The Dodgy Chicken Sandwich

Vajraloka, May 2022

Two friends and a dog visited at the weekend, for the main purpose of attending a Blues gig (Nine Below Zero) at my favourite venue in Leamington (yes, Temperance again). There had been heatwave, thunderstorm, heatwave, thunderstorm in the days leading up to their visit so the weather wasn't anything to rely on, but it was beautifully warm if you weren't moving (a bit hot and sticky if you were). They arrived mid-afternoon, we had a lovely chat, a walk and an ice cream, more chat, out to Kayal for dinner (the second time in a week for me after going there with the Buddhists on Tuesday as well), then on to the gig.

It had been advertised as 7 to 11pm and I had estimated that they'd actually start playing at about 8, but no, when we arrived it was nearly the end of the first half. I forget that most of the audience at Temperance is as old as us and wants to be home for Midlands Today. It was good music though, well worth the trip.

Arriving back home, one of my friends started to feel odd, then worse, then sat outside with a bowl, then sat inside with 'trouble at both ends'. Poor man, bad enough to be that ill, but in someone else's house too. We pondered what it could be, since we'd all three had exactly the same food and drink except he'd had a coffee and a cake at Temperance. Next day he was feeling a lot better, and we discovered that he'd had a petrol station chicken sandwich on the way to my place that was a little crusty around the edges.

The Buddhists had scheduled a walk for Sunday afternoon, but fate had scheduled a classic car show in the Pump Room Gardens, plus my recovering visitor wasn't really feeling up to walking too much in the heat. So car show it was, then another ice cream (easy on the stomach...) before my healthy visitor left. The invalid dozed to catch up after the difficult night that he'd had and to spare the dog from the heat of the afternoon in the back of the car, before setting off to an extended journey home with delays for two accidents on the M1. Poor chap.