Terry in June

As I write I can see bright sunshine forcing its way past the thick curtains and into the room. The light is beckoning me to get up from my winter induced malaise and the heat from the flaming orb is daring me to venture outside and bare (in a civilised British way) my anaemic and ghostly legs until they are rendered aflame.

It's amazing what a spell of clement weather can do for the restless soul. I'd spent many weeks staring discontentedly at the all pervading grey skies and the rain battered landscape. My usual sense of stoicism in the face of British weather had evaporated as the months rolled past with no regard for the seasons. 

I had ranted at the impotent weather forecasters. Well, most of them. It's hard to get angry at BBC Breakfast's Carol Kirkwood as her effervescent and uplifting personality is quite inspiring first thing in the morning, especially when she's forecasting doom and gloom in a jolly manner whilst sheltering under an umbrella at a flower show. 

I had raged at unseen deities of various religions (I don't discriminate when apportioning blame for snow drifts in May) and had already begun to form half-arsed plans to abandon this chilly sodden rock and decamp to a warmer location. Mexico appeared to be a suitable option as I've always been fond of their hats. 

Thankfully, whichever one of the Gods that controls the weather, most likely to be one of the Norse ones, suddenly heard the rumblings of discontent and has now put 50p in the meter, flicked the right switch, and something reminiscent of summer has now arrived .

This means that I can calm things down, cancel my flights to Guadalajara, bear a respectable amount of flesh, and venture outside, probably to a pub garden somewhere. 

If there's a better way to spend a balmy summer's day, I've yet to find it.

Cheers!

Toilet Humour

I do like a themed toilet. Toilets are all too often sterile and functional, although on the whole this is fine. The average visitor doesn’t usually hang around public toilets for prolonged periods of time unless feeling particularly unwell or looking for a bit of pervert-on-pervert action, if the graffiti on toilet walls is anything to go by.

I was once sat on the loo in a public toilet and was idly reading the graffiti to pass the time and realised that one scrawled missive was offering nefarious engagements at a specific date and time in my very location. It was so recent that I had to check my watch to make sure I wasn’t in the wrong place at the wrong time. Thankfully I was a couple of days late but by this point I didn’t feel comfortable anymore so I left. But I digress.

I visited Chiquito today, a Mexican themed restaurant. Noting all the colourful trappings that came with a clichéd attempt at bringing a little piece of Mexico onto a business park in Peterborough, such as mis-matched colourful seating and non-specific lager bottles being used to create a lampshade, I decided that it would be a travesty if the toilets didn’t follow the same thematic path. I wasn’t disappointed.

Firstly I had to decide between two doors, one bearing the legend ‘Hombres’ and the other ‘Senoritas’. I liked the look of ‘Hombres’ as it bore the image of a comical skeleton wearing a Sombrero on its head. This was fortunate as it also turned out to be the ‘Gents’.

Inside there were what looked like old movie posters for Mexican films (in actual fact an elaborate wall covering, non-stain and non-graffiti I assume – no bandidos will be able to arrange secret trysts here). The doors to the cubicles had a distressed look as if they had been removed from a 19^th Century lavatory door in Guadalajara and flown all the way here.

But it’s the little details that count and despite all the novelty trimmings one lone cubicle had the door firmly shut and the obligatory piece of A4 paper stuck to the door to let the customer know it was ‘Out of Order’ in Times New Roman.

Presumably someone had suffered a misfortune at the hands of the Jalapeno Chilli Dog but this was not the point. There was a dull sign in a colourful committee designed chain restaurant which was spoiling my enjoyment. I considered that with a little imagination this boring and functional notice could have been written in Spanish with the English translation below, as if as an afterthought.

Surely even important Health and Safety messages can be dragged into this cavalcade of Mexican revelry? Alas the answer seemed to be no and I left feeling empty in more ways than one.

If you’re interested I recommend the Chilli Con Carne and the Chocolate Brownie Stack. Neither made me unwell.