A lovely, long, lazy, lunch with Gino (Friday June 14th)

The alarm rouses me at six, no time for Tai Chi first thing this morning, so after breakfast and a shower , I am on my way to Sarah's house. The cool, showery weather continues, but the sun shines brightly as I pull up outside her house, at a few minutes before half past. I have remembered to bring my keys today and so let myself in and am amazed to find Sarah still there. She tells me that Louis woke with a temperature and now cannot walk.  He looks well enough, sat at the kitchen table, eating breakfast cereal, and when Sarah disappears into the lounge, I ask him to stand up and then try walking a few steps, which he does, but then collapses and has to crawl, the minute his mother reappears. Sarah examines his lower legs and feet minutely and can find nothing wrong, but research on the Internet suggests that some viral infections can result in precisely this kind of paralysis in boys of his age. I am unconvinced, it is too convenient an illness and in precisely the area in which his mother specialises. It is also a paralysis that leaves him blithely unconcerned, happily playing away on his epad. I take Sarah to one side and suggest that this could be psychosomatic, but as a mother she can't take any chances, so she cancels all her appointments for the day and takes Louis to A and E at Hull Royal Infirmary. Later after spending the best part of a day queuing to be seen, my suspicions are confirmed and by early afternoon he has miraculously recovered. Before I leave Sarah's, I give Alice a good luck hug, before her maths GCSE and then walk Normy round Seven Corners Lane. It is brightening as we walk and once the sun comes out, the temperature rockets by a full ten degrees, we are nearing the solstice and the solar radiation is intense. After his walk, I drive Norman back to Tickton, ring the Leisure Centre to see if the pool is open, and when they confirm it is, set off to drive back to Beverley, in order to fit in my swim before Gino arrives at midday. Any hopes I had of the pool being quiet, because people might think it still closed, are soon dispelled when I arrive, a few minutes after ten. The pool is busy, every lane with at least four swimmers in it. Undeterred, I join a double lane in the centre of the pool, where the swimmers are following a clockwise rotation and somehow manage to fit in a 400m mixed medley warm up. This comprises two lengths of two strokes fly and two strokes breaststroke and a further two lengths of three strokes front crawl and four strokes back crawl, repeated four times. Swimming fly and backstroke with other swimmers about is difficult, but this way, changing every few strokes, I am able to see them and swim around as I overtake. A one to one swimming class in the end lane finishes and I move into the vacant space and am able to swim 6 x 200m individual medleys and then warm down with another 400m mixed medley. I complete the session by eleven and have time for a pot of tea before driving back to Tickton to meet my brother in law, Gino, having first apologised to Danny for not ordering one of his scones. I arrive home just before noon and receive a text from Gino to say he will be another half hour, the sun is shining brightly, so I open my bag of compost and pot the geraniums from Laura's school. I am just finishing when Gino arrives, so I switch on the coffee filter and make a large pot of strong, black, Italian coffee. We sit in the sun drinking it, whilst Gino asks my advice about some work related problems he is having. Around half past one, we decide to drive into town and have lunch at Rolando's, a bakery, cum cafe, cum Italian restaurant, that we both like. We park at Tesco's, (three hours free), and then walk into town, stopping in Swaby's Yard, to try the new "Micro Pub", that has just opened. It sells real ale and inside it is really nice, seating about twenty at a maximum, but there are tables outside as well. Gino orders a half pint of Wold Top bitter and I have a half of Holderness stout. Both beers are excellent. From a business point of view, it makes sense, low overheads and relatively high margin, speciality real ale. We walk through Saturday Market to Saint Mary's and then down North Bar Within to Rolando's, which is just before the Bar, a fifteenth century brick gateway to the town. Black clouds are gathering and another heavy shower seems imminent, so we opt to take a table inside, rather than one of those on the pavement. By now it is a quarter past two and the lunchtime trade has mostly passed, so we have a choice of tables, Rolando himself is in attendance, so I give him a book that I have been promising him, that Gino has just brought back. It is called "Heat" and records the experiences of the author, Bill Buford, when he takes up the challenge from a guest at a dinner party he is giving, in New York, where he is working. This guest is called Mario, "The Iron Chef", famous for his programmes on TV in the USA. The challenge is to try and survive in a professional restaurant kitchen for six months. The kitchen in question is the one in which Mario's restaurant food is cooked. The book records Buford's experience and not only does he survive six months, but actually continues for a whole year and then goes to Tuscany to research the origins of Italian cuisine. Here he works for a specialist butcher, discovers the "Slow Movement" and explores the origins of French Haute Cuisine, that apparently date back to the marriage of Catherine de Medici to one of the Louis, I think Louis the fourteenth. Apparently she took her chef with her. Anyway it is a great book, beautifully written and researched and brimming with lovely titbits and insider secrets about Italian food and cuisine. I first read it three years ago and bought another copy for Leslie, who also loved it, he bought another four copies and gave them as Xmas presents to foodie relatives and friends. Gino and I settle to a really long, late lunch, order an ante pasta platter for two, a pile of bread, a bottle of house red and a bottle of water to go with it and then chat and eat slowly until five o'clock. Outside the sun is shining brightly again, so we order lemon sorbets and take them outside, having to dry the chairs with napkins, as they still have pools of water from the last shower. Another old friend, Nico, Rolando's Albanian/Italian chef, comes and sits at the next table with his girlfriend, he asks about Louis, who he has known since a baby and asks if he is bigger than me yet. I tell him he was six last Saturday, but won't grow past me until he is at least eight! After the sorbet, we finish off the meal with coffee and while we are drinking it, a dog walking friend of mine comes and joins us. Her name is Danaila, and she hails originally from Bulgaria, so I always call her Sophia. She is joined by another friend, who owns the fine art gallery and we all chat and laugh in the warm sunshine for five minutes before it is time for us to leave, our three hours free parking at Tesco is about to expire and there is a £70 fine if you exceed it. I know, I was caught out a couple of years ago! We get back to Tickton for six, feed Normie and then walk him down to the little bridge. On the way back, I show Gino the "praise and pat" game. He leaves at seven, after allowing plenty of time for his half bottle of wine to wear off. We have had a lovely afternoon, and he says it is like a little holiday, getting away from the densely populated, sprawling conurbation of  West Yorkshire, that is home to five million people. Later, I write some more blog/journals, with luck, I will have caught up by tomorrow, and then manage another chapter of Patrick Gale before bedtime.