Had lunch with my brother at Ta Bouche. It’s the cafe/restaurant opposite the B Bar on Market Passage, by the smallest entrance to Borders.
I chose the vegetarian bangers’n’mash. My brother had the home-made burger with salad. Alas my bangers were not home-made; they were finest shop-bought Linda McCartney sausages. I could tell by looking, before I’d even tasted them.
Do restaurants think people don’t notice? Or do they just assume that they can get away with it since the British just tut amongst themselves?
I tutted to my brother. They got away with it.
Later I played badminton in Milton with Carl and Matt, who I guess I should call former colleagues now. Or mates, preferably.
Lots of strangers were present; enough for four courts of doubles matches, though we only had two. This was good: I wouldn’t have been able to play for two and half hours without a break. (Memo to self: eat beforehand next time.)
This being I suppose a club of some kind, there were unwritten rituals involving clothes pegs scrawled with names to decide who was playing whom. (I was simply “Dave”, as opposed to “Evil Dave”, also present; I suppose I could have used an alternative adjective.)
Some of the, ahem, older gentlemen in the group were very good at deceptive serves (though not everything was quite as deceptive). The court surface was amazingly slippery; Evil Dave muttered about “clogs on ice”. There was certainly a cartoonish running-on-the-spot feel when struggling to change direction.
I played pretty well, I thought, all things considered. I discerned no rolling of eyes from teammates, nor merciless dissection of critical weaknesses from opponents. Certainly no problems I can’t fix by being (a) a bit fitter than I am now, and (b) about ten years younger.
I’m working on both of those. I feel that (b) in particular would come in especially handy.
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