Horses and hummus

It's not every night that I find myself in a darkened room with a horse's head in my crotch. And I'll punch anyone who says otherwise.

This evening, after the thrills!!!! and excitement!!!! of online banking, I went to see some friends at a Mediterrean restaurant in Lan Kwai Fong. I arrived first, and was ushered through to a table at the back. My fiancee had hardly arrived when the music was suddenly cracked to ear-splitting volumes, and then to my utter surprise a belly dancer and a pantomime horse began to parade up and down between the tables.

It looked here, it looked there, it wandered blithely over to me and nuzzled its head in my lap. The horse, that is, not the belly dancer. I don't think my fiancee would have been encouraging me to get my camera out if some bint dressed in a few hankies and some bells was molesting me.

The horse left, the music stopped, and then started again, then stopped, then started again. I chowed down on some felafel and then an uninspiring dessert, then left the restaurant, immediately coming down with a streaming nose and a thumping headache.

The injustice of apparently being just as allergic to ersatz equines as well as the real deal is a terrible thing to have to deal with. And the felafel weren't really filling enough to compensate for feeling like my head has been overstuffed with sawdust and mucus. Oh well.

I did meet an interesting chap while we were at dinner, an ex-colonel who'd once taken my fiancee up a mountain in the Himalayas. He was explaining how you go about adjusting to altitude when ascending high things. Drink lots of water and garlic soup, and eat popcorn, apparently.

Nobody was impressed with my suggestion of five pints of Guinness (all the iron should be good for your red blood cell count). Or perhaps they thought I was worried about alcohol adjustment, not altitude -

I'd better leave it there, I guess...

Oh, two other things I've learned this week. Clearly going to the gym makes me sad (see yesterday's post) and if you tell your fiancee about your discovery of the retire in five years plan, she'll get narked and think you're proposing a hair shirt wardrobe for the rest of your life. Hmm...