Let’s give alfresco the cold shoulder

LAST week I went out to lunch at an actual restaurant (in case you’ve forgotten: a place where they serve food and present you with a bill afterwards). It’s an old custom, but it might just catch on again. For the first time in months I found myself having to cope with those profound existential questions that only waiters ask such as “still or sparkling?” and “is everything all right?”

For who can truly say these days whether everything is all right when you have to eat outside on a day so cold that nobody in their right mind would choose to?

We were by the side of the Thames near Tower Bridge. It looked wonderful but the screened-off awning created a ferocious wind tunnel through which icy blasts made the canvas billow and longstemmed wine glasses topple.

There were patio heaters and if you moved your head around enough you sometimes felt a little blessed warmth. They looked like those two-bar electric fires that the thrifty Queen has at Balmoral but they were stuck above our heads and fizzed a bit. Environmentally aware people deplore the use of patio heaters because they add to global warming. But I can’t see these heaters troubling the permafrost.

There were sheepskins on the seats and folded rugs, which looked glamorous and cosy. But even with one across my lap and one over my shoulders I was still chilled to the bone.

Every now and then one of us would throw off our rugs and, like Captain Oates walking out into the Polar wastes, we’d put on a mask and make a dash for the loo. “I may be some time.” Not so much that we needed the loo but because it meant you could go inside for a couple of minutes and avoid hypothermia.

There was a five-month-old baby present – my grand-daughter. I envied her parents who could use her as a conveniently-sized hot water bottle. Now I know why everyone is so keen on hugging their grandchildren.

Weather is like childbirth in one respect. You forget it as soon as it’s over. You can’t imagine being cold when it’s hot or hot when it’s cold. When it was so warm last April none of us could fathom why we hadn’t adopted an alfresco lifestyle before. It doesn’t seem such a good idea this April which has been frostier than DCS Carmichael’s knickers. The shine has rather worn off this outdoor malarkey. We’re an indoor country, we like cosy pubs and intimate restaurants.alfresco is a Spanish word and there’s a reason for that.

Still, lunch was delicious as was seeing my family. And I certainly enjoyed the coffee around which I cupped my freezing hands. “Lovely lunch” we all trilled, racing to the car where we started the engine and put the seat heaters on to max.

HAVE you seen that horrible advert on the TV which purports to give safety information about “smart” motorways?

Two people dressed as flies squashed on a windscreen urge the driver of the car to “go left” and leave at the next junction when a warning light appears on his dashboard.

Highways England says the “light-hearted” advert was designed to deliver life-saving information.

It didn’t seem lighthearted to widow Claire Mercer, whose husband Jason was killed on a smart section of the M1 along with another man, Alexandru Murgeanu, in 2019. She called it “foul”.

Against all common sense and with a mounting death toll, the Government seems intent on pressing on with these dangerous “smart” motorways, getting rid of the sanctuary of the hard shoulder for motorists in difficulties. These tasteless adverts make me sick.

IN an exercise in “natural pest control” thousands of parasitic Chinese wasps

are to be released in South-east England to kill another invasive Chinese wasp that is destroying sweet chestnut trees. What could possibly

go wrong?