Ambush

My dog, TT, I must admit, has been spoilt rotten. She demands attention and affection at every opportunity and gets quite upset if you ignore her. And so it is, when I get home and park my car, she is instantly outside waiting for me to open the door. The moment I do so, she leaps in and jumps around frantically, barking and howling, sits in your lap in the driver’s seat and refuses to let you out. You have to wait about 10 minutes for her to calm down before you can push her out and then get out yourself. Attempts to alight by the passenger door are foiled because she knows all the tricks. Now her friend, a large Alsatian from down the road has twigged this game and also tries to get in the car after her. The first time he tried to follow her in, there was pandemonium. My phone had just started ringing which I answered and absent-mindedly opened the door at the same time. I was besieged by what seemed like a pack of over-excited canines, barking and howling. I was literally trampled under-foot (or under-paw) and had to fight my way out whilst at the same time trying to hold a ‘calm’ conversation with a potential employer. I think next time, I may try to exit rapidly by the boot. Ahhh, the lengths one goes to for a quiet life.

It takes two to tango

Well, my mother is in town at the moment, having flown over from the UK for a couple of weeks. I thought I would take her along to the last night of the dance classes to show off my new moves (the fact that these moves are still relatively uncoordinated is something we can gloss over for now). A particularly cheery waltz trilled out at some point and my mother said ‘hey, let’s have a dance to this one!’. Smugly, I thought, yes, I’ll show the rest of them, knowing that my mother was bound to be good at dancing – well, she’s over 60, isn’t she, surely a pre-requisite for knowing the steps; it’s just that generation after all (vague concept). I was also relieved because my regular partner had started learning how to dance from zero at the cost of my injured toes and bumped knees. For the past 6 months, I had been marched and steered and driven and knocked and bumped around the hall by a debutante who should have had ‘L’ plates firmly attached to his back to warn others of his impending presence, ‘L’ of course standing for ‘laugh’ as in (in good cockney fashion) ‘you’re ‘aving a laugh, ent yer?’ We stood up, my mother a good foot shorter than I am (and I’m by no means tall) and started to ‘dance’. My first impression was, oh God, she can’t dance but by then, there was no way I could make her stop short of clutching at my chest and feigning a sudden (but passing) heart attack. Her moves were all staccato as if she had really bad indigestion combined with uncontrollable epilepsy. Even labelling her moves ‘contemporary tango’ wouldn’t have excused this diabolical interpretation of this classic and graceful dance. She grinned contentedly, her bouffant hairdo whirling round in rhapsodical delight. I wanted for this moment to be finished and forgotten but the music continued. I caught sight of my fellow dancers steering clear of the out of control duo. The dance instructor looked unhappy. At long last, the waltz came to an end. ‘There, I’ve taught you how to dance a real waltz!’ my mother proclaimed triumphantly trotting off to chat amiably to one of the bemused spectators. Yes, I can honestly say I’ve made a memorable impression in that group.

Thumbs up?

Well, it was the last night of the dance classes recently and everyone brought along a home-made dish. As I only make one dish well, it had to be ‘the crumble’ but this time I thought I would do some custard as well. The dancers were already familiar with the crumble set up as I had brought one in before but they peered suspiciously at the seemingly gloopy yellow mixture duly proferred for their sampling. Is it savoury? someone asked edging away from it endeavouring to keep a safe distance. What are the ingredients? another one asked to which I was unable to answer. Err, just powder and milk, which really, if you think about it, isn’t a particularly satisfactory answer. Do you drink it… and so on went the questions from the confused melee assembled before me. I dolloped each crumble portion with a good helping of the prize custard and handed it out to the reticent diners and waited. They munched and crunched and slurped and chewed with the result that. opinions were divided. A few went back just for a helping of more custard while others separated out the crumble from the custard, leaving the latter forlornly on the side of the plate with a definite thumbs down. Next time I think I will bring in a toad-in-the-hole but won’t translate literally the name of the dish before they try it as I wouldn’t want to put them off.