The Royal Elephant, part deux

Those of us who could make it, had a ball at our wonderful Thai restaurant, the Royal Elephant, to celebrate my birthday. (Oops - just noticed I didn't tell you about that. In brief - 12 of us, a mixture of village and not-village friends, enjoying a wonderful meal. Jeremy preordered from their splendid set menu, and feeling that the Tom Yum might be too hot for some, asked for six spicy soups and six mild. NO! Big mistake! We all ended up fighting over the spicy soups, and the strangest of deals were being struck so everyone could have a taste. Nevertheless it went very well.) So we decided that we'd like to do it all again, with a different guest list, for Jeremy's birthday.

Irritatingly, two couples could make neither date, so last night the six of us headed Elephant-ward for a very jolly evening. Greg ordered champagne to celebrate a successful departure from his current company, and we all got happier and happier.

As had happened last time, at the end of the evening they had to push us out of the door, and nano-seconds after we hit the pavement the restaurant lights went out. Well, they'll recognize us next week when we do it all again, won't they?

And then we spent the ride home shrieking Bohemian Rhapsody at the tops of our voices. The taxi driver thought it was just wonderful.

Charlotte, the head groom at Julia's stables, babysat for us. Slightly nervously, we left all three up and about, which we had never done before. Everything was, of course, fine, and the kids are all clamouring to know when Charlotte can visit again.