Dining by candlelight.

Angus takes 'The Font' out for dinner. On getting to the restaurant we find that an overzealous drainage engineer has severed the power cable. We are given the choice of returning home or having the '' special ".

The 'special' is

Potage de verdure with toast and cheese
Chicken thigh on cabbage
Black Forest Gateau.

Angus thinks we should leave. 'The Font' opts to stay with the logic : " It must be very discouraging for the owners to have this happen ". There is a certain romance to dining by candlelight in a blacked out restaurant. The same cannot be said of the food which has only the most distant relationship with heat from the stove. At least five of the other tables are taken with farmers and their wives. You know they're farmers because they're still in those grey boiler suits with black knee patches that tractor drivers wear. Romance and the spring ploughing timetable in perfect balance.

The PONs are great believers that we should eat at home, with them, every meal time.

The juicy French pineapples from Martinique are finished. They'd got up to 7 Euros a piece. They've been replaced by pineapples from Cameroon or Togo. The ones from Togo are green and a different shape . 

The sign says that they're supposed to be eaten when green. Tomorrow mornings breakfast will be accompanied by a green Togolese pineapple. A small adventure.

In the cafe the four grumpy old men are holding court and putting the world to rights. One of them edges his chair perilously close to the edge of the step. While the PONs watch I stand up and point out the danger. The four old men then talk to Bob and Sophie. There are no croissants involved in this interaction so the PONs remain resolutely disinterested in their new companions.

A record of some of those little things , too unimportant for a diary, which make up the background story to life.