The promised mutiny in the kitchen has been avoided.
A man (early thirties?) with a rolling box of tricks came to spend a couple of hours sharpening all our kitchen and serving knives which were in a pretty poor state. He arrived later than planned (also in a bit of a state) so lunchtime service had to go on around him.
He apologised for his late arrival saying that he lives on a houseboat and had fallen in the canal that morning.
We liked him a lot. He was seriously into how the whole knife-sharpening thing works, used words I’d never heard and didn’t understand; told us which were our best knives and how to take care of them; told us that some people spend hundreds on a knife and then ruin it in the dishwasher.
He told us that he used to work in a New Age shop and he learnt his new trade when his hairdressing partner couldn’t find anyone cheap enough or quick enough to sharpen the salon scissors. “I’m pretty much unemployable, as you can see,” he said, pointing to his clothing, “so it suits me to work like this”.
He told us that he doesn’t call her his girlfriend (“makes me sound like a teenager”) and when he refers to his “partner” people assume he’s gay. “I should marry her,” he said, “that would make things easier because then I can call her my wife.”
We suggested he didn’t tell her that when he was down on one knee.
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