11/08/2008
Downloaded
One week away and it feels like one year. As I scanned the house for the Cosmopolitan Book Lice it looked as if they had gone off on a reading holiday. Not a single one in sight. Instead, they had been replaced by an overwhelming pong - a mixture of old warthog and molten lava. I headed straight for the fridge; yes, there were the culprits - eight massive truffles, rolling around on the shelves like bloated toads.
Clearly the Truffler had taken advantage of my absence to import the stash from Piedmont. How could he suddenly have unearthed two kilogrammes of truffles?
But no, they came, he insisted, from a farm near Abingdon. "I can't tell you exactly where, I'm afraid, because I am sworn to secrecy," he smirked triumphantly.
He cut me a few slivers from one of the veiny old conkers. "I won't give you too much in case it makes you randy," he said, piling on the shavings. Truffles are supposed to be a potent aphrodisiac - or at least they were 2,000 years ago when Marcus Aurelius downed them by the helmet-load. But two hours later I lay in bed feeling, not randy exactly, more like I'd downed a canonball and a vat of Benylin.
"How are you feeling?" Tom asked eagerly as he jumped into bed. "Zonked" I replied. The feeling was one of fullness and light-headedness - not an entirely unpleasant feeling, but a long way from sexy. "Never mind, these are just early truffles - they will will get better as the season progresses," he sighed, stoically getting out his book.
