Like I say most of the guests were in a jolly mood, even the English ones who took their ribbing from the waiting staff in good humour.

Obviously to have a restaurant completely stuffed to the gills with jolly, happy, convivial guests is an impossibility. It's a dream we all have, but just as you cant lead a horse to water nor make Wayne Bridge shake hands with that most hideous of human beings John Terry, you cant please all the people with moderately priced well prepared fish all the time.

Step forward Pouty McSpatulamaface.

Pouty McSpatulaface had a face that looked weirdly reminiscent of a spatula. Seriously, a spatula. A big plastic spatula. Other than having a face like a kitchen utensil he seemed like just another regular punter/human man. It's not like he had whisks for legs and knives for fingers in a Tim Burton stylie. No he was just regular. That was until we started bringing him food. Now he hadn't said much at all from arrival, there was no chit or chat, no eagerness to join in the post rugby revelry of the rest of the diners. There wasn't much of anything from him to be honest.

I went to clear his butternut squash soup. He had eaten little more than half of it. "Was your soup OK sir?", I asked wearing  the concerned disposition of a friend of the family enquiring if your mother's operation had gone well.

"It's....it's...it's okay....you can take it away", replied Pouty McSpatulaface. And when he finished speaking his bottom lip pushed out a little. I raised an eyebrow and shuffled off.

A whiles later and with the restaurant filled with so much laughter and merriment you would have swore they were all stoned I returned to see how Pouty was getting on. I expected him to still be eating but there he sat with his arms folded staring at the family of four celebrating Junior's 18th birthday.

"Sir, are you finished? Was everything okay with your salmon?". The salmon had barely been touched, his pretty stack of fries were as unruffled as The Cousin and I when Aston Villa took the lead in yesterday's League cup final. His salad bowl was empty but I figured that wasn't anything to seek glory in.

"Yes...yes...please take it away....take it all away." And as I cleared his food away I noticed his bottom lip push a little further out. Obviously by the time I took his uncracked creme brulee away his lip was so far out a family of house martins had built a nest under it and had started raising a family. I had to find out what his problem was. Because the problem was his not ours, it certainly wasn't mine.

"Sir, I have to ask, was everything okay for you tonight. You have eaten so very little and you seem so..."

"Gloomy?", responded Pouty McSpatulaface.

"Well, yes...gloomy. Is it something I did? Could I have done anything for you?". This is a conversation I am well versed in, many girlfriends have left me over the years. I ask, not to make them stay but rather, to see how I could improve my chances for other relationships. What Little Miss Manuel and I have now is as a result of many post breakup checklists.

"No...no...it wasn't you...", started the pouty man, "....it's me." Christ for a moment I actually thought I was talking to an ex-girlfriend.

"I have an ulcer, I thought it had cleared up but clearly that's not the case. My girlfriend who was supposed to be with me tonight got a btter offer from her friends and I have to work in the morning"

"Oh...eh...okay....can I get you..."

"The bill? Yeah, I'll take the bill"

And off he went...eek, poor sod. I like to think I can solve as many problems as I create, heh, but what can you do for someone with an ulcer who is on his own and unable to eat and has a face like a spatula?

Still it was a great weekend, for me...and that's what really counts.