Porridge

We used to work out of a training centre... You know the sort of place; close to an airport, modern facilities, rooms on site, that sort of thing.

A bit like the Big Brother house, except with trainers.

The training centre we used to use actually had 11 bedrooms and just sometimes we had more delegates than that.  If we had overspill we used to put the excess people into a bed and breakfast just a cross the road... they still had evening meals with us, but B and B was catered for.

It wasn't until one course when Renee and I realised that we were the overspill and had to go 'over the road' that we realised that things might need to change.

Don't get me wrong, it was a beautiful place.  A big old Victorian villa set in half an acre of grounds, but there was something decidedly strange about it as a guest house.

First of all there was the dog.

A little Jack Russell.  Upstairs where the bedrooms were was huge.  At the top of the stairs there was a large landing with 6 bedrooms off it.  The dog had obviously been repeated told that it wasn't allowed to disturb the guests... so of course he had developed its own method for doing exactly that.

Starting at the top of the stairs the woofer would lie flat on its belly and use its front claws to pull itself across the austere landing, commando style, with his back legs trailing behind.

There would come a shout from the landlady and the dog would jump up onto all fours and saunter away as though nothing were happening.

Then there was the religious iconography... nothing wrong with that but there was lots of it.  Mostly pictures of the landlady meeting Pope John Paul II.  But there were figurines of Jesus above every bed and crosses just everywhere.

And then there was the food...

Before Renee and I stayed at the place we had put a couple of guys in the B and B.

One morning one of the guys came in looking somewhat... bloated.

During the morning's programme he looked as though he was struggling to stay awake and refused a croissant at the break.

So I asked him what was up.

Now, the landlady was very nice but a little stern, quite large and very Scottish and this guy was a southern softy.  I don't think he was quite prepared for the 'Come on wee mon... you're nobbut a slip o' a laddie.  Ah can see ah need to doo a bit o' feeding up!'

Apparently this happened as he was being shown to his room the previous evening and it seemed he took it very much to heart.

The next day at breakfast, which was huge, he was shown what he described as a cauldron of porridge.

'There ye are wee mon, get your porridge doon.'

And then she left... but not before the wee man realised he had to make a good impression.

So he waded his way through the whole bucket of stodge, coming up for air every so often.  He struggled manfully with it but eventually he made it to the bottom.

At this point the landlady came back in and noticed the porridge bowl was empty.

'Where's ma porridge?'  She asked looking in amazement at the empty cauldron.   'That was supposed te feed ma other 5 guests as well!'