A Day In Town OR Shoelace's Folly

Today being Ringo Starr's birthday, two friends and I celebrated it in our own fashion. That is to say, I made a cake and they came over and ate it. The friends in question were Giuseppe, whom you have already met, and Marie-Clare. Marie-Clare is not, in fact, French. She does look quite French, though. So far as I can tell, she has solely Australian and New Zealand roots, although I've a feeling her grandmother was Czech. Such is the mystery of code names. Anyway, having finished the cake, we played an epic game of Monopoly. Although it started well I was barely hanging on by the end, so it was quite a relief when we decided to go into town instead. We did so, after organising to meet two more friends of ours there at the chocolate place there (it's basically a cafe . . . but with every food containing chocolate). We arrived and were given seats outside (which was freezing). After a couple of minutes, Aviator turned up. I am calling him Aviator because he loves Aviators. He is convinced they are coming back. But as Aviator is also a compulsive liar (he once told me that his grandfather was the Grand High Chief Mason of Australia), this is probably not true. He was wearing only a T-shirt with a picture of Yoda wearing Aviators on it and a pair of jeans (he was wearing the jeans, not Yoda), meaning he spent the time during which we were waiting for our hot chocolate to turn up shivering and complaining.

Where Aviator needed a jumper our other friend, Shoelace, needed a watch, because she managed to turn up a spectacular 45 minutes late. Despite this, she drank the hot chocolate we had already ordered her in about two minutes flat, then managed to finish Aviator's drink in about the same length of time. Having nothing to do after this, we decided to go shopping. Aviator excused himself from this - apparently he doesn't 'do' shopping - so we four went alone. We wandered around a CD/entertainment shop for a bit, in which I found the complete 'The Fast Show' on DVD, and the others amazed me (not) by their total, demanding, and all-consuming complete lack of interest in anything I was saying about it. I bought a black trench coat and wandered around feeling like a 1930s detective. Marie-Clare, who was wearing a beige trench coat (we matched), nearly bought herself a watch at about three different outlets. Shoelace, despite our advice, did not buy a watch. Instead she was let loose in the makeup section of the shop. You know how they have all those test samples? Well, she came out looking not so much as an innocent schoolgirl but something you'd expect to see leaning against a lamp post in Piccadilly. Coupled with the fact that she was wearing an elaborate top hat she'd made herself (among other things, Shoelace is also a fabulous artist), she presented a very interesting picture. We had chips for lunch (for our American friends, that means hot chips. Not crisps). Our last visit was to the material shop where Shoelace had bought the material she used to make her top hat from. She wanted to show the girl at the counter the finished product. Unfortunately, this counter girl was so astonished by Shoelace's extraordinary make up techniques I'm not sure she paid that much attention to the actual hat. We somehow ended up back at my house (without Giuseppe, who had left to go to a viola lesson) and finished up the game of Monopoly. When Marie-Clare left, my younger brother, Drummer Boy (so called because he recently acquired a drum kit and has been lost to us ever since), took her place at the Monopoly board. At this point everyone appeared to be losing, so we called it a day. I was about to show Shoelace an episode of 'A Bit of Fry & Laurie' - thus converting her to a lover of British comedy (she already likes Monty Python so there's good ground to work from) - but unfortunately her mother arrived at that point, so her conversion will have to wait for a later date.