Monday 5 November 2012

The Portugese Disappointment and the Disappearing Blazer

Today has been deliciously busy, but has only included two meals. Hefty meals in both cases, and relatively carb-heavy, but two meals, nevertheless, which is just as well because I haven't managed the biking I planned to do.

The first meal was a perfect arc of hope and disappointment.

We've been trying new places since we arrived in Merthyr almost a year ago, but it being a Sunday morning, we decided to pop out for lunch, and couldn't think of anywhere within walking distance that was new and interesting. As we walked, we found a place called Santos. It looked promising, using Welsh ingredients in Portugese cuisine. One of our favourite local places in Stratford was Portugese, and called Selmos. So we went in with hope, and optimism, and hunger.

d ordered pate to start, and was given a plastic tub of the kind that contains marmalades in hotels.
"I'm guessing not made on site," I murmured. She spread it on some toast, bit into it...
...and nearly threw up.
Pate, in the world of the familiar, usually has something at the root of it that has walked around on legs. Sardine pate belongs to an entirely different world - the world of obnoxious fish paste.
Next!
Next was garlic bread and stewed pork, which worked nicely. Then there was a pair of mains. d's was pork in a pale sauce, mine was toast and ham and cheese and sausage and meat of some description. d's took forever to chew. Mine was entirely impregnable to knives, forks or teeth. It simply sat there, smirking at me.
The kicker was the bill, which was breathtaking for a plate of gelatinous, multiply-meated grimness. Clearly, Santos can kiss my wobbly ass in future.

The second meal, after choir, was almost entirely its antithesis - home made corned beef hash at home. Gorgeous stuff.

Inbetween the the two, of course, I went to choir. Apart from a brief appearance in a Penguin suit, I haven't sung with  the choir as yet, because there's a uniform. Tonight, I was given mine, and had to try on clothes in front of a handful of other blokes. Since most of them were at least as big as me, there was none of the locker-room terror of my younger days, even though I'm undoubtedly fatter than I was back in those days. And now I have my "Blazer and Greys", so a week Tuesday is my first full performance as chorister.

When the blazer almost but not quite did up, the guy who was getting me kitted out looked at it almost but not quite approvingly.

"Don't worry," I grinned at him. "I'll Disappear into it shortly..."

Tomorrow - swimming and gymming before settling down for a solid day's editing. And Disappearing, obviously.

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