Bristol. The Final Destination.
These are the continuing voyages of the Flying-Brick ‘Gnome’ conqueror of dark lords.
Chapter 20: The First Secret Weapon
And so we come to the apogee of this tale, but not it’s end. Fate still had much in store for the Gnome and the pilgrims.
That first evening was spent in warm companionship as we tried to catch up with much lost time. Warm in the emotional sense, bloody freezing in the temperature sense. With the aforementioned obligatory rain thrown in for added atmosphere. Tarpaulins come in handy.
Always aware of the risk of transmission of the dreaded lurgy, and in the absence of test results, the evening had a slightly foreboding air, but this was healed by the first of two secret weapons. Indian food.
This is something I most sorely miss living in France, despite it otherwise having the best cuisine in the world. In our hometown in France there is something calling itself an Indian restaurant, but it serves a distant mockery of the real thing.
One attempt to eat there resulted in what must be the most bizarre meal that I have ever had. Upon our arrival we were asked by the waitress what we required in a strange ‘er, what are you doing here?’ sort of way. On explaining that we were there to eat, she initially looked quite perplexed, then hurriedly prepared a table whilst apparently phoning for a cook...
The menu consisted of chicken curry, meat curry or vegetable curry each in three different levels of spiciness. That was it. I chose the vegetable vindaloo as I’m never quite sure what ‘meat’ might be, plus I love aubergines. I chose the hottest as the French are not renowned for their appreciation of hot spices.
After a considerable wait where we considered the possibility that no cook had been found and the waitress had escaped, meals were brought in individually with about five or so minutes between each. There were about five of us so this took quite some time. Then they brought the accompanying breads. What a shambles.
The dish finally delivered to me whilst having spent half an hour watching everyone else eat, turned out not to be a veggie dish, but something akin to distant relative of a chicken. When I complained I was informed that they had run out of aubergines so they replaced it with chicken!
For some strange reason we have not been back.
Admittedly the ‘real thing’ in the uk does not relate too accurately with the ‘real thing’ in India, but having gone through my formative years living on the stuff, it has become part of who I am. Quite literally I suppose.
Our plan was succeeding, and this evening together meant so much. But we still had to keep distant. And not because of the side effects of Indian food.
The original plan was that we would stay for about five days, but because of the looming doom of lockdown, we were to return early after only two nights there. During the next two days we would see the Welsh escapees, Jon and Lisa and her sprogg Sienna. The master plan was that Jon would arrive on the last day, then the three of us would leave to drive directly to Montauban sharing the driving. Non-stop, covid secure.
There seems to be a theme when it comes to my best laid plans. This was another doomed to failure.
We did however have one more secret weapon...
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