Normal Service
No, not a reference to regular blogging (though I really do keep trying - but I've just been back to the UK for all of 48 hours, FFS!), but to dinner last Saturday night in our hotel in Monterey. Yes, we took a car and drove down the Pacific coast on Highway 1 - stunning as ever. And we were going to go out and eat swanky, but once we'd made it to the hotel we couldn't be bothered to go back out. So we went downstairs and had an actually very pleasant meal.
But before our order had been taken, suddenly all the lights were turned up to full. Slightly dazzled, we waited to see if they'd be turned down, but they weren't. then a waitress came by to explain that a customer had been taken ill and they'd needed to turn the lights up to be able to see to help her. Actually, we thought that them taking the trouble to tell us that was pretty good, so we didn't mind.
Then we saw the drama unfolding. I was facing the right way to notice that an elderly lady was leaning forward with her head on the table, looking like she was being sick. Suddenly, the calamari sounded a lot less appealling.
*Then* I noticed that the man from the next table along from ours was over there with them, and appeared to be dabbing the back of her head with a napkin.
Eventually, her dining companion left the table saying that he would bring the car round, while our dining neighbour was creating a very fetching tourniquet around her head with more napkins. At this point we could only assume she'd somehow fallen and cracked her head, but how badly could she have fallen backwards to have done that much damage. they wheeled her out in a wheelchair which I didn't see them bring over, so presumably it was her own, which makes the circumstances of any injury even harder to fathom. It was all very peculiar.
Anyway, our waiter then returned to resume service, and the couple at the table next to us were given their dinner on the house. Which was pretty jammy considering tehy'd been drinking champagne...