Sunday, November 2

New Blood At The Bar

2nd November
The filming really is done for this year, the Camera Boys have returned to the UK - we are now in visiting season. Since Bruno's August visit we have been without doorhandles - he replaced the original knobs with a set that can’t be made to stay fixed on. My parents arrived here a few days ago. They have known me long enough not to expect much in the way of comfort but I bet they had hoped for door handles. No matter - once given a pair of pliers and a monkey wrench they soon got the hang of getting in and out of their bedroom. My mother hasn’t really got the upper body strength to haul the front door open on her own yet though.

We were also suffering from a smelly drain problem. Our squalid kitchen has a concrete sink with a hole through the back wall. The water, and whatever else you put in the sink, washes through to a concrete gutter running the length of the back of the house. Over the years it has silted up and grown over with weeds, the autumn rains have made the area behind the kitchen swampy and putrid. My repeated calls to Landlord and plumber have been ignored. Mum put her foot down, The Director and my father got out the shovels and a wheelbarrow, dislodging unspeakable hideousness to make a drainage channel.

As a further treat for my parents I took them to the bar for some of Mrs Strange’s gin. The Senior Strange’s have already slipped away. But Kurt the tattooed son has returned from Copenhagen with his wife and turns out to be perfectly good at serving gin with flat tonic in a dirty glass from the iceless bar.

Kurt’s wife, Courtney has translucently pale skin, she has only recently started her tattoo collection, they both dress exclusively in black. They tell me that their band had split anyway and that they are going to liven up the bar with 'live bands, gourmet food and that kind of stuff'. Courtney is animated, she says that Kurt’s great in the kitchen - I’m not sure if she means he can cook. Buoyed up with enthusiasm for their plans (and feeling guilty that I’ve now booked to show our film at the village hall) I suggest that they put on a supper for after the film show - I’ll publicise it on the flyer I’m going to put around the surrounding villages next week. Kurt is a sullen kind of chap, he asks what sort of thing I have in mind,
I suggest casserole-type dishes; a daube, coq au vin … a cassoulet?
I’ll do a cassoulet
Something about his response is not putting me at ease.

7 comments:

  1. Maybe some platters of cheese and biccies would be more to his skill set?

    My stomach went all skeevy at the thought of a poorly executed cassoulet.

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  2. Goth bar serving gin with flat tonic in a dirty glass and no ice? Hmmm, sounds like my kinda place....

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  3. Hi Kim, I wish I had just suggested cheese, I just got all caught up in the moment.

    Hi DD - We only got fire and the wheel in this village fairly recently I think the invention of ice will be another couple of millenia hence

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  4. Thank you for visiting my blog, which meant I got to connect with yours. I like it. I shall be back.
    And, since Dumdad's here I feel thoroughly at home.

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  5. Can't wait for an update on the doorknobs. Brilliant, as usual. What more can I say? I felt compelled to post a comment partly because my word verification this time was "mensa" and I thought it must be a sign. I am hip hopping around to the blogs of the others who posted here. It seems you live in a good neighborhood in the blogiverse.

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  6. Hi Ian, and your place was a real pleasure

    KSV - it's true, only the best bloggers come here - no riff raff. If it was a party there'd be ice

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  7. I was all packed to come visit until I heard about the flat tonic and no ice. :-)

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