Lots of tiny tentacles

Yesterday was quite a tricky day one way and another. Tomatoes were on offer again for lunch. Frankly, I’m sick of tomatoes so I suggested a small omelette as an alternative. It won’t work she said, the frying pan sticks and we need to buy another. There’s a lot of things that don’t work round here that might one day be replaced by another: coffee machine, vacuum, telephone, etc. I cooked the omelette. Shall we have it with a tomato salad she asked? I found a lettuce. Then there were the usual problems with the mayonnaise: after the third attempt, I had to take my host outside to calm down. It’s the mixer she said, we need a new one. It’s the eggs she said, something wrong with them. Just go to the shop and buy some mayonnaise I said. He’ll say I’m a bad wife because I can’t make mayonnaise she replied. Well, tell him I made it then I said. He’ll say it’s very good. To be fair, I was also worried about the mayonnaise; not because of the consistency but because I’d seen what it was supposed to accompany - a starter of raw fish followed by squid. And when I say squid, I don’t mean those batter-covered rings; I mean a huge pan full of limp white

things with a lot of tiny tentacles.

In the evening, I was asked whether I could help with some cushion covers. Seemed a simple request. Apparently, monsieur had bought some expensive material to recover some large cushions which sat on a couple of wrought iron chairs outside. The new covers had arrived from the cushion cover maker and we were to put them on in time for his arrival. Voila. What she called cushions were really the actual bases of the seats; enormous things with which we fought a valiant battle and lost. At this point, he returned from work half an hour early and in a very excited frame of mind. We were deemed useless as he immediately took over the task. I much prefer it when he leaves early and comes home late she whispered. I went to get us all a drink and returned just in time to hear the sound of the first cushion cover ripping. I left to get him the olives. He managed to overcome a smaller cushion before deciding to go off and clean the swimming pool. This was a complete deviation from the normal routine whereby we eat at 9pm exactly.

She despondently took the ripped cover away and I went to retrieve two more glasses of wine. The two of us spent an enjoyable half an hour chatting before he reappeared in an even more agitated state. I went to get more drinks. A noisy one-sided argument ensued and I went to get more drinks. It was better than the previous row at the table during which I was forced to eat copious amounts of cheese; at least now I would be sufficiently drunk to deal with the fish that was looming. Then, in the midst of a tirade, apparently about his son, he stopped to remark how pretty the new cushion was. So pretty, in fact, that we must eat dinner under the covered patio so we could look at it. The covered patio hasn’t been used this year so I scrubbed the table whilst he arranged the chairs. Then I got more drinks.

The fish was quite nice but I would have preferred it without tomatoes.