I thought about starting with a hilarious joke about a whelk but that would just be shellfish. Better to clam-up about it for now.
It was a special day this week when Mrs F and I headed west to use an about-to-expire voucher for a slap-up seafood meal at Highland hotel. It was an anniversary gift from relatives. Unfortunately, the anniversary in question was pre-pandemic and we’ve been unable to use it for more than two years.
No matter, we love fresh seafood, notwithstanding old saws about me permanently being on a seafood diet – see food and eat it – and so I was more than excited about the prospect of a well-proportioned platter of prime piscatorial perfection.
For once I wasn’t in the least crabby as we made the short drive from Fyne Place in our wee campervan to our delayed dining delight. I was happily humming that hit from the 1940s musical South Pacific: “Salmon Chanted Evening”. One for the older readers there.
We decided to turn the trip into a few days away, too, so all was set fair for foodie fun. The world was my lobster. There was a tricky moment when I checked the password for our campsite broadband. Type in “Sociable wifie”, it said. My mind boggled as to who this affable and perhaps amorous woman was, but try as I might, I couldn’t get logged in. Eventually donning my glasses, I discovered that it wasn’t a “wifie” but the “wifi” that was sociable. Overactive imaginations are not recommended.
Sharing a small campervan requires many of the personal, physical and proximity skills of an astronaut. You must get on well with your companion or copious trouble will follow as surely as confrontation at a climate conference.
It’s major advantage to be fragrant rather than flatulent. Getting up in the morning requires a devilish jive-like dance that would grace the Strictly ballroom. One false move when pulling off pyjamas, pulling on jumpers, pulling up trousers or energetically pulling on socks could result in an unplanned punch-up.
It’s no fun being twanged by an errant bra strap or painfully elbowed by a flailing arm before one’s heart-starter coffee of a morning.
In wet weather, being swiped by spray from a soaking cagoule or stepping backwards into someone else’s sodden footwear tests one’s sense of humour to the limit. Even worse, getting dolled-up for a night out is truly epic when the only available mirror is the size of a credit card and spray control is essential lest I end up drenched in French perfume and she ends up with a lacquer of macho deodorant.
I wonder how William Shatner, aka Captain Kirk, now officially the world’s oldest astronaut, aged 90, would cope?
No matter, it’s elementary, and soon we were comfortably seated close to a log fire expectantly perusing the hotel menu. That’s when reality hit. It’s not the best season for fresh seafood, and poor weather had limited the catching potential of the local boats.
Apart from some mussels and scallops, we were out of luck. No lovely langoustines, no well-dressed crab, not even the piece of cod that passeth all understanding. It was battered haddock for me.
Next day, still suffering from prawn paucity, we searched for fresh ones in the local shops. All we found was some pathetic plastic-wrapped apologies in a supermarket that rhymes loosely with fiasco. They’re from Vietnam.
What an irony sitting on a west-coast seashore, staring at the cold, clear waters and realising that the prawns caught there were all likely consigned to an ignominious fate of breaded scampi. It’s like Pavarotti singing in a pub karaoke.
As we tackle climate change, surely we should stop importing far-eastern prawns wrapped in plastic and return to the reality, and seasonality, of our home-grown best.
I now need to find something to tell the kindly relatives who gifted us the voucher about why it wasn’t the meal they, or we, had planned. Perhaps I’ll ask Aberdeen FC manager Stephen Glass. He seems well versed in excuses for disappointments. Maybe he’s missed the boat, too, or perhaps his bosses are just a bunch of cheap skates.
That’s perhaps a discussion for another plaice.