Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
ItsWill had already bounded off.
“Won't take me a moment,” he cried, throwing his head back, “I'll get them for you.”
In his enthusiasm he'd overlooked the small point that the car was locked so I left a
seething Jack and went over to help unload the dogs. ItsWill positively glowed with pleas-
ure as they bundled out.
“Might it be in order for me to take
Beef
?” he asked with a little gentlemanly bow.
“Well, yes, of course but please hold onto his lead tightly. If we come across someone
wearing black trousers he might bite their leg. I'm afraid he has a slight aversion to them.”
“Oh, but I don't blame the poor little chap one bit. I find them
terribly
drab!”
He guffawed happily and with that pranced off in the general direction of our table
with Biff dangling off the end of the lead. As we rejoined Jack, ItsWill was still shimmying
around in circles.
“You know,” he said, “my
present
partner has a little dog like this one. But I do think
Biff is a
much
sportier fellow.”
Then, bizarrely enough, he took a turn around the perimeter of the patio, with the poor
mutt in tow, and danced amongst the amused diners introducing his canine chum to each
one. The finale of his extraordinary cabaret performance was the execution a sort of pirou-
ette in front of our table before flouncing onto a seat next to the horrified Jack.
Still beaming, ItsWill loosened Biff's lead. The poor dog immediately shot under the
table, evidently disgusted with the treatment that had been inflicted upon him and wishing
that he'd been left in the car.
We limped through lunch in a predictable manner. It might have been a pleasant altern-
ative to our usual autoroute café sandwich, but it was dampened by the ambience-crushing
monosyllabic behaviour exhibited by Jack. He 'heroically' munched his way through
Tarte
au Chèvre
probably chosen because of its indirect link to a living creature, whilst grunting
occasionally at a passing comment.
ItsWill, on the other hand, was in his element. He divided his time between affection-
ately thumping Biff on the head and explaining why the morning's calamity was nothing
to do with his bad briefing. He then tucked into his meal with gusto which consisted of a
mammoth plateful of broccoli florets, served with a lavish helping of Dijon mustard and
cheese sauce drizzled on top. The whole thing looked like a cheesy winter woodland scene.
Jack studied this vegetable masterpiece for a moment, looked steadily at ItsWill and
then remarked that it probably contained more hunting opportunities than any of the estates
we'd seen so far. Fortunately ItsWill saw the amusing side of this.
Thoroughly fed up with the way our morning had turned out, I had made a quick
choice and ended up with
Chicory au Gratin
on a bed of fragrant rice. It turned out to be
excellent and was further enhanced by the
Château de Selle Côtes de Provence Rosé
that
ItsWill swore by.
