I realized just how much my wife enjoyed her beauty sleep and just how much I was going to pay for causing the little darling to miss those precious few minutes.

I proffered both my English and my Australian passports and in my quavering Spanish said over and over again that I was a tourista not a terrorista, and that I had dual nationality. Senõr Pistola was obviously a married man, because on the command of "Hurry up you two, I'm getting cold" barked in a very sharp female voice from the rear of the van, he snapped rigidly to attention, removed the offensive object (which had by now made a lasting impression) from my forehead and made it very clear to me that we were to remove ourselves from the car park by 6 a.m.

It was broad daylight at half past five when the shrill alarm rang on my little travel clock. I crawled half frozen into the driver's seat, opened the curtains and looked about. My darling's 'Bus depot' held a collection of the funniest looking buses I had ever seen. Most of them looked distinctly like tanks. You know, the ones you see on the television news with angry men in uniforms sitting on top of them. Not big fat rainwater tanks with friendly magpies sitting on top of them. And at that moment, a lot of those angry men were milling about waiting for the big hand on their wristwatches to move to number twelve and the little hand to move to number six. Then they could play bang bangs with their gun guns at my head head.

My darling had made a little navigational error. It was time to depart.

From that day on, I began to take more notice of signs. Even those tiny obscure signs that say in letters two metres high, 'Restaurant' and 'Chez Alain' and 'Open', and especially 'Car Park.'

And now, when people ask me inane questions because they forgot to read the signs, I am liable to start speaking in Spanish. But only because the police won't allow me to have a gun. Any more.

My parents not only bred children, they also bred dogs. Not real dogs, but Chihuahuas, a breed developed by the Incas of Peru by crossing a Coati Mundi with a fieldmouse. And hundreds of years of unsuccessful line breeding by pedigreed breeders has given us the distorted hybrid we cherish today. An animal highly prized by high rise apartment dwellers who wish to own a pet that won't get bored being kept in a cupboard all day. An animal that looks like a rat but only eats half as much.

Mindless yappers would be an apt description of these pseudodogs and it was not until I was about ten years old that I realized that the fifty or so Chihuahuas which roamed the interior of my parents' house were not in fact physically impaired relatives, but household pets.

By the time I was three I had learned to lap water from a bowl and I would always turn around two or three times before curling up to go to sleep in my basket in front of the fire. I could distinguish between brands of dog biscuit by taste as well as by looks and I had also been twice reprimanded by the local constabulary for biting the postman, hence I was required to wear a muzzle in public until the age of six. Unfortunately, because of my unusual upbringing, I still have a problem with sniffing when I greet people. This is often misinterpreted by members of the opposite sex, especially on introduction to them for the first time in a crowded room, however I shall refrain from elaborating on this particular subject at this juncture lest you, dear reader, think I'm odd.

And by the way, never, ever, attempt to take a chop bone from my plate, even if you think I have finished with it. You have been warned.

It would be fair to say that I am not enamoured with these sacred Inca rat-dogs and put them in the same category as chilli, coriander, dentists and body odour, but not necessarily in that order. My distaste for the breed increased when my mother gave my first wife a Chihuahua as a wedding present owing to the fact that we lived in a highrise apartment. I shrieked when I found out and shrieked even more when my former darling told me she had named it Butch (after my sister). As luck would have it, I accidentally dropped the poor thing out of the window the next day which caused more than a little consternation in our otherwise happy home. Even more unfortunate for me was the fact that we lived on the ground floor of the highrise and the little darling rat-dog just shook himself and walked back in through the front door. Butch stayed with that particular wife for nearly twenty years until one day he suddenly expired. I understand he was curled up in his usual position on the couch when a behemoth of a son-in-law sat on him. I did not particularly like that dog, but I'm sure I could get to like the son-in-law.

One day I met another Chihuahua at close range. 

Its name was 'Pooh-Pooh' and was probably the most spoilt dog I have ever had the displeasure of knowing in my entire life. And I have known a lot of Chihuahuas. With the appropriate amount of displeasure.

I first met Pooh-Pooh in the dining room of Chez Alain where he was seated comfortably atop a large silk cushion on one of my antique chairs. The cushion had obviously not been brought by the dog because the designer silken quilt weighed about three kilograms more than the little darling and had been deftly placed by human hands to cover the rather ordinary cotton variety of cushion which we supplied on our chairs as standard issue for the general two legged eating public. Seated to the dog's left was a human female, and seated opposite the dog was a man. 

In the middle of a place mat on the dining table directly in front of the dog was a small white ceramic bowl with the name Pooh-Pooh inscribed on its side in capital letters. It looked like a dog bowl and because of the bowl's location, I guessed there was an expectation that either the husband (whose name was Pooh-Pooh?) would be reaching over the table to eat his gruel, or that someone wanted me to serve the gorgeous little doggie a Sunday lunchie-poos.

There are two things I do not allow at Chez Alain. One of them is reaching over the table, it is not good manners. The other is dogs in the dining room. Or the kitchen. Or anywhere else inside the building unless the canine is of the seeing eye variety and the owner has the appropriate white cane with which to whip the dog into action or stop it biting the chef. On this occasion I thought I might make an exception and allow the dog the full use of either the oven or the freezer, however before making this most generous offer to my guests, I decided to investigate further.

I ascertained from the booking sheet that the gentleman's name of this threesome was Mr. Bruteforce and since it was his first visit and he was built like a wrestler on steroids, I decided to use the tact and diplomacy for which I am renowned. I put on my best smile and quietly approached the table. I looked carefully about and noticing an absence of white canes and dark glasses, I addressed le monsieur directly, sotto voce, and asked whether or not he might like to have an equally quiet word with me in the reception room. Please. 

He was most happy to oblige and lumbered after me tout de suite. 

Upon reaching the privacy of the other room, I suggested that it might prove better for all concerned if his animal spent the next few hours in the car on its own, or perhaps tied up outside. Or maybe even tied up in a bag and tossed in the nearby river. 

He agreed wholeheartedly that this indeed would be the best thing to do, but his wife hated being left alone in the car. Nor did he think she would tolerate being tied up outside, even though it was such a beautiful day. And as for being tossed in the river in a sack, he asked whether or not there would be room for the dog as well.

I thought I could get to like Mr. Bruteforce and so we chatted for a while whilst we reached an accommodation regarding the dog. 

It seemed he was the owner and founder of a very successful demolition company and had lived and worked for most of his life in the rough end of town. He was about sixty and had acquired quite a weatherbeaten face from many years of working in the sun and his arms and hands bore a multitude of scars from accidents with sharp corrugated roofing iron, protruding nails and heavy machinery. He had lost the little finger from his right hand too, but he laughingly said it didn't matter because he had never learned to count anyway. He had a marvellous dry sense of humour and a great deal of money. 

Just my type of customer. And he loathed the dog.

Mr. Bruteforce left it to me to give his wife the bad news that the trio would now be dining outside, where her little Southern American quadruped would be welcome to bask in the glorious sunshine on one of my modern all-weather, mock lumbar-support plastic chairs. I happily obliged, but the lady was not amused and let it be known quite vocally, although she became considerably more manageable when I said I would be happy to supply a special doggie meal on the terrace for little Pooh-Pooh. 

I was glad I wasn't married to her and surreptitiously gave a faint knowing smile to Mr. B. He just shrugged and returned the smile somewhat weakly.

Over the next few years, these three became regular Sunday visitors and I looked forward to seeing Madame B's white Mercedes pull into the car park with Mr.B in the passenger seat as always and little Pooh-Pooh seated regally on his silk throne on the ledge of the rear window. Mrs B told me that the ledge was Pooh-Pooh's favourite position, where he could sunbake whilst still keeping an eye on his subjects as he was chauffeured about the countryside.

With the passing of time I learned more and more about their relationship with each other. It was a most unfortunate match. Mr. B had no family of his own and Mrs. B was the only daughter of a well to do family that had managed to squander all of its inherited money at the racetrack. He had fallen madly in love with her when he was just a boy and although she didn’t love him, her parents had encouraged the union because they knew a golden goose when they saw one. She did as they bade and married the goose and everyone except Mr. Bruteforce reaped the golden eggs, which I later found were the only things laid daily in their household.

Over the ensuing years he worked harder and harder, becoming more and more the type of man Mrs. Bruteforce wished he wasn't. She wanted someone genteel and refined like her father. Someone who not only knew how to tie a knot in a necktie, but who also possessed one. Plus a shirt with real buttons and preferably long sleeves. Also preferably white. White with not too many grease marks.

Mrs B was however more than happy to enjoy the fiscal benefits of all his hard work and as fast as he made the money, she spent it.

After a few years, the goose began to see the light, but by then it was too late to complain and his spouse was able to keep him in line with a starvation diet of nocturnal activity. The ardour he tried, the less he achieved. So much so that the only fruit of the union was little Pooh-Pooh, who entered the household twenty years after the lady said "I will." (In a private conversation with me some months after our first meeting, Mr Bruteforce also let it be known that to the best of his belief, the lady had only said "I will" on about twenty or thirty occasions in their entire marriage and he had given up asking the pertinent question about ten years earlier when the dog arrived.) 

His life then became an even greater misery than it was before. There were now two people in the house to snap and bark at him and what little emotion he used to get from the goose shepherdess was now lavished upon the pooch. I had never heard such a woebegone tale of unrequited love and lack of appreciation, but having been married myself on many occasions, I did have some understanding of his situation.

I am however a chef, not a marriage counsellor and so all I could do was commiserate in the best way I could. Therefore each visit, I knocked a dollar off the cost of the dog's medium rare fillet mignon.

Pooh-Pooh was an easy dog to loathe. He had never heard of the phrase 'Never bite the hand that feeds you', and every time I approached him, whether or not it was with a little bowl of oxtail soup, or with his maincourse (with well cooked vegetables) or even with his little bowl of vanilla ice cream, the ungrateful mutt would snarl and snap at me while Mrs. Bruteforce just tut-tutted and called him her little Poohsie. I considered allowing Mr Puss to rip him to bits, but I just professionally gritted my teeth and smiled the special smile I had learned from an ex darling.

One Sunday, Mr. B arrived with another lady.

She was not what I might call attractive, nor even handsome, but Mr Bruteforce obviously enjoyed her company because he was laughing and joking in a manner which was most unusual for him. He was extremely active. In a very male sort of manner.

Amazingly, the presence of his new lady friend made me miss the most obvious. For the first time in years, Mr B was dining indoors and there was no Pooh-Pooh on my carpet. Nor was there any Pooh-Pooh on any of my chairs. I was as ecstatic as the mother of a two year old who awoke one morning to find for the very first time not a trace of poo-poo anywhere.

I suspected there had been a change in the domestic arrangements in the Bruteforce house, but decided not to pursue that line of conversation unless it was raised by Mr B. If only he could refrain from having such a good time for long enough to fill me in on the details.

Eventually, his lady companion retired to powder her nose and Mr B called me over to his table to share a glass of champagne and some conversation. I said what a pleasure it was to see him so obviously enjoying himself and declared that I had never seen him so active. He responded that it was all due to his new friend and that although she would not win any prizes in the looks department, she was the most active woman he had ever met in his life. A man's best friend.

I had to agree with him. The lady certainly looked like a man’s best friend. She looked as if she not only chased cars, but she had obviously caught a few whilst they were still travelling at high speed. Most certainly an exceptional specimen, although I'm not quite sure that this was actually what Mr B meant when he used the phrase to me.

Tactfully, I enquired as to the whereabouts of Mrs. B.

I was informed that Mr Bruteforce was now a widower, sadly mourning the demise of his past wife who died in tragic circumstances in a car accident whilst travelling home from an afternoon drive in the country. Both he and she had been to visit her elderly parents in a nursing home and were returning home at high speed along the main road at dusk when a cat ran out onto the road, right in front of their vehicle. Instead of braking, his wife had swerved to avoid the animal and had crashed head on into a tree.

I expressed my sincere condolences and said it was most fortunate that he himself had not suffered the same fate as his wife. He agreed most wholeheartedly and went on to say that luckily, the correctly worn safety belts had saved both their lives.

A little nonplussed by this piece of information, I said I had understood him to say that his wife had died in the accident.

He gave a resigned shrug of his shoulders and said that although Mrs B was initially saved, she had little chance of survival after being hit in the back of the head by a Chihuahua still travelling at one hundred and twenty kilometres an hour.

I agreed that The Lord works in mysterious ways.

Not everyone is born with a gift for cooking.

I know I was definitely not. Myself and my forty three siblings didn’t know what a cooked meal was until we were of an age to go courting and be lucky enough to be invited to the object of our desire's parents' house to share a repast. Unfortunately, we didn’t realize that in other families it was a generally accepted principle that diners would receive one plate of food each and be at liberty to consume the entire contents of that same plate themselves. Also, the knife and fork placed neatly at the side of these plates were not weapons, as in our house, and strenuous objections were made by members of the other family when they were held at bay whilst we ate their serves as well as our own. We were seldom invited again, which leads me to believe that some people have a lot to learn about tolerance and other cultures and it is no wonder there is so much violence in the world today. 

Lesson number one, Food is to be shared and enjoyed together.

In our house, there were so many mouths to feed that the ox tartare that my father led back from the market each day had hardly been tied up in the kitchen when it was voraciously attacked by us little piranhas. This of course would have saved my parents a considerable amount of money on gas for the stove, had it ever been connected, but it did little for our appreciation of the culinary skills of the chef, nor for our capacity to take time over our meal and savour the flavour.

Lesson number two, try to always eat with smaller, weaker dining companions, that way you can enjoy your meal at your leisure.

It was not uncommon for a hindquarter or more of the beast to disappear whilst my mother was saying grace and the more tardy of our family generally had to make do with the horns, hooves and tail, which probably accounts for their conversion to vegetarianism later in life. And their good strong bones.

It is said that one's food taste and cooking style is acquired from one's own parents. I can attest to the truth of this because a short time after I left home at age sixteen, a petition was presented to the local council by my neighbours to prevent me from keeping oxen in my flat. Rather than risk a large fine by deliberately flaunting the health notice which was later nailed to my front door, I began dating one of the neighbour's daughters. She was an apprentice at a local restaurant and studied three nights a week at the School of Food and Catering. After a short courtship, she was most happy to show me her considerable skills in the kitchen and many other places for that matter, and soon I possessed a modicum of competency in that department myself. Lessons three to eight learned here. 

Lesson 3, personal hygiene is of paramount importance. 

Lesson 4, always use clean implements and of the correct size. 

Lesson 5, workbenches should always be of the correct height otherwise personal injury may occur. 

Lesson 6, use imagination in one's work, perhaps watch a few videos of others performing similar tasks to gain new ideas. 

Lesson 7, always rub the butter in well, using only one's fingertips. And cut your nails. 

Lesson 8, always show appreciation to the chef on a job well done by asking for second helpings if it looks like they might be on offer.

I also learnt to cook. And it is my understanding of the wonderful differences between people and their incredibly varied upbringings, which allows me the unbelievable tolerance that I have today toward the competency of my peers and the varied styles promoted by the catering profession. Why only the other day, I visited a relatively competent eating house to find on their menu,- ‘Fillet steak on a slice of ported Stilton, accompanied by a pillow of mashed yam and juniper berries, with a rhubarb jam glaze and chocolate sauce.’ The side serve of salad (extra) was a compilation of fresh coriander, steamed baby leeks, daffodil bulbs and mushroom compost. I ordered an omelette and asked the waitress to add an extra ten dollars to my account as my personal contribution to the chef's mental health fund.

And some people still wonder why I enjoy the occasional live ox.

Competency in the kitchen can be learned, although for some it can be a very slow process. It was extremely slow with me, just ask any of my ex wives. It is exactly the same with cooking. 

Lesson number nine, do not try out new recipes until competent with the old ones. 

I remember a young kitchenhand I once employed for a short time. A very short time. Her name was Rosemary. A friend had recommended her to me as being an exceptionally trustworthy lass who would do anything she was told. What my friend neglected to tell me was that her lift did not go all the way to the top floor. The light was on but there was no one at home. The exercise wheel was still spinning but the little mouse was dead. A sandwich short of a picnic, if you get my drift dear reader. Twelve loaves to the baker's dozen; but unfortunately, this farinaceous shortcoming of her mental provisioning remained unnoticed until she became an employee of mine.

Chez Alain was not overly busy that day, and as is my habit, I took the opportunity to escape from the kitchen and my cheffing duties from time to time and chat with the customers in the main dining room. Rosemary was assisting magnificently in the kitchen. It was her fourth day on the job and she had managed to impress me so much with her talents that I had promoted her from stacking plates to wiping benchtops with a soft cloth, trusting she could do no irreparable damage to the stainless steel.

I had already made a mental note to buy sturdier plates. 

Lesson number ten, do not dismiss the thought of plastic crockery too quickly. Nowadays this material can be relatively chic and attractive to quite a number of people. It is also very cheap and difficult for youths to break without considerable malice.

I was making a dessert sauce on the stove. You know, one of those dentist's delights, all sugar and butter and cream. It only needed to be stirred constantly and removed from the heat if it started to boil.

I knew I might be gone ten minutes or so in the dining room and asked young Rosemary to watch the sauce for me whilst stirring it continuously.

Sure enough, about ten minutes later, the smell of burnt toffee began to invade the dining room and I made a frantic dash for the kitchen. Through the haze I was able to make out dear little Rosemary still stirring what was left of the sauce whilst trying her best not to breathe in the smoke and fumes belching from the stove as the sauce bubbled over and over and over.

To the best of my memory, I commended her liberally for her resolute performance in the face of adversity. I did not, as some more unkind persons have subsequently suggested, ask the nit-wit in a very loud voice just what in the world she was doing. 

At least, I don’t think I did. 

Well perhaps I may have. Occasionally I can be a little sharp.

Anyway, the little darling said she was only doing what I asked her to do. She was watching the sauce whilst all the while stirring it. She was quite adamant I did NOT tell her to do anything else. 

Lesson number eleven, don’t argue about cooking methods with someone who has the brains of an amoeba. And especially do not argue with someone about cooking methods who does NOT have the brains of an amoeba. 

My deep breathing exercises immediately commenced. 

Lesson number twelve, only do deep breathing exercises in fresh air whilst cooking. Not in a roomful of smoke.

The next day, my little darling Rosemary was given the arduous task of trimming the asparagus for a rather large function. I asked her to trim off the woody ends, toss them in the bin and then put the spears in a large bowl of iced water. I supplied her with a knife, a cutting board, a bowl of iced water and several kilograms of the finest asparagus.

Unfortunately, my guests never tasted the asparagus because I neglected to draw a picture of the bit I required.

Lesson number thirteen, recipes with pictures can sometimes be very helpful. 

Deep breathing recommenced and I asked the little darling to vacate the kitchen for a few moments whilst I composed myself.

A very good friend of mine who also owns a restaurant rang the next day and asked whether or not I knew of anyone looking for a job as a kitchenhand. The young man who had recently taken on that position at his establishment was currently enjoying a short holiday at the taxpayer's expense, owing to a propensity to continually drive his motor vehicle at a speed considerably in excess of the legal limit. A speed which gave both him and a great many other people in the pedestrian mall a real adrenalin rush.

I said that this must be my friend's lucky day, for I knew of precisely the person he sought. An exceptionally trustworthy girl who would do exactly as she was told. To the letter. And as a matter of fact, she would be able to start at his establishment immediately.

Lesson number fourteen, always assist others in the trade whenever possible.

I do so enjoy being able to help my friends when they are in need.

My friend Marcus was a tall, quietly spoken gentleman who originally came from the country. Not the beautiful country where there are trees and hills and verdant pastures, but from what we Australians colloquially term "Up the river" where there is a lot of sand, a few rabbits and some scrub chooks. His father was an agricultural adviser with the government and imparted to his son all the knowledge he had learned during his period of employment. Hence Marcus knew all there was to know about sand, rabbits and chickens and I remain indebted a great deal to both him and his father for all the kind assistance and advice they offered during my period of insanity when I bought my farm.

It was Marcus' phenomenal savoir faire regarding chicken breeding which led to the following incident.

I had purchased five dozen day old chickens that were destined to be the nucleus of my egg laying flock. My farmhouse was not yet habitable because it lacking ceilings, floors, doors, parts of the roof, electricity and plumbing. It also had some major faults. In fact, the only running water was through the roof and as I reflect on my purchase, I now realize that every piece of real estate I have ever bought in my life has been in exactly that same condition. Sometimes even after my extensive renovations.

Anyway, until the house at the farm had been renovated enough for a particular wife and myself to take up residence, we had rented a small house in the city and each day I commuted to the farm to supervise the tradesperson people and pretend I was in charge for once. Winter was still with us and the weather was quite nippy, so much so that I had erected a pen in the loungeroom where I kept the little chickens in case they caught cold outside. We couldn't have them coughing and sneezing outside our bedroom window all night and keeping us awake, could we?

My wife thought we could.

She did not share my concern for the little cheepers' health. And when they began to grow flight feathers and commence roosting on the television after the late night news, she even suggested putting them in the laundry where I kept my ferrets. I was horrified by the suggestion and said I would have expected much more compassion shown to those less fortunate than herself. I vouchsafed that it would be far too cold for them there and I beseeched her to show just a little more humanity to les petites and to gain her agreement, I foolishly promised she would regain full use of the settee, uncompromised by bird droppings, by mid-Spring at the latest.

She stuck out her tongue and made a rude noise which I took to be assent.

I have a way with ladies.

Marcus had been visiting at regular intervals to check on the chooks' progress and assist with their toilet training and I had been showing my gratitude to him for his agricultural services by inviting him over for dinner every few days. Neither my wife of the moment nor Marcus were blessed with any cooking skills, so the two of them had been thoroughly enjoying my cooking to the limits of their endurance. I had been practicing what I call my 'Alphabet repertoire', where for example one day I serve Avocado, the next Brains, the next Cornflakes, then Dumplings etc. until I get to Z.

Lesson number fifteen, there is no food beginning with the letter X, unless one wishes to try casseroled xylophone. Therefore dear reader, if as a future chef you wish to utilize my alphabet repertoire, I suggest you stop when you reach the letter ‘W’ unless you really wish to eat parts of a yacht, an X-ray machine and a zip.

I had reached the letter Q when my alarmed spouse suggested I take a rest and said she would cook a special meal for all of us, on the proviso that Marcus and I vacate the premises for the whole of the day whilst she prepared the food. I do believe the offer was forthcoming because she had a suspicion I might serve up six of the Quail look-alikes from the pen in our loungeroom. Perhaps she did possess some humanity after all.

That dearest wife had attempted to cook real food on only one other occasion and I still vividly remembered the tears and tantrums which followed, so I was happy to do as she requested and I collected my rod and reel from the shed and left to spend the day with Marcus fishing at 'The Rose and Crown' which was our local watering hole. Lesson number sixteen, if you go fishing at the local hotel, you will never be required to gut and scale the fish you catch. Therefore your hands will avoid that yukky fish smell that tends to linger after preparation.

Before I bade her adieu, I glanced through the kitchen window and discovered that the special dinner was to be a form of garlic Beef Stroganoff and to assist in the execution (a word I don't use lightly) of the meal, my sweetheart had dusted off my favourite recipe book and had stuck it to the workbench with a large piece of pastry. A ripe banana was being used as a bookmark.

I looked forward with great anticipation to the evening meal because I loved garlic, however I had some reservations about the banana. 

Lesson number seventeen, keep an open mind regarding ingredients.

It was a very simple cookbook, one which I called my ‘Alice's Restaurant Recipe Book’, because of the 27, 8 by10 colour glossy photographs for each recipe with the circles and arrows and a paragraph beneath each one explaining what each one was, to be used in evidence against the diners should the meal not turn out the way it was supposed to. This description of the book will of course have no relevance whatsoever for those readers not brought up in the sixties or early seventies, but suffice to say that each recipe in the tome was almost foolproof. Ergo I owned it. And several others of equal simplicity.

More than twenty years after that particular evening, I was reminiscing through my favourite recipe books one day when I chanced upon that Stroganoff recipe, although the print was not as readable as it should have been because of a squashed banana which still marked the spot. 

Lesson number eighteen, always remove fruity bookmarks from recipe books before you return the book to the library.

By about six o'clock in the evening, Marcus and I were quite fished out and we decided to wend our way homeward. It would have been difficult to get lost. All we had to do was follow the smell of garlic which hit us shortly after leaving the pub and got stronger and stronger as we neared the house.

We drew straws to see who would enter first. I got the short straw. I drew a deep breath, opened the door and greeted my darling with the usual "Hi honey, sorry I'm home."

I found my darling lying in the middle of the kitchen floor, overcome by garlic fumes with Bessie, my mock cattle dog standing over her, licking her face. I was so proud of that dog for trying to revive my darling until I realized she was just taking advantage of the situation to mop up the sour cream sauce that my wife had managed to spill over herself whilst falling to the ground.

With Marcus' assistance, I carried her outside into the fresh air and then went back for my wife. Unfortunately, she revived enough to join us for dinner. 

Lesson number nineteen, know when to leave well enough alone. 

Being a stickler for protocol, I insisted Marcus eat first. 

Lesson number twenty, always try to be the last to try strange smelling foodstuffs.

He insisted on saying grace. 

Lesson twenty one, stall anyway you can, especially if everyone else is stalling.

One forkful was enough to declare the meal inedible and once again the tears and tantrums ensued, however this time there was a declaration that the recipe book had been followed faithfully, apart from one very slight deviation. Where the recipe had called for four or five cloves of garlic, she had used six because she knew how much I loved garlic.

She had even gone to the market that afternoon and bought six of the biggest Greek garlics she could find and had spent most of the afternoon getting the peel off the hundred or so nasty little bits that made up each clove. 

Lesson twenty two, twenty three AND twenty four, say absolutely nothing about the training, the skill or the mental competence of the chef if you both happen to be in the same room when the meal is served.

We vacated the premises a few weeks later to move to the farm, however Mr. Smith, the landlord, refused to give us our bond back. He said it would cost at least four weeks rent to steam clean all the carpets and curtains to get rid of the smell. And he didn't mean the ferrets and the chooks.

Lesson number twenty five, only use herbs sparingly. Or alternatively, always rent from a Greek landlord. He won't notice the smell of garlic that will remain forever in all of his soft furnishings.

I love giving surprise parties at Chez Alain and the restaurant is ideally configured for this sort of thing. Patrons can be separated into different rooms and neither group knows the other is there until a door opens and “SURPRISE!” Everyone claps their hands, shrieks with glee and the guest of honour says he or she knew nothing about it until that very minute.

These particular parties are the ones I favour most of all because everything goes according to plan. It wouldn’t dare not. Everything is organized down to the last detail including the surprise menu. Sometimes even the seating arrangements for the surprise guests.

I received a phone call one day from the wife of a prominent surgeon. Her mother was turning ninety and she wished to give the old bird a birthday party. A surprise birthday party. And she had heard that my establishment would be eminently suitable. 

I like surgeons. The very word has a surgical ring to it. Not unlike the ring of my cash register. They are methodical, scrupulously clean, calm in manner and in general, have partners to match. And some have similar wives too. On top of this, they can generally afford my tariff without flinching and it is for mainly this reason that I welcome their patronage with open arms.

On this particular occasion dear reader, I am loath to use this lady’s real name lest I find myself incapacitated in the future and in her husband’s care, so for the sake of this narration I shall call her Mrs Sturgeon.

Mrs Sturgeon was everything I hoped she would be. Efficient, calm, not too demanding and best of all, she had her own chequebook.

My kind of woman exactly.

She was shown through the premises and acquainted with the three different rooms of Chez Alain. She fell in love with the place and booked it at once because she could see that whilst she and her husband were having a quiet meal with her mother in “The Snug”, the other family members could secretly file through the reception room and into the main dining room. Her mother’s sight would be impaired by the heavy wooden door between the two rooms and any noises she heard would be deemed to be ordinary Saturday night patronage of the restaurant. A short while later when everyone was settled, mother would be led through the doorway, ostensibly to be shown the rest of the restaurant and ………. “SURPRISE!”

As I wrote Mrs Sturgeon’s particulars in my appointment book, I remembered another incident with a little old lady of ninety not too many months previously. It was her birthday too and family members had clubbed together to hire a stretch limousine and take her out to dinner at a posh restaurant. Unfortunately, all the posh restaurants must have been booked out because they ended up at my establishment.

Granny was delightful. She was barely five feet tall in her moderately high heels and she looked as if she weighed about thirty five kilos or five and a half stone in the old money. She had a wonderful sense of humour with eyes that sparkled like diamonds and I guessed she had been a bit of a rager in years gone by. I also thought she might still cause a few stokes amongst the elderly gentlemen in the old folks’ home where she resided. 

I offered her my arm when she arrived and escorted her to her table by the windows overlooking the hillside. I could see she was filled with happiness to be surrounded by her progeny and I sat her down next to her favourite grandson Ewan, a cheeky young man of perhaps twenty four or twenty five. He assured me he would look after granny and make sure she didn’t get into too much trouble. Granny just gave me a delightful grin and revelled in the limelight of her twilight.

The afternoon went like a dream. Granny had two half brandies with a dash of dry ginger and the other guests shared assorted wines and spirits. I also noticed that young Ewan enjoyed the odd brandy and dry too, and could certainly handle his liquor considering the number he had consumed. As to food, little old ladies are not generally known for their voracious appetites and granny was no exception. To the best of my recollection, she had nought but a half lettuce leaf and a small piece of continental cucumber, although the rest of the party ate as heartily as a pride of lions at a freshly killed zebra. 

Around dessert time, granny started to glow with pride and couldn’t stop beaming at her children, especially her favourite grandson who seemed to dote on her. He even offered to share his dessert with her although I did counsel against it. I thought for several reasons that two generous servings of my special gin prunes would not be the most appropriate dessert for a little old lady, however I preferred not to go into the reasons whilst people were still eating. The young man thought otherwise and generously proffered granny the juicy black fruits. Granny immediately opened her beak. 

It was when granny fell off her chair that the real commotion started. It seemed that favourite grandson Ewan had taken it upon himself to make granny’s ninetieth one that she would really remember and had been slipping her full brandies on the sly. About enough to kill an alcoholic fish.

Grandson was suitably chastised by his mother for being such a naughty little boy and together they picked granny up and leaned her limply against the wall in a corner so she couldn’t fall over again. The mother then removed a cushion from one of the dining chairs, stuffed it beneath granny’s head and returned to the feast.

I was horrified and said so. Those cushions were very expensive.

The family’s unanimous reply was that the limousine wouldn’t return for another hour and a half, so they were just going to make the most of it and try to get in the same state as granny by the time it arrived. Until then, granny could just snore quietly in the corner if she kept breathing.

I couldn’t believe their response.

They didn’t sound Irish, although to be sure to be sure, one or two did have red hair and laughed a lot.

I telephoned for an ambulance on their behalf and within a very short time granny was receiving the very best of medical attention at the local hospital. I believe she had her stomach pumped of the offending alcohol whilst the prunes assisted in a similar fashion from the other end.

Granny never forgot her ninetieth and was very lucky to see ninety one.

Vividly remembering this horrific incident, I strongly suggested that should Mrs Sturgeon’s own mother be in the featherweight division, she carefully monitor her alcohol intake lest a similar accident with a less favourable result occur.

I was dealing with a very calm, rational, knowledgeable lady. Obviously one of a kind. She took no exception whatsoever to my tactful suggestion and indeed thanked me for my professionalism and foresight. With that same foresight, I thought she could thank me in kind at the till after her function.

Calmly and rationally of course.

Mr Sturgeon was unlike the majority of his medical colleagues inasmuch as there were no moths in his wallet. He earned a great deal and he spent enough to contribute to the global economy in a cash flow positive way. I say the global economy because he was not only paying for the airfares of all the interstate guests, most of whom were doctors themselves, but he was also footing the bill for his brother and sister-in-law to fly out from England in order to attend his mother-in-law’s little party. I shuddered to think of all the kidneys he would remove from his patients to pay for this little lot but accepted it as a fair swap for all the effort I would go to in order to assure him of an excellent function.

I received several visits from Mrs Sturgeon. She was preparing my restaurant like an operating theatre, with tables arranged just so, relatives seated just there, food to arrive just then and so on until I was convinced that I would be almost redundant on the night. I even considered staying home to watch the football on television until she asked for one special request.

She wanted her brother from England be kept in the wings and held back as a further surprise for her mother after the initial surprise and she asked me to organize this little event myself.

I thought about her request for a moment or two then came up with a cunning plan. I suggested that we make a ‘tape recording’ of her brother and sister-in-law’s birthday greetings to granny and ‘play’ the recording to granny after she had received her first surprise from all the other guests. Of course, we wouldn’t really be playing a tape. The two people would be standing behind the heavy velvet curtains in the doorway leading to the dining room, then, after granny had received her special overseas greeting ‘through the loudspeakers’, the twosome could walk through the curtains and give granny the usual hugs and kisses. She’d get three surprises for the price of one.

And probably save someone the loss of a kidney too.

The special night arrived. I had set a small table especially for three in “The Snug” with candles and flowers. Two other paying guests were already seated at another little table in that room and paid little attention to the Sturgeon party when they arrived. Granny was seated first and was given a lemon, lime and bitters to drink. Mr and Mrs S received similar aperitifs and the threesome made small talk whilst they perused the menu. And the other couple in the corner. As one usually does. Meanwhile, behind closed doors, the rest of the Sturgeon clan quietly filed past into the main dining room and took their seats.

The Sturgeons took their time and granny had nearly finished her second aperitif when her daughter suggested they look through the restaurant. It was a quaint old building, she said, one of the oldest cottages in the state, steeped in history and atmosphere and certainly worth a look around. She helped granny to her feet and opened the door to the main dining room.

“SURPRISE!” said everyone.

It was lucky Mr Sturgeon was there to catch her. She staggered a little and almost swooned, however she soon regained her composure and she was led to her seat in pride of place at the head of the table, where she belonged.

I can’t recall how many short speeches of congratulation she received, but with each successive one, her eyes filled with tears until they began to stream down her time worn face. This was one of the best surprise parties I had ever had the pleasure of hosting, the room was filled with happiness and good wishes and granny was having the time of her very long life.

After the last speech, granny stood up on her old wobbly legs and in a quavering voice thanked all her family for coming such a long way just to wish her well on her birthday. She said she had only one regret. It had been nearly thirty years since she had seen her only son who resided in England and she was sad that he was unable to be here with them all now to share in her happiness.

It was at this point in the proceedings that I entered the room with my tape recorder and put it on a table next to the curtains. I told granny that her daughter had forseen this situation and had thoughtfully asked her brother and sister-in-law to prepare a taped message especially for granny.

You would have thought all her Christmases had come at once. The tears ran down her face in an unending stream and the room hushed as I turned on the recorder with a loud ‘click’.

From behind the curtains, the voices of the two overseas guests poured out their heartfelt dismay at their inability to attend such a significant event but wished the old lady all the love and happiness in the world, expressing their desire to see her in the very near future if at all possible.

This really was the surprise party to end all surprise parties. Granny openly wept with joy and sobbingly thanked her daughter profusely for the immense effort she had gone to on her behalf. She added that hearing her son’s voice like that was just like being in the same room as him.

It was at that precise moment that her son and daughter-in-law stepped out from behind the curtains. Once again, the room hushed. You could have heard a pin drop. Granny looked at them stunned for several moments, then rose to meet them with arms outstretched.

Granny unfortunately had endured one surprise too many and collapsed in a heap on the floor.

Absolute pandemonium broke out and several doctors fought with each other for the right to break the old lady’s ribs with C.P.R. Another doctor unhitched the gas bottle from my drinks machine shouting “She needs oxygen, she needs oxygen,” and fought his way through the crowd, injuring a few people as he cleared a pathway by swinging the heavy metal canister from side to side.

I heartily agreed she needed oxygen and wrenched the (food grade) carbon dioxide bottle from his grasp before he killed her with it.

Someone else knocked the tape recorder off the table and broke it, and yet another person ripped the curtains down to completely wrap the old dear up in them and keep her warm. I remember saying that I thought a shroud was a little premature, but that particular doctor was in a blind panic and took little notice of me or anyone else for that matter as he wrapped granny up like a mummy. He especially took no notice of granny who was by now showing signs of reviving, despite the best of his medical attention.

Luckily one of the ladies present was one of those women who are prepared for any emergency and always carried a pair of scissors in her handbag in case she needed to stab an attacker or cut a ribbon at the opening of a new civic building. Anyway, with great presence of mind, she leaned over and neatly cut away those parts of my expensive curtains that restricted the old tart’s breathing. She had obviously never been to origami lessons otherwise she might just have folded the cloth neatly out of the way. 

I was so glad that this party was calm and rational.

I was tempted to use the tear gas I normally keep in reserve to filter through the air conditioning system on New Year’s Eve to restore order, but eventually granny revived and the party continued, albeit considerably subdued. At till time however, Mrs Sturgeon was more than a little unwilling to contribute towards the cost of the curtains and the tape recorder, wishing to hold me responsible for the mayhem. I looked at the shape of her kidney through her flimsy evening dress and invited her into my kitchen to discuss the matter further.

Suffice to say, some poor soul is still on dialysis and Mrs S still retains all the organs she was born with. And nowadays, I only allow ninety year olds on the premises when accompanied by both their parents. 

As you are by now no doubt aware, Chez Alain is located adjacent to a rather busy but narrow country road and on the weekends, this road is a designated Le Mans racetrack for juvenile motorcyclists and those youngsters of the local village population yet to pass their motor vehicle licence examinations and lucky enough to have parents who have gone away for the weekend. On the strict proviso, of course, that the children stay at home and study. Just like we did when we were young and our own parents went away for the weekend.

And of course, like all insane parents, we believe the little darlings. Thus, the family’s second car is left tucked up safely in its bed in the garage. With the car keys in the usual place, hanging on a hook in the kitchen or on the dressing table in the parent’s bedroom or in the youngster’s sweaty hands just as soon as the parents’ other car disappears from sight down the road to the seaside or holiday house.

Fools.

Everyone knows that young teenagers find it much easier to study whilst  travelling at high speed on two wheels at midnight, unencumbered by schoolbooks. Especially when their motorized vehicle is not a motorbike. And speaking from personal experience, I have very studiously learnt many lessons myself this way. In both the front and the rear seats. Although my curriculum might not have been approved by the education department. Or her parents, for that matter, had we been caught so vigorously studying together.

Mr Puss, my commissionaire, didn’t like cars. Or motorbikes. And made this fact quite evident whenever being held and stroked by a patron outside on the terrace under the vines. (He was one of very few commissionaires I have ever met who enjoyed being patronized.) And I know that for a fact, because I have patronized quite a few.

On hearing the roar of an oncoming engine or the slight squeal of a wheel or two inadvertently touching a road surface, Mr Puss would wriggle and squirm like a furry eel until he broke free of the encircling arms and bound off for the safety of the lavender bushes in the carpark across the side road some few metres away. Here he would stay, peering out from underneath a mauve overhang until the offensive noise disappeared into the distance or over a cliff. 

I personally carry the scars on my forearms where Mr Puss made his nervousness apparent to me when a Harley Davidson, being driven by a colourfully decorated young man with dreadful phobias about hairdressers and soap, roared past and gave us the full range of noises able to be made by his very expensive and patented exhaust system.

What I hadn’t known about Mr Puss until that moment was that he had already used eight of the nine lives generally allocated to our feline friends at birth by Mother Nature. He struggled free from my arms and made the usual dash for the lavender.

Unfortunately, it was in the middle of the side road that Mr Puss made the acquaintance of the furniture removal van with the wide tyres and having now used all nine of his standard allotment, Mr Puss retired from his earthly occupation of restaurant doorman/supervisor and took on the new position of subterranean gardener in the lavender patch.

He was sorely missed.

Not by the furniture van of course, but by everyone else associated with Chez Alain, especially the proprietor, moi, who would arrive each morning to be greeted by silence instead of the usual purrrrposeful request for a bowl of warm milk for breakfast. Even John, the Health Inspector asked as to the whereabouts of the ‘rabbit’ and it was only when I showed him the small wooden cross marking his resting place that John was reassured I had not in fact made a casserole out of my little friend.

John had obviously not had his tablets that morning.

It is true that from time to time when Mr Puss deposited a half eaten rodentic gift on the front doorstep just before a busy evening session that I had been overheard by staff to say that one day I would shove him through the mincer or boil him in oil; but these were in fact loving phrases occasioned to my four legged vermin control officer and not in the least bit said with anger or malice.

Well, perhaps with a little bit of malice, but not a lot.

I think it was these totally out of context phrases that had been relayed by a disgruntled employee to my friend the two legged Health Inspector and probably accounted for his interest in the whereabouts of the body.

This, and the fact that I manage to get three maincourses and a lot of money out of a standard rabbit and he knows my eyesight is getting a little dim.

We remained catless for several years until a visiting feral (cat, not villager) decided that we were in need of another employee and whereas Mr Puss was black with a little white, this animal was white with a little black. And to complement the exact opposite in markings, its personal plumbing was also opposite. I don’t mean its head was located directly underneath its tail, I mean the animal was a female. Of course, I offered the lady the vacant position and our new employee became known as Mrs Puss. The local council, the Miscellaneous Worker’s Union, the State Superannuation Department and the Commissioner for Payroll Tax were then all duly informed by correspondence of the new ‘rabbit’ which had taken up residence in the drain adjacent to Chez Alain.

Mrs Puss was then legally ‘on the books’.

Being a femme fatale, Mrs Puss learned to entwine herself between the legs of nearly every male patron as he entered the premises, thus causing the entrapped diner to reach down and stroke her lovingly. In this manner, she reminded me of a waitress I had employed, so to speak, some years earlier who had proved to be a tremendous success. That is, however, another very interesting story and I shall make no mention of it here, apart from to say that it was an extremely enjoyable period of my life. 

It has now been two years and Mrs Puss continues to be in my employ and. through diligent application to her duties, she has been promoted to chief executive officer of the Pest Control Board and night watchperson. She is polite, punctual, well mannered and exceptionally well groomed. Thankfully, she has decided not to raise a family for the past two Springs and I have come to the conclusion that she has made the difficult decision that ladies reach at her stage in life, and has decided to remain a career woman, devoting herself to her many and varied intellectually stimulating and rewarding jobs. And at a salary commensurate to one with her experience, of course.

This is not to say that the lady doesn’t know how to have a good time during her infrequent leisure time.

I have on occasion seen her in the drain in the wee hours with gentleman callers, but have of course turned a blind eye, as I’m sure she would do for me should I ever again get lucky and end up in the drain with company again,

I can only live in hope and until that day, shall content myself with stroking Mrs Puss until she falls asleep in my arms, all the while whispering sweetly in her ear that if she leaves another half eaten water rat on my front doorstep, I’ll shove her through the mincer.

Dicky is a Londoner.

I love Londoners.

And land tax, mothers-in-law, poisonous jellyfish, small children who only eat chips and rectal examinations.

Dicky is a much loved member of my current golf club and has a particular way of endearing himself to everyone by talking. Dicky is one of only five people I have ever known to be able to talk underwater. The other four are my ex wives.

It is like playing golf with a wind-up cockney parrot that once belonged to a pirate. However, instead of an avian wooden leg and hook as a result of cannon fire at sea, this bird is complete with surgically repaired limbs as a result of innumerable motorbike accidents and would walk with a slight limp on level ground were it not for the fact that he wears the considerably heavier earring in his left ear which helps him with his balance and gait. So much so that he now talks and walks exactly like a parrot. And were it not for the fact that he cannot fly he might be mistaken for one.

And caged.

For several seasons, whilst I putted for an unlikely par and had the pleasure of Richard’s company in my foursome, I had to suffer the indignity of Dicky threatening in a loud voice to book in to my Pizza Parlour for tea.

I of course missed the putt every time.

Even worse, when competing against him and everyone else for the monthly medal, before I teed off on the first, he would squawk from the gallery whether or not I had space for him and ‘his mates’ for a coffee and ham roll at my Hamburger Joint if they rode up on their motorcycles for Sunday lunch.

Much loud laughter in a cockney accent from the gallery.

I suffered in silence and longed for the opportunity of serving him.

In thin slices to the sharks.

The opportunity arose on his anniversary.

Richard and several others of my golfing buddies made a booking on a Saturday night and arrived on time, dressed in their Sunday best. Dicky had even polished his earrings, all the better to reflect his good dress sense no doubt.

Fortunately, my youngest son had been able to provide me with some unusual and interesting ingredients that week and so I was able to have Dicky’s special anniversary pizza warming in the oven when he arrived.

It had four legs.

As you may recall dear reader, it was my duty as a younger fellow to augment the family’s supply of protein by trapping, shooting, snaring, and otherwise catching any edible living organism and share the leftovers with my siblings. The fact that a great many of my brothers and sisters are still alive attests to the fact that I was reasonably successful in this endeavour and I have tried as well as I can to pass my hunting skills on to my own progeny.

I remember the thrill of the chase.

I remember the adrenalin rush as the quarry was captured.

And I remember the usual mad rush to escape from the farmer whose land we had been on without any permission.  

I also remember one day bleeding profusely from my left eye, the blood dripping onto my patched trousers and then onto the front seat of the police car in which I was sitting.

I was being driven around and around and around the neighbourhood by a very kind and understanding sergeant. Seated in the rear of the vehicle were my younger brother and the constable whose front seat I had usurped. The constable was not used to sitting in the rear, and I could tell from his manner that he looked forward to regaining his rightful, albeit bloodsoaked seat once we had located the culprits of this heinous crime that had been committed against my person. I pretended not to notice and asked if I could wear his hat. The kind sergeant told the junior officer to oblige in order to make me feel better after my terrible ordeal and I thanked him for his understanding. From then on, I tried not to bleed too much near the seargeant’s trousers. 

We were looking for the thugs who had shot me in the eye. All four of us were looking very keenly out of the car windows as we drove slowly along and every now and then, one or other of the policepersons would say “Is that him?” and point out one or other of our classmates who happened to be innocently riding their bicycle home from footy practice or after-school vandalism classes.

Although we realized we held the power of life and death over that particular child in our hands, we were unable that afternoon to bring ourselves to accuse any of our playmates, or any other child for that matter, of occasioning grievous bodily harm to my person. We had in fact been out hunting pigeons as we usually did, a short bike ride from home, in the attic of the nurses’ quarters adjacent to the local hospital when the accident happened.

The nurses’ quarters was a three storey building, but only the lower two floors were in use and even they weren’t fully occupied at that time. The government of the day, however, was a farsighted lot and had built the extra storey to accommodate the increased number of nurses that would be required when our area turned into a slum and there was an increased incidence of violent crime. And subsequent increase in bodily injuries. And subsequent need for more nurses to fill the third floor. And in our district, perhaps also fill with midget nurses, the one metre high roof space between the third floor ceiling and the corrugated iron roof which we lovingly referred to as ‘The Attic’.

That’s how many nurses would eventually be required in our district.

Lots and lots and lots.

On the ground floor, there was a desk, behind which sat a fat lady in a crisp white uniform. We guessed this was Mother Superior nurse.

We were almost right.

Luckily for us, her holiness was incontinent and would from time to time attend to her personal needs by sliding skillfully off her stool and wobbling gingerly down the highly polished linoleum covered corridor and into the ladies’ toilet which was located at the far end of the building. My friends Aggie and Charlie were both fortunate enough to have mothers who had not yet left home, and they knew, as did I, the interminable length of time that ladies can spend doing the same thing that little boys can do in a few seconds standing up. With or without the removal of trousers.

Our usual modus operandi was that one of us would wait outside in the courtyard of the building near the main door where the nurses would come and go, keeping a surreptitious watch on her holiness whilst pretending to play with ants. Or just pretending to be dim in Charlie’s case. The rest of the pack would then hide in the nearby budget landscaping and wait for the preordained signal.

As soon as she toddled off down the corridor to do her business, the lookout would indicate the pulling of a chain and we would all dash into the building through the main door, turn immediately right and run up the three flights of stairs to the top floor as fast and as quietly as we could. On reaching the unoccupied third floor, the tallest boy would then assist the others to climb through the manhole and into the roof space. Then, all the boys in the attic would help drag the last boy up into the roof by his hair and any other part of his anatomy they could reach and replace the manhole cover. Ordinarily, I would have been the last boy up, but since Charlie’s hair was longer than mine and he didn’t seem to feel pain, I democratically decided that he was in fact the tallest of us, despite the physical evidence to the contrary.

The first time we ever made this expedition into the unknown, it was quite dark. The only light that entered the roof space at that time was from the large gaps between the guttering and the downpipes at the extreme corners of the building where the original builders had either misread the plans or had had an disagreement with the architect. 

Neither the governmental building inspector nor the pigeons seemed to mind this slight deviation from standard roof plumbing and within a short space of time, the attic had become a massive pigeon loft. Hundreds of lost racing pigeons were attracted to the building as if by magnetism and of course, the one pigeon using the flock’s brain at the time eventually noticed the entrances to the warm and dark attic via the holes alongside the guttering and told the others about it. The rest was history and within a year, the insulation material which was spread evenly about over the ceiling became warm and cosy nests for upwards of a thousand birds at any one time. The homing pigeons had made themselves at home.

All we had to do once inside the loft, was race as fast as we could over the wooden ceiling joists and block all the entrances (exits) before the pigeons could escape the way they came in. Of course we had to do this whilst bent double due to the lack of space in the roof cavity. And we had to wriggle through the girders which went breadthways across the building and were situated every five or so metres apart. And we had to make sure we only trod on the wooden joists, otherwise our weight might be too much for the ceiling and we could fall through to the floor below. As expedition leader, it was always my duty to remind my charges of this last fact. And I remembered to do it on this occasion too. We didn’t want any accidents, did we?

Our war party had not visited this particular hunting ground for many months because Mother Superior had apparently been taking some new medication, to which her urinary tract had responded well enough to keep her on her stool for an extended period and thus prevent us from gaining entry.

However, all good things come to an end and they unfortunately did for Mother Superior. Conversely, good things come to he who waits, and once again the flow started, so to speak. Ergo, we now found ourselves up in the loft once more and we found it contained an abundance of wildlife.

That is to say not only did it contain hundreds of pigeons, but also thousands and thousands of pigeon lice that latched on to us as we scampered across the insulation littered with pigeon droppings. Fortunately for us, on this occasion there was just a little more light than usual in the attic, for each previous time we had visited we had had the presence of mind to make lots of holes in the corrugated iron roof with our penknives to let a little daylight in. It also allowed a great deal of water in when it rained, but there was quite a thickness of insulation material on the floor (ceiling) of the attic to soak most of it up and the material that the ceiling itself was made of seemed to be relatively porous and accounted for the remainder. (Although it did seem to be quite stained when viewed from below). Anyhow we always wore raincoats in bad weather so it didn’t really matter to us. The important thing was, this time we could almost see properly because of the extra daylight filtering through hundreds of little holes directly above us. 

So, instead of haphazardly herding the birds to one end of the building once they had been trapped inside, then blindly trying to grab as many as we could as they flapped past us again in the darkness, this time we could utilize our collective hunting and herding skills to their fullest advantage. We could see the birds just clearly enough to herd them like a pack of human sheepdogs into a corner at the far end of the roofspace and contain them there whilst we grabbed them all, one by one and stuff them into the sacks we had brought specifically for the purpose. A much more efficient exercise.

Two things went wrong.

Firstly, and this wasn’t a major catastrophe by any stretch of the imagination, there were many more pigeons than we could have hoped for in our wildest dreams and there was a deficiency of sacks in which to store the captured birds. So, as leader, I instructed the troop to tuck their jumpers into their trousers and stuff as many birds as they could into both the front and back of this makeshift apparatus. My younger brother, bless his heart, suggested a further refinement and showed us how we could stuff many more down our sleeves as well, suggesting the close fitting wristband would prevent them from struggling out and flying away.

The boy was correct, and before long Charlie, my little brother, his offsider Chris and I were completely stuffed with birds. Aggie, the fifth member of our party, was nowhere to be seen.

Some months earlier, on the twenty fifth of December, Aggie had looked in his Christmas stocking and instead of the semi automatic pistol which he had ordered from his parents, silly old Santa had delivered a pellet gun by mistake. I say by mistake, because this is the sort of toy that only children play with. The type of weapon only suitable for shooting tin cans, paper targets or fieldmice. Totally unsuitable for the type of research Aggie wished to pursue.

Nonetheless, Aggie had brought the toy with him on this hunting expedition and he had left our little group to hunt on his own. Instead of catching the birds alive, he was trying to shoot them in the head.

Now for those of you knowledgeable with firearms, it is generally necessary to be able to see both the front and the rear sight in order to take aim. This however did not deter our intrepid Aggie and he squandered practically all of his expensive box of pellets in shooting fresh air and shadows. 

Until, and this is the unfortunate part of my story, he drew a bead on a very big pigeon at the far end of the building, which leads me to the second thing that went wrong.

Instead of missing his target as per usual, he hit it.

I didn’t rush to congratulate the young marksman but instead screamed out in pain and grabbed at my left eye. The low powered pellet had struck me just below the eye socket and had managed to break the skin, causing several buckets of blood to pour out of the gaping wound and soak the ground around me to a depth of three or four inches.

A group meeting was immediately called where it was decided the injury was terminal and a mad dash ensued for the manhole. Unfortunately, in the excitement of the moment, the more junior members of the troop forgot to tread on the ceiling joists and trod instead on the ceiling itself.

We were later to learn in high school, the theory of what we learnt that day in practice. What goes up, must come down. And so they all did. Except me.

The other four boys crashed through the ceiling in a heap into an empty room below, leaving me friendless and bleeding to death, staring with disbelief through the gap where an excellent ceiling used to be. It was then that the first of the pigeons began to escape through my brother’s jumper which had become untucked during his ride to the ground. There were three other untuckees also in that room, two of whom were also stuffed to the max with pigeons. Aggie fortunately had none and was able to follow my directions as I leaned over the crevasse and dripped blood on them whilst I looked with my good eye for the pigeons’ escape routes in their clothing which needed his immediate attention.

What we hadn’t counted on was Mother Superior hearing the noise. Why we didn’t think she would hear a ceiling, four small boys, several hundred pigeons, a tonne of pigeon manure and ten square metres of sodden insulation material crashing into an empty room and echoing throughout the whole building is quite beyond me. But we did.

She came storming into the room just as I jumped down from the ceiling into the pile of debris below and became the fifth boy, covered in blood and feathers to join the throng. Even if I do say so myself, I believe I made a considerably superior landing to that of the other boys. Probably because I had a pile of insulation as a target to aim for.

 Although by the time I landed, Mother Superior was standing on the bullseye.

Now that I am an adult, I know that there are certain items available from the chemist’s to contain or limit the damage that an incontinent person’s apparel might experience from time to time when the person wearing such apparel receives a fright. Mother Superior unfortunately had no such fashion accessory and whilst she attended to her dampened modesty after my soft landing, we made good our escape and ran through the building and down the stairs with pigeons flying all over the place.

Somehow, nearly all the pigeons stowed up the front and rear of our jumpers escaped before we reached the main doors, although those stuffed down the sleeves were saved.

Nearly asphyxiated, but saved. 

We arrived home absolutely breathless and after stashing the pigeons safely in several cardboard boxes we went inside to tell our parents the truth. Whilst drinking my second glass of raspberry cordial to replace the litre of blood I had lost, I said we had been playing harmlessly down at the creek, minding our own business, when all of a sudden, two bigger boys, (one on a red bicycle and one on a blue bicycle) fired at us with a pellet gun, hitting me in the eye. Had my mother not been hysterical at the time and looked a little more carefully at our shirts, coated in fresh, damp, green pigeon droppings, she may not have taken the action she did.

That was why I now sat in the police car looking for the young gangsters who had tried to kill us.

It is this hunting prowess that I have endeavoured to transmit or pass on to my own children, and as an incentive to sharpen their skill, I offer a monetary reward for every item of saleable game supplied to Chez Alain by my heirs.

These items are in the main, rabbits, pigeons and hares and on one occasion, a wild deer. The majority of these items I’m sure are regularly purloined from the children’s section of the local zoological gardens and brought home on the bus, although how the young fellows managed to buy a ticket for the deer is beyond me. Obviously the driver just thought it was a university student.

The truth is, it isn’t how the animals are obtained, but the quality of the finished product that is most important in a five star restaurant, and since all the animals so chanced upon have been of an exceptional standard, (having been fed on the best of rations that only a governmentally funded zoo can provide), I haven’t wished to spoil a very good and consistent line of supply by asking a lot of foolish questions. Like the director of the zoological gardens will. He has invited me to have a word with him next week.

 My youngest son Tom is also able to trap a few wild Indian doves now and again and earn a few bonus dollars to fritter away on a very thirsty automobile owned and driven by his friend who has promised to sell it to him when it breaks down. These Indian doves are slightly smaller than a pigeon, but a little bigger than a quail and I generally serve a pair for an entrée. Firstly, they are quickly seared in a little hot sesame oil, then gently pot roasted in a slow oven with red wine diluted by a little chicken stock. A dash of cumin, some roughly chopped shallots, a touch of cinnamon and a few roasted sesame seeds are then added to the pan and in what appears to be a lifetime later, they are cooked to the point where the breast begins to leave the breastbone.

They are then presented beautifully, side by side, breast toward the customer, their little wings folded and pinned behind their backs and with their feet sticking up in the air. The reduced aromatic sauce is then poured over the dish and a fingerbowl with a slice of lime provided for the patron to wash his or her hands after eating. This dish takes forever and is very fiddly, but I thought Dicky was worth the effort.

It was shortly before Dicky’s anniversary dinner that the two doves which had been nesting outside Tom’s mother’s kitchen window disappeared. Tom’s mother scolded the cat in her singsong manner which makes grown men shudder and deprived it of food for several days as punishment. Neither Tom nor I liked that cat anyway.

The doves were Dicky’s special pizza.

Only I wasn’t going to tell him what they were.

He looked at the entrée with considerable trepidation and it wasn’t until mercilessly goaded by his darling companion wife that he consented to eat the offering in front of him.

A few minutes later saw the chirpy cockney elbow deep in tiny little bones, with aromatic sauce dribbling down his chin as it carefully wound its way through the designer stubble before attempting to enter the slight gap between his neck and his collar. Dicky was loving it, and all the ribbing in the world from his friends at his own table and from those other patrons seated at the other tables alongside couldn’t stop him from sucking every last morsel from the carcasses, laughing all the while and beaming with delight at the special attention he was being afforded.

That is, until I told him they were bats.

Not cricket bats of course, because Dicky played cricket and knew what cricket bats looked like. And cricket bats didn’t have little legs that stuck up in the air with little claws at the end of them.

But real bats did.

Up until that time, I didn’t know that Dicky suffered from bulimia. But he apparently did, and within only several seconds of me telling him the nature of his entrée, he was up from his chair and off like a flash to the men’s room where he remained for about twenty minutes until one of his friends could stop laughing long enough to fetch him back. Bulimia is a dreadful affliction and had I known that Dicky suffered in this way, I might not have spent so long preparing such a special dinner for him.

Luckily I took no offence at the amount of time that I had wasted.

Richard’s wife laughed longest and loudest of all and christened her husband Batman, a name which she called him from then on. As did the rest of the golf club.

I noted this fact and thought it a little unfair of his wife………………………….      

I thought it best not to approach Dicky’s table for a little while because he seemed a little edgy, and so I delegated the task to Andrew, my young assistant.

Andrew was in fine fettle that evening because the voluptuous young Amanda had decided she could do with time off from her university medical studies and earn a few dollars waitressing at the restaurant. 

And tease Andrew at the same time. 

The young man was always very perky when Amanda was working and an added bonus for me was that it sharpened his already famous initiative. He would complete his own tasks at whirlwind speed in order to assist her at her tables and everyone, including the voluptuous young Amanda, received exceptional attention because he remained wide awake and firing on all four cylinders all evening on the off chance that he might be able to knock off early, give her a lift home and assist her with her medical studies, so to speak.

 I, of course, was far too busy to notice the svelte, lissome, sensuous young lass and barely gave her a second leer.

The main dining room was in full swing, and Andrew, using his initiative, had turned down the lights to add to the atmosphere. I turned them up again just a little so that he might not accidentally bump into the voluptuous young Amanda again as she bent over her tables to clear dishes.

The lights seemed to flicker all evening.

The music softly filtered through the muted conversations at the side tables and eddied around the room, mixing with the chink of crockery and the tinkling of glassware as my patrons enjoyed themselves. Cabernet Sauvignon, Shiraz and Merlot, for which our district is renowned began to quickly evaporate from bottles on each table with the increase in ambience and warmth of the fire.

It was Autumn, and apart from hundreds of leaves and thousands of millipedes littering the terrace, life couldn’t be better. All the patrons were in a good mood and even Dicky eventually came and stuck his head around the kitchen door to say he really enjoyed the pizza. For a short while, anyway. His little visit made me feel a lot better and I forgave him immediately, I suppose its just the way I’ve been brought up.

Relatively Christian.

It was toward dessert time that I needed a little cooking sherry. Earlier in the week I had purchased a dozen or so flagons from one of the local wineries and with very limited storage space in the restaurant, the purchase had been stored in two large cardboard boxes in a corner of the ladies’ rest room. Andrew of course offered to fetch the required alcohol, but I thought it better that the function be performed by a more feminine member of staff and sent Amanda instead. Andrew waited outside the ladies’

 room door to assist her to carry the little jug of liquid back to the kitchen. He’s very helpful like that.

On their return, Amanda informed me that a little mouse had been tampering with the cooking sherry and had unscrewed one of the lids with its dainty paws. The little mouse had then inserted a straw (the same coloured straw that we generally insert into a glass of soft drink and serve at the table) into the flagon and had drunk a quantity of the sherry.

I asked how much?

She responded, “Enough to get a bit giggly…….perhaps a mugful.”

Amanda was of course a youthful university student. A mugful of cooking sherry would have a full grown gorilla on its ear in no time at all, let alone a bit giggly. I made a mental note never to try to drink her under the table. 

I was now in a predicament. I had been brought up to believe that all crimes should be punished. And to allow a crime to go unpunished was a crime in itself. 

The diners in the main dining room were beginning to get more ambient by the minute and we needed to come up with a plan to flush out the cooking sherry thief before everyone got legless and it became a lost cause. Certainly before they all started to sing anyway.

Andrew remarked that the straw had bright red lipstick on it, so the culprit was probably a lady. I thanked him for his initiative and stated it was extremely gratifying to know that the mouse in the ladies’ room had actually been a female.

Or a transvestite.

Andrew looked pleased.

He knew none of our guests that evening were transvestites.

But how to flush out the little mouse?

We developed a cunning plan, and as subtly as we could, the three of us meandered throughout the restaurant looking for a mouse wearing bright red lippie and perhaps with a glass of fruit juice or soft drink beside her, minus a straw. Sherlock Holmes would have been proud of us, because we found the culprit at Dicky’s table in the form of his giggly darling.

 Since the punishment must fit the crime and this was a drinking offence, then the penalty needed to be in a similar vein.

I approached the table and in a quiet, but worried voice said that a staff member had just noticed that one of the flagons of cooking sherry stored in the ladies’ rest room had been opened and some of the contents drunk. This was of course greeted with much mirth by the patrons at the table, but I was ready for this reaction. I allowed myself to give a restrained little laugh also, but immediately went on to say that the situation was a little more serious than it appeared.

I waited for their inquiry of……….. “In what way, more serious?” 

I said they had probably noticed the hordes of millipedes milling about on the terrace on their way in this evening, and went on to say that the cheap sherry temporarily stored in cardboard boxes in the female rest room was in fact to be poured around the building the following morning. The residual sugars in the alcohol would attract the little pests and the insecticide that had already been added to the sherry would kill them in their thousands and rid me of my annual scourge. Therefore it was most important that whoever had drunk the sherry seek immediate medical attention.

Dicky’s darling went very quiet. She looked as if she too might suffer the same bulimic affliction as her Dicky and she stood up from the table right away, suggesting to Richard that they go home immediately.

Not wishing to spoil their evening in any way, I said for her not to worry too much because the insecticide was of a very low concentration and that I would place a call to the Poisons Information Centre on her behalf (at no charge of course) and see exactly how severe the problem was.

The mouse followed me like a lamb to the telephone at the bar where I looked up the number for the Poisons Information Centre. Having found the number (it was listed in very bold type so that people in her general situation could find it quickly), I dialled it as fast as I could. The number I dialled however, was by coincidence the number for Andrew’s mobile phone, and he was outside on the terrace waiting for the call.

Thankfully the Doctor Andrew on duty was not busy with another patient and he answered almost immediately. After informing him that the lady by my side had consumed a small quantity of low grade millipede poison, I was able to relay his professional questions to my worried patron. The doctor wanted to know if the patient felt a little queasy? She replied in the affirmative. I passed this information back to the doctor. He wanted to know exactly how much liquid she had drunk. She replied about a half cupful. He then wanted to know her age, height, weight, telephone number and exact bust measurement.

The doctor was using his initiative again.

I passed on the first three of these important doctor type questions and gave the doctor her answers. A short pause followed whilst the doctor referred to his books and charts on the terrace and my patron waited nervously for his response.

The doctor asked if he could speak to the patient directly.

I passed the phone over.

It was wonderful to see the look of relief that spread all over her face when she got the good news from the doctor. There was in fact no panic at all. It wasn’t at all serious. All the patient had to do was immediately drink a little over two litres of milk and the problem would be solved. The milk would put a lining on her stomach wall and the problem would be resolved. No problemos.

The patient wanted to know if the milk should be whole milk or skimmer, because she was on a bit of a diet?

“Full cream”, was the response.

Amanda quietly made the patient aware that as a final year medical student herself, she wholeheartedly agreed with the doctor’s prognosis and gently led her into the kitchen and sat her down on a chair quickly fetched from the dining room. Batman was summoned to join his darling and was reassured that the problem was nowhere as serious as first thought and could be overcome very, very simply.

We gave Batman the three litre carton of milk and a glass tumbler.

I would love to say that I dropped the bottle in surprise when the voluptuous young Amanda removed her bra in order to show me the cute little design that had recently been tattooed on her left breast.

This was however, not the reason I dropped the bottle.

I would just love to say that it was.

Neither did the voluptuous young Amanda remove any of her garments at all that particular evening, despite vigorous encouragement from both myself and young Andrew my head waiter, who had fallen deeply in lust from the moment he had first set eyes on her. The tattoo appeared to be a small insect design of some sort, but I couldn’t quite make out exactly what sort of insect, even though I looked as hard as I could and from many different angles. As a man does.

It could have been a bee perhaps. 

Or a fly. 

Something with wings anyway.

I would also love to say that some other incompetent fool dropped the bottle and thus spare myself the expense of admitting my silly mistake. Unfortunately there was no one else I could think of to blame. Certainly no one close enough anyway.

The small party of patrons seated in the Private Room awaiting the arrival of that bottle were eight of my very best clients. They came as regular as clockwork each fortnight and there was no way this little black duck ever allowed just any fool to attend them. No siree, only the executive fool for this special group. The executive fool always served this group. Every time they came. And every time they came, they brought several bottles of exceptionally expensive wine from their own private cellars to enjoy with their exceptionally expensive meals.

And as he usually did, this evening the executive fool opened their incredibly valuable bottles of wine at the bar all by himself. Only this time he did it by dropping the most expensive bottle on the floor, smashing it completely. The result being that the wine was decanted quite professionally all over the polished floorboards and the lower half of my trousers.

I hasten to add, this was not a deliberate act of vandalism or jealousy.

It was one of complete stupidity.

In Australia, to add to the excitement of life, one may experience differing rules and laws regarding the same subject as one crosses the dotted lines on the map separating the states. These subjects are wide and varied and include different building codes, blood alcohol levels for children under the age of ten (New South Wales only) shopping hours, dog, cat and mother-in-law control and so on. For example, in South Australia where I live, a top vehicular speed of one hundred kilometres an hour applies on an arterial road. In Victoria it is between one hundred and one hundred and fifty, and in the Northern Territory, where there are wide open spaces and vast distances between both villages, there is no speed limit for users of the open road. And this applies equally to seriously big prime movers, small family sedans, feral water buffaloes and pedestrians. As I said, it all adds to the excitement of life.

Another anomaly between the states is their liquor licensing laws.

The liquor laws in the West allow patrons to bring their own alcohol to an eating hut or ‘restaurant’, for the privilege of which, the eating hut customer is sometimes prepared to pay a small fee. A very small fee. In fact, West Australians are quite prepared to pay nothing at all if the hutaurateur is silly enough to charge nothing. This fee is called corkage, and true to Australian tradition, no two States treat corkage the same. Which is just as well, really. We wouldn’t want things to get out of kilter, would we?

In some of the Eastern states, taking one’s own liquor to a restaurant is quite illegal, the same as taking your sister.

I’m not too sure about Queensland’s liquor laws. I do know it is quite lawful to eat your own babies there (but not in a restaurant), so you can probably take your own wine or spirits as long as the liquor is consumed politely from your mug through a straw, as in posh London restaurants.

Tasmania is basically a Victorian apple orchard and not many people live there so they don’t have any laws for anything really. Same as New Zealand. 

In my own state of South Australia, licensed restaurants may allow their patrons to bring their own alcohol, but this is at the discretion of the individual proprietors like myself. My own establishment allows its favoured patrons to bring their best bottled table wine from their private cellars and we are happy to provide appropriate service for an appropriate service fee. Unfortunately, from time to time we do receive some patrons at the front door bearing a large cask or barrel in a wheelbarrow. These are usually visitors from Western Australia who think that the corkage fee is for removing the bung.

They are mistaken.

These patrons generally also arrive with a cauldron of warm soup made earlier in the afternoon by a family member and a large polyurethane tray of not quite defrosted chops and sausages which they ask to be given to the chef with explicit instructions of  “WELL DONE”. Dessert is often brought in the form of a birthday cake, kindly donated by auntie Doreen and decorated in frosty green icing by auntie Doreen’s youngest who won third prize in the home economics section at the last school fête.

True to tradition, these particular patrons are quite prepared to pay the appropriate Western Australian soupage, grillage and cakeage fees on their food, as well as the corkage on their wine vinegar and to this end, the leader of the troop will proffer a crisp five dollar note to either myself or my maître de and wait for the change.

There are currently only three eating huts (all under administration) still in business in the West due to the local population’s generosity of spirit and understanding of sound business principles.

Of course the group is welcomed with open arms and should any of their flock be under the misapprehension that we earn our meagre living by the sale of five star food and liquor provided on the premises by ourselves, I hasten to inform and educate them that in fact the majority of our income is earned by the performance of a song and dance routine at the end of each evening, whereupon we collect the small change which appreciative patrons from Western Australia throw into aprons strategically placed on the floor in front of each exit. Lap dancing by prior arrangement and under strict medical supervision is also performed by myself and the voluptuous Amanda for a nominal fee throughout the course of  service.

The enlightened little group is then taken on a guided tour of the premises and ushered with appropriate ceremony into the modern coolroom and freezer complex at the rear of the building. The door is then closed and locked to prevent the group from being disturbed by any rowdy or raucous patrons who forgot to bring their own supplies and had to purchase some from ourselves in the main body of the restaurant used primarily for dining.

They remain undisturbed in the freezer.

The patrons in the Private Room must have heard the bottle shatter when it hit the floor, because as one, they all stopped talking. Silence can sometimes be ear shattering. About as loud as breaking glass.

Ordinarily, on spilling an extremely expensive bottle of red brought by a customer, any restaurateur with half a brain would top up the spillage with whatever was available and keep quiet about it. Even white wine with a good dollop of cochineal will do in an emergency. Believe me, I know.

Unfortunately I don’t have half a brain. (A fact brought home to me at regular intervals by my current beloved. And by several ex beloveds. And staff.)

I should have told the gentlemen the truth. I should have steamed the label off the broken bottle and stuck it on a bottle of reasonable quality Cab Sav and gone into the Private Room as if nothing had happened and said that a silly waitress had dropped a plate.

Like I usually do.

Because the truth is always best.

I could have then blamed any lack of wine quality on poor cellaring, poor cork, or any of a thousand other equally believable excuses. 

Instead, this brainless proprietor told the real truth. 

I said I had dropped the bottle.

The roomful of elderly gentlemen remained hushed until a spokesman informed me that that particular bottle of wine was worth much more than my motor vehicle, which was fortunately parked in a very handy spot close to the car park exit should I feel the need to excuse myself in a hurry. I proffered my sincerest apologies and my best wine as replacement, but their solemn faces told me I was in grave danger of losing their future patronage. And these gentlemen were very important clients.

It was the lovely young Amanda who removed the knife from my grip. She found me sobbing behind the bar and gently led me to the kitchen where she sat me down on an onion bag which fortunately contained a lot of onions or I would have sustained quite a nasty bump on the floor. And on my bottom. And the lovely young Amanda might have fallen on top of me. And I might have forgotten all about the wine. And I might have had to remove my wet trousers.

But that didn’t happen.

As a way of preserving my life, Amanda suggested I relieve her of her other duties and allow her to serve the gentlemen in the Private Room instead of me. (She was a poor student and really needed to keep me alive until I had signed her paycheck at the end of the week). 

I didn’t need to be a rocket scientist to realize that no further damage could be done and so acquiesced to her suggestion, even though she wasn’t very tall and would have to lean a long way over the very wide cedar table in order to serve the men their food. Besides, the lovely lass seemed to have quite a way with men and might just find a way of taking their minds off the catastrophe.

The evening finally came to an end and I remained alive due to the vigilance of the rest of the staff who allowed me to use implements no sharper than a cucumber. My customers slowly began to file out and I dreaded the moment when I would bid my final adieu to the gentlemen from The Private Room. 

I began rehearsing the pleas I use from time to time with the taxman and my children when they ask me for money. Sometimes a really good grovel can work wonders and stall the inevitable for between several hours and several weeks. In this particular instance, I thought I might get one more visit out of my golden ganders.

They came out smiling. Some had a grin. And one old gentleman even had a leer. All of them said how much they had enjoyed themselves and not to worry about the wine. It was probably too old anyway.

I couldn’t believe their change in attitude and thanked them profusely for their understanding. I also asked whether or not they had enjoyed the lovely young Amanda’s service and to a man, they replied in the affirmative. They even asked whether or not the lovely young Amanda could be their waitress on their next visit. It seemed they were all avid butterfly collectors. Or had been when they were much younger. And throughout the course of service, the lovely young Amanda had shown them all her beautiful butterfly collection as she leaned over. 

A collection no less!

And I thought it was a bee.

Or a fly.

Something with wings anyway. 

Owning a country restaurant as I do, plus a forty-acre retirement village for geriatric farm animals, I tend to gravitate towards those patrons who are from the country. Simple country folk like myself.

Although perhaps not quite as simple.

And, whilst these simple farmer-type persons are having lunch at my establishment, I casually slip over to their table and discuss mutually interesting and topical country stuff with them. Like rain. Or calving. Or sod seeding. Or the absence of cockchafer beetles in the pasture this year. It also tends to keep their minds off the horrendous price of my food. (The man from the local ambulance service told me it’s always best to keep people talking when they are in a state of shock.)

It is difficult to interest other diners in this type of conversation. Heaven knows I’ve tried my best in the past but to no avail, whereby I’ve now almost reached the point where I refuse to discuss green manure or intestinal worms and other parasites at the dinner table with anyone but dairy farmers. 

It is not worth the effort. 

One is wasting one’s breath.

That’s the trouble with people today. They just aren’t prepared to chat freely and swap information. And as a person interested in mutual intellectual stimulation, I find it quite uncharitable on their part that they are so unwilling. God knows, I’m happy to chat for hours on these subjects and share what little knowledge I possess. And whilst we’re on the subject of God, I would go so far as to say their reluctance to converse is almost un-Christian and I have to exercise considerable self control as a professional chef to refrain from spitting in their food a little bit.

And so it was with great interest that I gleaned from my two new diners that they were indeed sheep farmers from the dry country, quite a way inland. Ergo we could indulge ourselves in lots of scintillating farmer-talk whilst their food grew cold in front of them. I fetched them a large trough of cold water (with a little Scotch) as an opening drink and they drank greedily, as sheep farmers do.

One needed to be made of very stern stuff to live out there in the bush where it seldom rained. And when it did, it hissed down and flooded the countryside for weeks on end, causing a considerable amount of livestock to convert to deadstock. Flies, dust, prolonged drought, bushfires and loneliness all added to the attraction of their outback life and one had to wonder if God could have added any other interesting items to that miserable mix. Apart from snakes, spiders, large insects by the bucketful and the National Party.

Bush farmers do however have one quality that assists them to cope with life’s little traumas. It is a sense of humour. And the two new patrons at table seven were no exception. She was tanned and lined, with sunbleached hair cut short in the bush fashion to save on water when washing. And to prevent personal bushfires. She looked about seventy and had very smiley eyes and a mischievous grin, so I guessed she was about fifty five. 

His face was similarly sunlined and weatherbeaten and he too had smiley eyes and a mischievous grin. I put his age at about sixty five and noted in a cranial hirsute sense, he was even more water conscious than his good wife. No chance of any fires there either. 

I also noticed one other phenomenon about them when we shook hands; a phenomenon peculiar to sheepfarmers despite their harsh lifestyles - they both had the softest, smoothest hands I had felt for a long time. This comes from a lifetime of handling wool richly laden with natural lanolin and keeps the hands both pliable and youthful looking. The one unfortunate effect is that their hands also forever smell strongly of sheep, because the lanolin prevents water from penetrating and removing the odour from the skin when the hands are washed. About the only way the smell can be removed is to shake hands with other people, transferring the pong a little at a time from skin to skin. (A bit like being kissed by an exuberant grannie wearing musk flavoured lipstick and every bit as enjoyable.)

I noticed they both had a very firm handshake.

And a somewhat twisted sense of humour, for they used the two handed handshake on me, plus a grasp of the forearm as well, just to effect maximum transfer of bonhomie as they introduced themselves.

By way of response, I suggested the char-grilled lamb fillets marinated in red wine, garlic and native peppercorns for mains, and sheep’s milk cheese with local olives and damper as an appetizer, just to show them I too had a sense of humour. They ordered a bale of Lucerne, medium rare.

We touched swords and began to parry and thrust.

For most of the afternoon they kept me and the other nearby diners entertained with a multitude of bush tales detailing disasters they had experienced and overcome, and towards the end of the session, I was able to sneak a word in edgewise and recount some sheep farmer type tales of my own that I had found incredibly funny when they were told to me by my little brothers, David and Kym who grew up in a country environment.

These two little chaps were the most angelic little boys one could ever meet and had a local sheep farmer caught them, he would have most certainly turned them into angels tout de suite with just one wave of his magic shotgun.

Their main problem was that they were creative little cherubs and each evening after lights out, the two little angels would fly out of their bedroom window and into the night to create mayhem in the community. In an angelic and Christian way of course.

The little boys had been brought up in the same caring and sharing way as myself and the multitude of other offspring from my parents’ not infrequent holy unions, and they had learned to fend for themselves from the tender age of three. They trusted no one except God (and a small terrier dog) and had a particular mistrust of the media, rightly doubting everything they read in the cartoon section of newspapers or saw on children’s television. And they especially scoffed at the claim of a European car manufacturer that its Volkswagen Beetle was so well built that it was airtight. 

This ‘airtight’ claim needed to be tested, so one warm summer’s night they absconded (fluttered on fairy wings) from home and sought out a new vehicle matching the description in the motoring advertisements. They managed to find one some kilometres away in a farmer’s shed. It was parked alongside the large blue tractor, the smaller red tractor and the even smaller, but obligatory, white Mercedes Benz sedan for farmers.

With the vigour and exuberance of youth, the tiny little boys pushed the car several metres backwards until the hosepipe from the farmer’s garden tap was able to not only reach the vehicle, but was able to be pushed through the driver’s side window (which was open just enough) and reach the floor inside where it curled up like a snake. The laboratory was now properly prepared for the experiment.

Liquid was then added to this rather large automotive test-tube in increasing quantities until the water level inside the car reached the dashboard.

The little boys stood back in amazement. This was the first time they had conducted this experiment and had not expected such spectacular results. Not one drop of water had yet escaped from the vehicle and the manufacturer’s assertions were certainly true. To dashboard level at least. Further testing was necessary.

More liquid was added until an HB pencil which had been left on the passenger’s side seat escaped through the window as the water level neared the ceiling. The little boys were agog. The experiment had been an unparalleled success and now God had supplied them with a divine tool with which to conduct further experiments.

The pencil still had a reasonably sharp point and was exactly the right size to insert into the front tyre valves of firstly the big blue tractor. When the valve was poked in exactly the right place, the air from the tyre came whooshing out and shot up the nostrils of a deftly positioned child’s nose in a manner somewhat akin to a nasal orgasm. And if one counted all the tyres on all the vehicles, those little fellows had more fun with that particular organ that evening than a dozen sailors on shore leave on paynight. Nasally speaking of course.

Towards midnight, our tired little scientists returned home, climbed through their bedroom window and snuggled down under their blankets, earmarking that farmer’s place as their private adventure playground.

The farmer’s garden tap remained turned on.

Although a little horrified, my lunch guests laughed at my little brothers’ pranks and asked what other acts of wanton vandalism they had meted out to the poor unfortunate farmer.

I noticed their drinks had disappeared and asked my waitress to fetch them another trough of fresh water (with a little more Scotch) whilst I continued with my tale, (and the same for the surrounding tables who were now also engrossed), thinking that if I could tell enough tales I might be able to send all my children through private school on their liquor bill. And perhaps have enough left over to purchase a new Volkswagen.

When the liquid refreshments arrived, I told them of David’s desire to be a cowboy one day if he grew up. Kym too wished to be a horseman of sorts and he also hoped to remain alive long enough to become a jockey or a showjumper. Or a butcher dealing in horsemeat. However, even as young as they were, they both knew that to be successful in any chosen field, one needed to practise, practise, practise. Unfortunately, there were no horses within walking distance of home, and, since they were far too small to reach the accelerator of a borrowed vehicle and drive to the racetrack in the city to find a horse, they decided to improvise on the animal and one starlit night they took off again for the poor unfortunate farmer’s adventureland to go a-practising.

To a ten year old, a sheep is a large animal. And when in full wool, it is even bigger. Very horse-like indeed. And luckily for our two little horsemen, the farmer had penned up half of his flock ready to be shorn the next day, which made the job of catching and mounting the sheep incredibly easy, since they could hardly move in the holding pen and had to succumb somewhat bleatingly to being mounted bareback by the apprentice jockeys. However, when eased out of the gate and let go into the paddock, the saddled animal was able to run away. And be ridden around and around and around and around until it collapsed in a heap with its sides heaving, refusing to go any further lest it expire. Even when exhorted to do so most enthusiastically by the little boy. Foam dripped from its nose and its tongue lolled from its mouth and gathered bits of dirt and other debris where it touched the ground. So, it was back to the holding pen as fast as the little boys could go to hitch a ride on another ovine steed and ride that one to the point of death too.

Luckily for the boys, there were over one hundred sheep in the holding pen so they were able to put in a great deal of practice that evening. So much so, that by dawn, they thought that just one more night’s riding would equip them with the necessary experience to apply for any position to do with horses advertised in the employment section of the rural newspapers and leave home. During the daytime as well as every evening. So, with hardly a glance at the hillside behind them, littered with grey, fluffy, heaving bodies, each with four legs pointing skyward, our two tiny horsemen toddled off home for breakfast before school.

It didn’t occur to my little brothers that the farmer might not view things exactly the same way as they did. He may not even have been Christian.

The following day it was a little windy and the weatherman had said that the wind velocity was expected to increase during the evening, so David, the elder and more creative of the two angels, decided to conduct a further experiment. He thought that if the first two captured sheep could be encouraged to remain upright, it would negate the necessity for the boys to continually return to the holding pen for new mounts, thus wasting many minutes of valuable practising time. To this end, David had made two very large kites to tie around the sheep’s necks, believing that the power of God would hold the animals aloft whilst being ridden to death by himself and his younger brother.

The boy had an amazing mind.

The first two sheep lasted almost no time at all. They found it difficult to breathe and canter whilst being slowly asphyxiated by the kite string tightening about their necks as they were lifted off the ground. David had to rethink his experiment.

In an adjoining pen, alongside the sheep, were a dozen or more prize Merino rams. They were monstrous brutes with huge curling horns. They were also extremely bad tempered, probably because they had had to listen to a couple of hundred female sheep parked next to them talk about relationships all evening. However, contained as they were in a small pen and unable to move freely, David was able (from the safety of the railings which surrounded the yards), to direct his little brother as to how best to tie the string around the horns of two of the vicious beasts so they couldn’t ever shake it loose.

Not only had David an amazing mind, but he also had an amazing sense of self preservation.

The two boys then mounted the turbo-charged rams and each grabbed a handful of wool as the gate leading to the paddock was flung open rodeo style. Kym lasted longest, about ten seconds, whilst David was flung off almost immediately and trampled by the rest of the rams as they rushed to freedom now that the gate was open.

It was at about that time that the farmer appeared. He had been awakened from his slumber by the frantic bleating of the sheep and had come to investigate. As luck would have it, the silly man had brought his gun instead of his dog and to my surprise, it turned out he was indeed a good Christian, for he was unable to bring himself to kill the two little boys. And having brought no dog, he was unable to order it to tear them apart either.  Instead, he called out to them…. “Come here you two!”

Obediently, the two little rodeo riders took off in the opposite direction, into the holding pen containing the large flock of sheep and made their way to the gate on the other side. Sensing they were making the sheep anxious with their presence, the little boys opened the gate, allowing the stressed woollybacks to stretch their legs and release their built up tension as they chased off after the rams into the five hundred acre paddock. This also fortunately created a diversion to stall for time whilst the boys escaped. However, this did little for the farmer’s built up tension because he had spent all day rounding up those sheep and he called the little cherubims some very un-Christian names as they ran off into the night, laughing their little heads off.

Meanwhile, the rams which were still attached to the lightning conductors gambolled involuntarily around the paddock in a vain attempt to free themselves, whilst trying to join the main flock. The main flock, on being approached by two snorting creatures from hell, dashed about in a frenzy in all directions, crashing into fences and each other as they became increasingly terrified. And the windier the evening became, the more the rams gambolled and gadded about, creating a good deal of work on the following day for the local veterinarian who had luckily just completed a short course in animal chiropractic medicine.

All my lunch guests were by now in fits, but I could see that although amused, the sheep farmer couple were empathizing more than a little with their absent primary producing colleague. In fact, they even suggested that The Good Lord might one day mete out his own brand of justice to my younger siblings, because their own brother, also a sheep farmer, had been similarly terrorized mercilessly by a gang of young hoodlums and his farm was located near the coast, only about fifty kilometres from my restaurant. And they seemed to recall a similar story about kites using prize rams as anchors being told to them by their brother many years ago. And a story about a very damp motor vehicle too.

I was dumbstruck. Once again, here was proof that The Good Lord works in mysterious ways. Was this a sign?

On regaining my composure, I hastened to reassure my two guests that the two little angels in question had long since spurned their life of haphazard and ad hoc mayhem. They had both joined the Jehovah Witnesses so that they could as adults now continue to terrorize the community by doorknocking at ungodly hours every weekend, (but in a caring and sharing and organized way of course.)

My lunch guests said that their own brother, now retired, had a great deal of time on his hands and if I happened to have the addresses of my little brothers, they were sure that he would love to remake their acquaintance in a more formal way, now they were grown up and repentant. And probably more financial.

And as a caring and sharing Christian person myself, I obliged and scribbled their addresses and telephone numbers (in case he wanted to give them time to pray in preparation for his visit) on a napkin from a nearby table.

My lunch guests ordered another trough of water (with a lot of Scotch) and magnums of my best champagne to be shared amongst all the other diners, in the name of their much loved and soon to be avenged, retired brother.

You have no idea, dear reader, how glad my heart felt at being able to reunite such long lost acquaintances. We are all brothers together, are we not? One big happy family on God’s earth.

The drinks’ tab was enormous.

I was born a hunter. This is well known and well documented.

In fact, it is extremely well documented.

In triplicate.

In several governmental departments. More especially the Police Department and the Magistrates’ Court, and the rather personal details on my bulging file have been updated by their junior clerical staff at irregular but numerous intervals over the last thirty years after short, but costly appearances before the beak. 

I usually attend in a relatively clean and well pressed chef’s uniform (minus sharp knives), and stridently profess to his or her worship that the root cause of the alleged transgression of prevailing legal requirements re licensing of firearms has been my overwhelming desire to furnish only the very best and freshest of game meats to the patrons of Chez Alain.

Sir.

Your Honour.

If it please Your Grace.

Then, despite suffering from the onset of rheumatoid arthritis, I genuflect as best I can in what can only be described as a very genuine and humble supplication to his (or her) munificent lordship. (The funny hairdo makes it difficult to determine the sex).

Unfortunately, the sitting magistrates allocated to hear my cases of late have apparently all been underwhelmed vegetarians or confirmed Buddhists and recent visits have resulted in considerable upset to both myself and my bank balance. And, with the advent of technology, the fiscal purging of my pecuniary interests is done by direct debit (punitive electric shock treatment). Instead of waiting the customary ninety days, State Treasury officials can now furnish themselves with my expiation fee long before I am escorted to the exit door by a (fully licensed) armed guard and allowed to leave the courtroom building. 

Truthfully dear reader, it is not intentional criminal activity that has been the source of my problem, rather it is my sad medical condition which has been at fault, for since the age of fourteen I have continued to suffer from a manifestation of congenital memory lapses. Especially when it comes time to register every old secondhand single shot rifle that I have come to own. I also seem to forget to purchase the necessary shooting licence and hunting permit which enables an otherwise genteel law abiding citizen to shoot rabbits with impunity (and considerable skill of course).

My first major memory lapse happened when a friend and I were sighting-in my trusty old Lithgow .22. (A Lithgow, dear reader, is probably the world’s simplest rifle. It possesses only two moving parts, one of which is the bullet.)

I admit that we were probably not in the most appropriate place to attempt to undertake this task, but there wasn’t too much petrol in Peter’s father’s car and the National Park was fairly close to the school which we should have been attending at that time of the morning. On top of that, it was important that the vehicle be (a) returned, and (b) definitely returned before Peter’s father woke up to get ready for afternoon shift at the biscuit factory, where by the size of him, I guessed he was the head taster and a man very committed to his job too. 

We also didn’t want to undo the enormous effort we had gone to when we pushed the car up and out of their sloping driveway and down the street before starting the engine. Mr Peterson was a notoriously light sleeper, so we always did this when we borrowed his car without him knowing, in order that he might continue to have an undisturbed slumber and awaken refreshed and ready for work, untroubled by any extraneous little thing that may or may not have caused him a moment or two of anxiety.

And we certainly wouldn’t want to return home at the wrong time, would we now? It made no sense at all for all three of us to become anxious by arriving home after Rip Van Winkle had woken from his nap. Thus we usually decided not to stray too far from home lest we err timewise with the motor’s return and incur the wrath of a very large and awake Mr. Peterson hyphen Winkle. 

I’m sure he wouldn’t have looked favourably upon our regular little escapades, for like me, my friend Peter also had a congenital memory problem, only his was connected with cars, their rightful ownership and the licensing of underage persons to drive such vehicles. His elder brother had suffered from this affliction too, and in the past, Mr. Peterson had personally liberally applied his own patented brand of medicine to both lads to assist in its cure.  

My memory disease, on the other hand, was strictly to do with anything and everything else and my father, being a paramedical man like Peter’s, had a similar patented brand of medicine that was also liberally applied.

We parked the vehicle in a very tidy and well maintained public BBQ area, and with Peter’s kind assistance, I managed to surreptitiously stuff the rifle down my school trousers and walk with the graceful gait of a newborn giraffe with a broken leg past a group of pensioners who were dividing a barbequed sausage. They eyed me suspiciously. Obviously their parents had never told them it was impolite to stare at a person with a deformity and I made a mental note to address this with my own children one day should I be unlucky enough to sire any.

Anyway, Peter and I nodded to the flock, crossed the road and clambered over a fence into a paddock formerly used for prime 

cattle grazing until bought by the government, annexed to the National Parks Department and re-allocated to the intensive production of noxious weeds and feral pest animals.

A quick glance around the area told us that there were no rabbits or other life forms present at that time of the day on which we could sight-in my trusty old weapon, so we picked out a medium sized rock about forty metres away and attempted to turn it into a colander.

Firing commenced, and in the true tradition of Australian mateship, we took alternate shots at the target. That is to say, it was my rifle, but they were Pete’s bullets.

No other explanation necessary.

Although fairly short on petrol for the car, we were more fortunate with our supply of bullets for the gun, because Peter had managed to borrow a large box of them from his elder brother’s secret hiding place whilst his elder brother was away on holidays. They had been hidden underneath his mattress along with some very well read magazines that were about nature and ladies, and after reading his brother’s magazines, Peter and I decided we both wanted to be environmentalists when we grew up. 

Firing continued for about an hour until we hit the rock. We then set about reducing it in size, a little at a time. My goodness we had some fun, and not for one moment did we miss the French lesson with Madame Bête-Noire that our more studious colleagues were enjoying at that moment. 

Finally we were content. 

But only because we had run out of bullets and we were both nearly deaf.

The target rock had almost disintegrated and our aim had turned to filling empty teenage stomachs, long teased by the lingering smell of a single cremated sausage which continually wafted up on the faint summer breeze from the pensioners’ picnic. It was definitely time to return home after another very educational day, tell the usual fibs to Peter’s father when he awoke and raid his refrigerator. 

Life was wonderful.

We hadn’t driven very far back down the road leading from the BBQ area to the Park exit, when a police car containing a brace of uniformed police personnel approached us at high speed from the opposite direction.

We politely waved as they passed us, but I could tell from the looks on their faces and their accompanying gesticulations that they wished us to not only reduce our speed immediately, but to also bring our vehicle to a textbook halt as soon as possible. 

In much the same manner that they themselves were doing.

Peter.

I may have previously intimated dear reader, that young Peter was somewhat of a novice driver and as such, he must have mistaken the brake pedal for the accelerator when he saw the police car. This is very easy to do and on occasion I have considered making that very same mistake myself, because in a manual car containing nothing but a clutch pedal, a brake pedal and an accelerator pedal, there is statistically a 33 and one third chance that a genuine mistake of this kind can be made. Even by a very experienced driver (as I now am) trying to stop perchance following a policeperson’s polite request. And, to this very day I consider those to be excellent odds, if one is prepared to take a gamble.

 The proximity of these pedals to each other I believe is probably an original inadvertent design fault carried over from one new model car to another. Certainly one that could be easily rectified. And it was on Peter’s behalf that I said as much to the stipendiary magistrate some weeks later, when we both attended children’s court as a direct result of the unpleasant letter our parents received from the Commissioner of Police whose name appeared printed neatly in capital letters at the bottom of the summonses.

 I shall refrain from airing Peter’s dirty laundry in public at this point of time, dear reader, suffice to say that probably as a result of my petition to the magistrate (and also perhaps because he was a minor), Peter narrowly missed enjoying the same type of holiday that his elder brother was currently enjoying, courtesy of the same magistrate.

Amongst other things, Peter was asked to refrain from enjoying my company for a period of not less than one year. This was a fairly formal sort of request and the magistrate with the curly hair and dressed like a witch exhorted young Peter to carefully read the court order which the local postman would kindly deliver to him in person the following day. 

That was of course, if young Peter could read, he added. 

The witch, the court reporter (who was an excellent typist) and several policepeople all enjoyed this oft repeated little joke and smiled amongst themselves knowingly.

Myself.   

As for myself, as we sped away from the policemen, I had the presence of mind to set my rifle free and I released it through the passenger side window. Unfortunately though, this was my rifle’s inaugural voyage as an independent being and it had not quite yet developed the strong wing muscles or feathers necessary for a long flight to safety.

It fell to the ground with a sickening thud a metre or two from the car, hit a large rock on the verge and rebounded into the road. 

I think its neck was broken.

A short time later, it was run over and killed properly by a pursuing police car being driven by a very experienced driver. At another time that driver would have been strongly complimented by myself (and probably even Peter) for having executed such a brilliant handbrake turn on such a narrow thoroughfare. And at high speed too. However, I decided this was neither the time nor place for gratuitous compliment giving. Instead, at the first opportunity, I tendered my thanks to the good fellows for assisting my friend in bringing his runaway vehicle to a halt. 

I also mentioned that there appeared to be very little damage to both vehicles, probably as a result of the rigorous training the policeman had received at Police Driver Training School and I suggested that this sort of training should attract considerably more governmental funding. 

A fairly long conversation then ensued between the four of us, consisting mainly of questions asked by the more adult members of our little quartet and answers (of a fashion) being provided by the more junior members who seemed to have elected me their spokesperson, for I am a very persuasive public speaker.

My father bought me my first jacket a couple of weeks later from a very chic second hand shop. It was quite fashionable and only had one button missing and a small hole in the left hand pocket that went unnoticed most of the time unless I poked my finger through it. I knew it wasn’t for my first communion, because I was fairly sure I wasn’t a Catholic. I guessed it was for something really special.

I was right.

The jacket was for my very first court appearance

At the Children’s Court, the policeman on duty was so taken with my smart new jacket that he took a picture of me for his records, and then asked me to sit down on a long wooden bench with no cushions on it, (marked ‘Group W’) until my name was called. He also asked me not to stick my chewing gum on the bench. Again.

Otherwise he would have to come over and discourage me.

I had been vigorously discouraged by large male persons on one or two other occasions when I had been caught liberating fruit from orchards, and so I proceeded to remove not only my own chewing gum from the bench, but also that of several thousand previous visitors to Court number seven and re-deposited it all in the waste paper basket behind the officer’s desk where I took possession of an excellent letter opener, a fountain pen, an HB pencil and a small stapler, all of which were clearly marked with the officer’s initials in case they were mislaid.

My name was eventually called and after an impassioned plea from my father, the magistrate confiscated my rifle to the crown. At the time I guessed the queen wished to euthanase her corgis, however I later learned that this was just a governmental way of saying my rifle had become landfill.

I too was counselled by the witch to refrain from playing with my pal for a twelve month period, otherwise my father would have to contribute a non too insignificant amount to consolidated revenue.

Little did I know that this was the start of a lifetime of this type of philanthropy.  

Over the following months, Peter and I discussed that escapade with each other at length whilst out rabbiting. We no longer had the use of a firearm with which to hunt and had to content ourselves with a big buck ferret that we borrowed from another boy in our street shortly after he left for school each morning. We always returned it before he returned home, full of education in the afternoon and for nearly six months the young lad remained none the wiser. Unfortunately his poor ferret had the misfortune to make the acquaintance of a rather large brown snake one day whilst we were borrowing it. We were most upset because it was a beautiful day and we were so looking forward to catching a lot of bunnies.

Of course we returned the ferret, (a little earlier than usual), but because it was quite dead, we were never again able to make use of it. A small private funeral which we both attended, was held in the boy’s backyard the next day. Peter suggested that the ferret had been bitten by a redback spider whilst it was sleeping in its cage. I begged to differ and suggested it was more probably a funnelweb spider that had killed the poor beastie. The one thing that we both did agree on, was that his father should buy him another ferret.

I have continued to be a hunter, and even today I am still always looking for new places to go rabbiting. In out of the way places, where there are lots of rabbits and very few policemen.

And so it came to pass that one day, a very amiable gentleman dressed in the uniform of a well to do Australian pastoralist, arrived at Chez Alain. He wore clean white moleskins, well polished brown leather elastic sided boots, a light coloured long sleeved shirt with a member’s badge of the Royal Agricultural Society pinned to the shirt pocket and a brown leather belt with a big brass buckle. 

I also noticed that by force of habit he had parked his new white Mercedes under the shade of the only large tree in my car park, restricting both access and egress for any other customers not in possession of an urban horse or four wheel drive vehicle.

He also had a wife.

To cut a very long and tedious story short, Mr. Hickinbotham went into raptures when he found rabbit on my menu and waxed eloquent about hunting in his youth when he had more time, inclination and eyesight. I realized I had found a soulmate. But better than that, I had found another remote property on which to shoot and source rabbits for the restaurant. We got on famously.

His wife was more of a fish person.

We made a deal that every time I visited his property, I would leave a pair of nice fresh rabbits for his wife to cook for him, and since their children had long since left to manage properties of their own, the two rabbits would provide the lonely twosome with several relatively delicious meals. The fish person was of course deliriously happy with this arrangement and made her pleasure quite apparent on my first visit to the farm when I wakened her at five a.m. with a knock on her back door. I had been spotlighting all night and had just finished cleaning and dressing twenty or so bunnies. She thanked me profusely for the wonderful early morning gift and suggested that next time I could just open the back door and leave the two dead animals along with the gold, frankincense and myrrh on the stainless steel draining board of her kitchen sink, because like almost all remote country properties, their doors were never locked. That way, if I did as I was told, the lady of the house could remain undisturbed whilst she had her full complement of beauty sleep.

I had to agree that she most certainly needed a considerable amount of beauty sleep and almost voiced the fact that it was a shame she had obviously been an insomniac for most of her life. However, although usually a caring and empathetic man, on this particular occasion I decided to remain silent and just acquiesce to the lady’s request. So, from then on, each time I visited, I did the lady’s bidding and silently left my present in the early hours as both members of the household slept on. 

Despite his wife’s best efforts, Mr. Hickinbotham and I maintained our friendship, (mainly by telephone), although several months might pass before we would contact one another for a chinwag. It was usually myself ringing to arrange a hunting trip, but occasionally he would call me to book into the restaurant during one of his infrequent trips to civilization or to thank me for the rabbits that he or his wife had found on the sink in the morning, after one of my visits. 

Rabbits were getting fairly low in the restaurant freezer, and so I telephoned Mr. H to arrange a spotlighting trip. It was Spring, but we were having an exceptionally hot spell and so I made tentative arrangements to drive up in about four or five weeks’ time, depending on the weather. As luck would have it, the weather cooled down a little and I was able to set off on my journey exactly two weeks after my telephone call.

Spring is the time of year when rabbits breed like rabbits and my hunting expedition was bountiful. Over one hundred bunnies were bagged that night and being the generous man that I am, I sorted out ten of the best young rabbits for the pastoralist, trusting that not even Mrs. H could destroy those with her unique culinary skills.

As always, I silently opened the back door, crept over to the sink and deposited the pile of game on the stainless steel draining board. Then just as silently, I shut the back door and left.

As usual, no one stirred.

About a fortnight later, the Hickinbothams paid me a surprise visit at the restaurant. Even Mrs. H appeared relatively happy to see me and I remarked on the fact to Mr.H. By way of explanation, he said that she was always in a good mood at this time of the year. In Spring, the Royal Agricultural Society held its annual show in the big smoke, and sheep and cattlemen came from all corners of the country to exhibit their stud rams and bulls. The farmer’s wives especially loved the Royal Show because they could spend their time (and their share of the wool cheque) shopping in the large department stores whilst their husbands did man stuff with the animals, so to speak.

He said it was a pleasant change to see his wife so happy.

Probably because they had been in town for three weeks now, staying at a fairly swish hotel and she was being pampered each day. They had left the farm about a week after my call and both of them had had a wonderful holiday. Unfortunately all good things must come to an end and the prize rams had to be collected from their pens at the showground the following day and loaded up for the long return journey. 

He confided in me that he was sure his wife’s mood would change as soon as she got back to the farm.

He was correct.

I received a short telephone call from Mrs. Hickinbotham exactly five minutes after the party returned home. The quality of the call was not very good. She was using a mobile phone rather than the landline owing to an inability to enter her kitchen (or any other room in her house) without fainting.

Although there was considerable static on the line and her voice sounded unusually high pitched, I think she rang to thank me for the rabbits. 

Author’s note.

(If you are a food writer, scientist, economist or politician, it may be just as well if you skip this chapter).

One of the few things I learned in geometry lessons during my primary schooling was that those nasty pointy things with the three sides were called triangles and that they were always lukewarm. Or, when expressed in Farenheit, one hundred and eighty degrees. This is approximately equivalent to the temperature at which an egg pudding is baked for about one hour in a bain-marie.

One biology lesson during my more advanced schooling, I was able to utilize this valuable geometrical information. We were learning about nature and I learned that if you stood a triangle thingy on one side as its base and the pointy bit up in the air (like an arrowhead pointing skywards), it could not only represent a triangle, but could also scientifically, graphically and diagramatically represent nature's food chain in its most basic form. It was during that same lesson I also learned that the triangle's degrees had little to do with cooking. 

In fact, nothing whatsoever to do with cooking.

At the top of the food chain (the pointy bit of our arrowhead) it is quite narrow, so there's not much room for many animals. That is why there aren't millions of lions and tigers and sharks and T Rexes in the world. If there were lots and lots of them, they wouldn't fit in the pointy end would they? So technically, that is why all the thousands of big carnivores are at the top of the food chain and all the billions of herbivores like sheep and cows and gnus and rabbits and wildebeests etc are at the bottom, on the broad flat base of the triangle, where there's lots of grass and room for them to romp about. 

Diagrammatically, it is like open savannah at the bottom of the triangle.

Somewhere in the middle of the triangle are the omnivores, such as monkeys, possums and people. These animals eat both meat and vegetables. The upshot of that particular biology lesson was that I learned that the law of nature said we eat DOWN the food chain. For example, huge sharks eat big tuna, which in turn eat medium sized mackerel, which in turn eat little tommy ruffs, which in turn eat tiny minnows, which in turn eat the greeny bits that grow on the rocks on the seashore. Here I shall stop this fishy example because I don't know what the rocks eat to stay alive, but I'm sure you get my drift. A more interesting and animated animal example would be a large cat, currently snacking on a possum, which had just eaten a bird, which in turn had recently eaten a grub, which had just eaten a ripe apple, and no, I do NOT know what the apple had just eaten. I am a raconteur, not David Attenborough.

For the unsqueamish, these examples represents a simple flow chart of all things edible. For the more delicate amongst us, it is more often referred to as 'Nature's Way', said sotto voce and a with a little sigh of acceptance.

Mummies and daddies sigh like that when the kiddies’ budgie plays tag with the family cat. 

Thus operates Mother Nature’s Food Chain.

Very simple. Easy to understand. And certainly not to be messed with, especially because poisons or chemicals or other toxic nasties accidentally taken up by the ‘fodder’ animals romping in the tundra at the bottom of the triangle become more concentrated as they are ingested by the bucketful by the less cute critters further up the food chain. It has been operating thus for millions of years, so it's not too difficult to follow. 

Even a scientist or a journalist could follow it with a little help.

Barring the current stupidity of man indiscriminately spraying every type of poison he can think of into the environment, the cleanest meats have historically always been at the bottom of the food chain. These little snacks are called herbivores. And do we remember Nature's law? Yes, that's right, we eat DOWN the food chain. Sparrows do NOT ordinarily eat eagles. Rabbits do NOT ordinarily eat foxes. Not even do very big angry rabbits that play rugby eat very small timid foxes that play chess. You see, all animals are required to study simple geometry at primary school and obey the one simple law.

One eats DOWN the food chain.

Recently however, some very clever, tertiary-educated British scientists worked out that cows (herbivores) (aka vegetarians), needed protein in their diet. Several friends of mine, also vegetarians (but not cows) are similarly inclined. They derive most of their protein from soy bean products and other legumes which they purchase in very expensive and colourful biodegradable, non-allergenic, recyclable, fire resistant, organic packets (which may or may not contain traces of peanuts) from supermarkets. 

Cows however, even though they too are vegetarians, are not allowed in supermarkets unless they are dead, and so they graze in fields instead. When allowed to eat naturally like this, they find all the protein they need in stands of clovers, medics and other weedy legumes. These large herbivores, (the cows, not my friends), have been munching on assorted mixed pasture in verdant meadows for perhaps a million years or more and have been doing a fairly good job of it, if I may say so on their behalf. 

However, back at the laboratory, the clever scientists had been having regular motivational lunch meetings with the loony economic rationalists and together they decided that the cows needed a helping hand to become more 'food efficient'. It also just so happened that Britain at the time had a mountain of leftover sheep offal and other red meaty bits from sheep carcasses that the politicians wanted to get rid of. These tasty bits remained unsold after millions of sheep had been processed for British omnivorian Sunday roasts and the mountain was getting a bit high (in a manner of speaking).

This mountain was deemed (correctly) to be protein. And the cows needed protein (correctamundo once again). So, by the use of simple deduction, the fingers of one hand and the incredible scientific logic of our tertiary educated brethren, the British national herd was fed the mountain of minced sheep. 

Brilliant! 

A metabolic masterpiece!

Go to the top of the class.

Although ludicrous, this is actually a true story. Apparently, it had not dawned upon the tertiary educated scientists that cows were not just vegetarians by choice, but were in fact true vegans by birth and ate neither fish nor fowl, as well as having a distinct dislike for mutton, whether casseroled or roasted (on or off the bone). And it was not only the Jewish cows which ate no pork. None of the cows of any religion ate pork. Especially the Muslim cows.

Over the years, Mother Nature has formulated many ways of getting even with those who mess with her and in this particular case, Ma Nature got very angry and not surprisingly she assisted the cows to get their own back on the fruitcakes who suggested they cannibalise their ovine mates. The cows developed a disease which they caught from the sheep when they ate them. Then, when people invited the cows to their weekend BBQs, Mother Nature helped the people to catch the disease too. 

Public Relations journalists working for the government and tasked with finding the cause of the problem, termed it ‘Mad Cow Disease’. Of course any other person, and this includes those with only half a brain (scientists), would have termed the disease “Mad Scientists’ Disease”. But they didn’t

In order to curtail the spread of this disease, the British government made another dreadful mistake. It ordered the destruction and cremation of millions of cows instead of the destruction and cremation of just a handful of scientists.

Thankfully, the major problem has been resolved.

The mountain of sheepmeal has all gone.

I also understand that a new Public Relations firm has been hired. They have recommended the disease be re-named ‘Mother-in-law syndrome’ instead of mad cow disease. Don’t really know if this will catch on, but it works for me. I know they are really the same thing.

A more gruesome tale of people messing with nature and then suffering the consequences was eloquently told by a documentary I reluctantly watched some years ago after yet again returning home from the restaurant at three in the morning and failing to find any sport on the television or in the bedroom. 

It seems that a particular tribe of natives in some foreign land had developed a penchant for eating raw monkey brains and a film crew had flown over to film the spectacle. (For educational reasons of course, certainly not for the sensationalism). The monkey was placed in an apparatus like a babies’ high chair to restrict its movement and the top of its skull was then sliced off with a machete. Just the same as one takes the top off one's boiled egg when it is sitting in one's eggcup on the breakfast table, although perhaps with a smaller machete. The brains were then scooped out and enjoyed by all, after which the monkey was presumably enrolled in a university of its choice in order to study for a degree in economics, agriculture or political science.

A great many of the tribe had succumbed to (brain) encephalitis which they caught from the monkey. This was again Mother Nature's unpleasant but forceful way of reminding people to eat DOWN the food chain. 

Not up.

Downwards.

Towards the bottom. 

Don’t monkey around with gravity folks.. 

Quite an educational documentary really and not the least bit sensational, although several years passed before I had another boiled goog for brekkie. 

There is another even more insidious example of classic gastronomic stupidity regarding wanton disregard for Mummy Nature's one simple eating instruction. It might put you, dear reader, right off your din dins, so I shall refrain from mentioning it for a while and come back to the subject when you have eaten.

(Elevator music plays whilst reader eats)

Now that you've had your nourishment, ask yourself this question,………..

"If I got into a bathtub with a crocodile, who would enjoy the experience more, me or the crocodile?" (And please, no funky stuff with batteries and the like to distort the statistical significance of the empirical data).

The answer to this simple little question should be quite enough to show which one of you is above the other in the food chain, and by using a distortion of ‘Pythagoras’ Theorem’ (remember the triangle?) the correct answer is proven to be of course 'The crocodile'.

One hungry crocodile* + One yummy snack* = One happy raptor*. 

Q.E.D.

So why is crocodile meat nowadays sold in a lot of supermarkets and restaurants? The answer is of course because some supermarket chains and restaurants are owned and/or managed by people who have been to university, where they are taught that they can value add to their businesses by selling to the gullible public the waste product of leather manufacture. They also believe that the only 2 functions of a triangle are to (a) make unpleasant ‘pinging’ noises in an orchestra, or (b) operate as an efficient conduit for transmission of social diseases.

Alas dear reader, although I am a veritable slave to fashion as regards my personal apparel, I unfortunately lag far behind the current crop of trendsetting food writers when it comes to being in vogue in the steak stakes, because I steadfastly refuse to promote crocodile meat on the menu at Chez Alain. Nor shall I ever make a million value added dollars by turning my partner's crocodile leather handbag into a signature tasty bisque (garnished with garlic croutons and a sprig of fresh oregano). 

Nor shall I ever be responsible for giving a cherished patron some incurable disease by being stupid enough to think that I know more than Mother Nature and encourage people to eat UP the food chain and eat crocodile meat.

Je ne suis pas un imbecile!*

And I am not a food writer.

If perchance I am assassinated following the publication of this book, I suggest the police look for a suspect who is either a scientist, or a politician, or a journalist, or a student, or a lawyer, or a golfer with a degree in economics, or any one of the many other people I have completely unwittingly, and certainly unintentionally managed to insult. (And who may or may not have a vested interest in a crocodile farm).

*Currently being contested in a court of law by an ex-wife

Jonathan and I sat next to each other in Mr Grimshaw’s geography class. Its not that we were troublemakers, but we were what are nowadays termed ‘Special’ children. You know, the ones in school that have Attention Deficit Disorder. That meant we were boys. And we were 12 years old. We were two of 96, 12 year old boys in that school with the same medical disorder and we were put in Mr Grimshaw’s class because he was a medical specialist. He had a way of curing this disorder with small pieces of industrial grade blackboard chalk. 

Whenever he caught us 12 year old boys at the back of the class sneaking a look inside Susan Coulthard’s blouse as she bent over to pick up whatever we had purposefully tossed under her desk, he would let fly with a piece. You don’t get that sort of individual medical specialist attention on Medicare nowadays do you? No siree.

As well as ADD, I had another affliction. 

Whenever I caught a glimpse of Susan’s nipples, my trousers would get very tight. As a matter of fact, it was the same if I looked at her neck or her elbow. Or even if I just thought about her. I was 12. Ergo afflicted. And Susan was considerably more interesting in an educational way than whatever Mr Grimshaw put up on the blackboard each lesson. And her nipples were the most interesting things I had ever seen.

And I had very tight trousers.

So did Jonathan.

And most of the other boys in the back row.

Jonathan told me his mum said they were ‘erections’, and that you shouldn’t touch them with your hands or you’d go blind. This ocular affliction was a known fact, because Susan used to eat her sandwiches with the older boys behind the tractor shed on the oval at lunchtime and she had to wear glasses with really, really thick lenses. I reckoned she would need a seeing eye dog for sure by the time she was fourteen.

Whenever I thought of Susan at home, I would poke my own affliction with a stick to make it go away; but at school, owing to the absence of fallen branches in the back row, I had to use my ruler instead when I thought no one was looking. Or alternatively, I could wait until a deft shot by Mr Grimshaw hit me in the side of the head. That could cure it even quicker than the ruler. That’s why Mr Grimshaw was a medical specialist.

As I recall, my first two wives were of the stick poking variety and I’m sure they will both go to their graves with 20:20 vision.

However, dear reader, I digress dreadfully.

This story is about a particular geometric shape.

The triangle.

By stroke of good fortune, Jonathan’s seat was closer to Susan’s than mine. He was separated from the sensuous myopic vixen by only an aisle, whereas I had his body and an aisle between me and the object of my 12 year old desires. Needless to say, Jonathan was hit in the head region by many more pieces of chalk than me every day for the whole of that year, and I am confident that it was this continuous medical attention that accounted for his attitude and demeanour in later life when he became a food writer and forgot his expensive education at public school.

It was twenty years later, after a particularly gruelling Sunday lunch session.

I was relaxing on the plush leather sofa in front of the combustion fire in the glorious company of a rather nutty Tawny Port and a mature Stilton. Heaven on a stick really, if there’s no football on the telly. I happened to be reading the local newspaper. It was the ‘Dining Out’ section where reviews would be written by a journalist who would wax eloquent about a restaurant as long as said restaurant just happened to place and ad in that very same newspaper. The bigger ad, the more wax.

I noticed with interest the byline at the bottom of the review. My old school chum, Jonathan was the writer, so perhaps it might be worth a read to see how his life had turned out now that he was a fully grown man and therefore had no interest whatsoever in ladies’ body parts.…….

Unfortunately, (and I say this with tact dear reader), poor Jonathan was obviously still suffering from chalk poisoning. 

Although we had both been thoroughly educated by Mr Grimshaw (and Susan) in our geometry class regarding triangles, and also later by Miss Marple (no, not the famous television detective) in Biology regarding advanced triangular theory and the food chain, poor Jonathan had obviously taken leave of his senses. He had become what is commonly termed ‘a chalk addled person’. And I read with dismay that he was advocating the ingestion of crocodile meat.

I rang the poor chap and asked whether or not he had been playing ‘Spot the nipple’ during our Biology lessons as well as in Mr Grimshaw’s geometry classes? Hadn’t Miss Marple made it patently obvious that the geometric shape known as ‘the triangle’, (so painfully taught to us by Mr Grimshaw), was the simple diagrammatic representation of the Food Chain. If he still possessed a memory, I reminded him it was Question number three on our exam paper and 5 marks could have been earned with just three strokes of the pencil. I suggested Jonathan had at the time been using his ruler instead of his pencil. And probably many more strokes.

He hung up.

I thought I had been as tactful as I could be under the circumstances.

I am known for my tact.

A day or two later I rang again and asked whether or not he had calmed down. I suggested that if he continued to advocate the oral infusion of crocodile meat into the human body, he would of course be legally responsible if restaurant patrons took to slicing the heads off small children strapped to high chairs and sucked their brains out with a plastic straw.

He hung up again.

Apparently he had not watched the same documentary as me.

Undeterred by his abrupt manner, I again rang the newspaper and using a clever ruse using the words ‘unpaid’ and ‘tax’ in the same sentence, got put through to him straight away. This time I said I felt it my civic duty to publicly correct the disinformation so recently disseminated by him in his tabloid newspaper and intended to hold a ‘Special Menu’ night at my restaurant featuring ‘Clean Meat’ from the bottom of the food chain. I told him I had invited David Attenborough to MC the event, but unfortunately his secretary said he was busy in Nairobi watching toads that night. I told her I had had quite a few toads in for Sunday lunch recently and I agreed that they were certainly worth watching, so I completely understood why Sir David was unable to attend.

I said I would give Sir David’s place to Jonathan. 

The line went dead.

Several years previously, my Italian friend, Tony Potato had invited me to his brother-in-law’s place for lunch. Since the accident with the crabs and lobsters and the indoor spa, his wife Helen no longer allowed me to enter her home, so the compromise location of Sam’s rear garden was deemed to be relatively safe. And Sam’s children had no wading pool.

But his kiddies did have guinea pigs.

And Sam’s wife Margarita was from South America where guinea pigs are eaten regularly in restaurants and at home. Thus I was introduced to the delicate flavour of barbequed cavy, served with a piquant sauce and washed down with several bottles of Sam’s homemade red. It tasted like chicken. 

And so did the guinea pig. 

Sam needed help with his oenology.

Recalling that glorious afternoon in the sun at Sam’s, I decided to serve Guinea Pig as the ‘Special Menu’ to my patrons, and at the same time re-educate my long lost journalist colleague. I called him and told him of my intentions. He in turn asked me to stay exactly where I was. He said he would send a photographer down tout de suite to capture the moment and before one could say “Louis the fourteenth”, a reporter and cameraman arrived with the cutest guinea pig imaginable in a cardboard box. I was asked to hold the little fellow whilst they took photos of us both for the newspaper. They said the story would be featured the day before the event, programmed for 3 weeks’ time.

It was a beautiful photograph. 

Really cute.

However, rational thought is not one of my major failings.

Apparently I had just lit the touch fuse of a very large bomb.

Now I had to source 50 or so guinea pigs to serve on the night, and search as hard as I might, I couldn’t find a single one in any of the local supermarkets. I even tried the health food shops, but the hippies just gave me a blank stare and asked me not to touch any of the merchandise with my hands. Perhaps use a stick.

I needed to come up with a cunning plan.

Artist Pete’s kiddies had guinea pigs……………

Alas, ever since he had told the little girls that Uncle Al had turned their Shetland pony into pies, the littlies screamed whenever I set foot in their garden. And the little darlings began staying up late at night in rotation to make sure Uncle Al couldn’t borrow Sneezy, Grumpy, Bashful and Dopey to assist with the forthcoming event. Dear reader, the truth is I hadn’t actually made pies from Old Faithful, he had expired of old age and had been taken to Uncle Al’s farm to help fill a large hole, providing Patch the wonder dog with countless midnight snacks and a great deal of doggie perfume over the following two months.……however, some people never let facts get in the way of a good story and Artist Pete is no exception. I still receive hate mail from his daughters at Christmas.

I had to think quickly.

Guinea Pig night (as it was now being termed at the restaurant) was fast approaching and I had very little product to serve. Sam had supplied a half dozen of his plumpest (not including Margarita) but that still left me 44 short. Another cunning plan needed to emerge from my tiny brain. Difficult at the best of times.

Pet Shops!

Of course! They had lots of guinea pigs for sale. And so with gleeful skips I dashed down to the local pet shop to purchase some product……..

The owner asked me how many I wanted. 

I said “44”.

She gave me a funny look.

“Or maybe just 8........?” I suggested as I surveyed the motley assortment running about on their fresh sawdust squeaking their little heads off.

I asked if she would be getting more in the next day and if so, would she please reserve the biggest for me.

Again I received a funny look, but the lady nodded her assent.

A week later I had 30 running about in a pen at the farm, eating their heads off, but the Pet Shop lady was starting to ask difficult questions when I revisited and poked and prodded the animated merchandise. But it was when she said “If you are buying these for scientific research I won’t sell you any more” that I was able to reassure the good woman with the absolute truth.

I said “Certainly not. These are going to my farm where they will be fed only the very best of food until they are the fattest little fellows, whereupon they are going to be given (albeit for a small charge) to my friends”. I might have forgotten to mention the white wine sauce.

Thus reassured, I received the remaining 20.

Guinea Pig night came and went.

It was an unparalleled success. 

Half my patrons on the night asked for Avocado and Camembert crepes (sans piglette s’il vous plait). Four ordered rabbit and three ordered pigeon. Unfazed however by this taciturn lack of risk taking, mine host somehow managed to supply every table with at least one sample of the South American delicacy, and almost everyone agreed it was indeed a beautiful meat. Because I refused to let them leave until they had eaten it.

And they all agreed it tasted like chicken.

South American chicken.

Thus I deftly avoided having to eat 30 or so guinea pigs myself for breakfast lunch and dinner over the ensuing weeks. 

I am not completely stupid. 

And my patrons all got to go home that night.

Jonathan sent the work experience kid in his stead whilst he spent the evening in his favourite hamburger shop writing a witty piece about a pet eating maniac and a wonderful hatchet job appeared in the local rag the following day. Several local and interstate radio stations rang for a live interview during service and a local Primary school began a guinea pig breeding programme specifically for the table. 

It was noted by someone that I had previously been feature chef in an epicurean publication of note, and I was asked to supply a recipe for an international magazine.

It could have been worse.

Artist Pete’s youngest daughter could have picketed the restaurant for 3 weeks instead of just 2.

No stamina, that girl.