It was Tan, my neighbour’s birthday on Sunday. We had arranged to meet him down on the coast for a celebration lunch but a combination of a mutual friend unable to make it due to being stuck in London for a second day after missing two flights (!!!!) and monsoon weather, caused a rapid reappraisal of where we should go. Tan’s view, quite reasonable in my opinion, was that lunch on the coast is great if you can see the sea but with visibility no further than the end of the car bonnet, there was no point. Well said that man.
The region’s social secretary, aka J, went round to Tan’s and a new venue was booked – Café Douceur which roughly translated means the Café for Softies or something like that.
Now I like the Douceur, not because of the name but because it does the best burgers this side of Monaco and I was quite impressed that (a) J had thought of me when booking a new place to eat (sorry Tan) and (b) that she had managed to get a booking for 10 people with one hour’s notice. Clever girl!
The Douceur was quite busy when we arrived despite the rain which by now was causing some light flooding of the roads. Like many eating establishments down here, the business expands due to the fact that they can double their space in summer by having tables outside but then when winter comes and they have half the space, it can sometimes be a bit chaotic but the waitress did her best to settle us in and get drinks.
A selection of salads were ordered for us to share and then the majority of us ordered either the duck or the steaks – unfortunately, the burgers were off that day. The food seemed to go down well and wine carafes seemed to be arriving every couple of minutes and everything was going swimmingly until ……….
Angie, Tan’s wife, decided that Eiden, their new baby needed its soggy nappy changing. Now I don’t know if I’m being a bit ‘old fashioned’ but changing a baby’s nappy at the dining table in a busy restaurant isn’t my idea of proper decorum but I suppose without nappy-changing facilities in the small loos they have out here, there were few alternatives. I reckon the cloakroom could have done but hey, what do I know?
Not being a fan of nappy changing (I think it was just soggy thank God) I looked the other way and there was Charlotte, the wife of Tan’s friend breast feeding her baby at the other end of the table. Where to look?
Thankfully, after a few minutes all this baby stuff stopped and things got back to normal, that is until Eiden wouldn’t settle whereupon, Charlotte whipped out her boob again and suggested that Eiden might like a nibble or a drink or something.
I had another drink at that point and asked Tan if all this 'baby-boob' swapping was a precursor to formal wife swapping, whereupon J clipped me round the ear and dragged me out into the rain!
Happy Birthday Tan.
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