Fun, Frolics & Food

Halloween comes upon us, as does Deepavali and Hari Raya, and a short holiday, packed with fun, is called for. I should prefer the genteel pleasures of past ages, as above, to those of today; below you can see Alice and I at a more modern Halloween do, where she is demonstrating the reasons why she is head honcho.Next Saturday we will drive up to Kuala Lumpur and spend a week at my favourite hotel, the Shangri-La, where I have little doubt that the kilos so laboriously lost will come piling back. Unfortunately it does have some great restaurants. And KL itself still has some of our great friends so we look forward to a week of seeing pals and dining far too well both in the Shangri-La and in the many other eating places we have fond recollection of. These range from outside Chinese to Lafitte (well, OK that is in the Shangri-La, but let's be honest it is the best restaurant in the Pacific Rim) and each gives its own special pleasure. The Green View for crabs, the Lobsterman for lobster (obviously!), the Fresh Unique for all live fish, here Alice and Alistair were selecting part of our meal back in 2002.

I suspect that it will take some extreme efforts to get rid of the excess weight almost certain to be added and get back to the model-girl thinness that surely must be in me somewhere, but who cares? Eat, drink and be merry, tomorrow we diet - or at least sometime after the holiday I will be dieting.