PHILEAS'S TRAVELLING TOTE REMAINS MISSING, BUT THE BELOW, AN EXCERPT FROM HIS STATEMENT TO THE DEPARTMENT OF AUDITING & FINANCIAL COMPLIANCE, HAS BEEN RECOVERED.
…progress along City Road towards Upton was excellent. However, as daylight turned to twilight, one realised the summer sun, a golden tyrant overhead, had rendered the pavement a faded echo of the Sahara's burning sands and oneself a faded echo of a desiccated prune – oh, how one could have wept for want of rain!
I was taken back to an arduous assignment in the Erg Chebbi dunes, where golden mountains of sand changed colour from burnished gold to smouldering rose with the diurnal motion of the tyrannical sun, a magnificently beautiful beast from which I was forced to spend three days sheltering beneath the label of a discarded bottle of Orangina.
Fortunately, one had the company of Idris, a most agreeable dung beetle (Scarabaeus satyrus). Remarkable fellow. An absolute scholar of the desert who could navigate by the light of the Milky Way… but I digress.
By good fortune, I looked up and to my unbound joy found myself outside The Deva Tap.
Naturally, entering licensed premises whilst on duty is not a decision one takes lightly. However, dehydration represents a recognised occupational hazard amongst field operatives of the terrestrial gastropod persuasion. To have continued would have been irresponsible, indeed potentially reckless.
I therefore entered solely in the interests of operational safety and now, having secured a shaded position and appropriate refreshment, find myself writing a continuation of my explanation regarding the expenses queried which I believe were:
Steak & Ale Pie with Frickles (side) – £21.50
Four Pints of Slow Life Stout – £24.80
One Night, Executive Room including Breakfast – £151.00
Steak and ale pie – golly, that takes one back…
My dear mother used to make the most magnificent steak and ale pie. I remember all eighty-eight of us children gathering beneath the old weeping beech (Fagus sylvatica ‘Pendula’) in Grosvenor Park while Mother produced what she affectionately called her 'Shell-Warmer' Pie.
Ah, here's my food…I shall continue shortly.