Loadsa bikes.in Balenthia.

Loads more scoots though. Helmets seemed to be 95% for riders and 25 for
pillions. Lightly equipped janitors on small moto type things.
Filtering appeared to be compulsory even for them.

The view from the terrace thing where I had a smoke at work was over a
10 lane (4 cage and one bus each way) boulevard of a type from which the
whole town appears to have been rebuilt after the Great Flood of '52
which ended in a roundabout wiv lights on it. I got the distinct
impression that the lights were only advisory for scoots, bikes and
little black beat up fiats.

Plod had it staked out one afternoon and was pulling vans and trucks for
document checks. During the course of one fag I saw a 5 tonner and a
minibus attached to towing gear disappearing into the east and one light
van being parked in a line with a gentlemen being encouraged along the
road towards a police vehicle his modern driving experience apparently
ended for the day.

There was a place doing CBT type stuff on a footy pitch sized lump of
tarmac on the way back to the hotel and they were doing a roaring trade
every day. 6 or 8 instructors there.

Very proud of their locally sourced grub they are. Which means fucking
seafood with fucking everything even the fucking salad.

The rabbit and chips I had wednesday lunch time was gorgeous and not a
prawn in sight. Actually the chips generally were very good. So were
the anchovies, wine, pate, ham, oh man the ham, and the torteaya I had
thursday night. Strangely, considering the last night was on the credit
card of some geezer with shares in the firm and thus in a Proper
Restaurant with a sign that looked suspiciously like foreign for
'reserved' and waiters with pinnys on and moustaches and one just to
pull corks and everything and not some tapas type bar although we did
all our eating tapas style wherever we went even in restaurants but then
we were being bought dinner in a party of at least 4 at lunch and 7 for
dinner all week, the octopus was consistently really rather average.
They obviously cannot grow good garlic locally and have to buy it from
Morocco or something. The tiny shrimps in a tempura type batter I had
tuesday weren't bad either. Cheese was mostly fine to good, nothing
exceptional though. Citrus fruit to die for. Lettuce, always tiny
weeny Cos type hearts was always good. Some utterly delightful little
clam type things about the size of a thumbnail, pinkish shell, ever so
sweet. Much mutton. Nice local style bread, always crusty and didn't
fall apart when you splashed on the oil in what they considered was
rather generous quantities. Oddly enough the poleaxe didn't seem to
have an opinion about the bread but me, the chink and the slovak geezer
who could give dog a hard time boasting about multi language fluency did
as well

Despite the unseasonable rain all in all I had a really nice time. I
did me best to speak proper and behave meself as befits an hEnglishman
abroad in the company of Foreigners. They have trouble getting their
ears around Brummige apparently. Which I found rather odd. I know it
is unpleasant but it understandable at least although that in itself may
be a contributing factor. Anyway that is how I explained it to them.

 

Sarah once had to go to an EU do in Strasbourg. They were marched off to a
restaurant in the Parc de l'Orangerie for a slap-up dinner. Twelve courses,
and only the dessert was fish-free.

Strasbourg's about 350 miles from the nearest salt water.

 

What are you carping about? Don't they have fish in the Rhine?

 

They have now, but this was nearly 20 years ago, when the Rhine was still
the sewer of Europe.