The mushroom soup was boffo, and my bubble-mates discovered Pernod. It got a little drunk out last night.

People who like liquorice are well out-numbered by those who don’t and go on at great lengths on the subject of how awful the stuff is. But the liquorice-favouring minority soldiers on, swigging pastis and anisette a bit defensively while aware, with some relief, that there’s no one else around who’s likely to mess with their tipple.

That is, until by chance another member of that freemasonry crosses the doorstep.

Edmund would not touch any foodstuff with even a whisper of liquorice flavour, so it came as a big surprise to me that his brother loves it as much as I do. So does Judy, their lodger, who is English and therefore biased. But neither Judy nor the BIL had met Pernod before, which surprised me as we are all well-travelled old farts.

This would not be a problem if Pernod were reliably available in Stratford but, to obtain the current bottle, I had to go all the way to Tavistock. Now, Tavistock is basically a crossroads with a post office and a branch of the Royal Canadian Legion, so the presence of nine bottles of Pernod in stock at the LCBO (across the street from the Legion, of course), leads me to suspect a local cabal of sophisticates. In Tavistock. Who knew?

Today, I have to go to Kitchener to get the car serviced. On the way back, I just might take a detour through Tavistock and buy another bottle of Pernod. Household strategic reserve, as it were.