Round 18.

18.

Delphine works in the local Boulangerie.

Her name is on a list of employees that wish their customers a Happy New Year, which has been sellotaped to the counter.

The paper is black, the names are written in white.

Delphine looks Chinese, but she isn’t; it’s the consequence of the thin black line she has added to her mascara.

Delphine is serving a customer, who is maybe having a happy new year. She has just finished wrapping three croissants and a chocolatine into a paper bag: the Boulangerie is in the south of France so they know what a chocolatine is, in the North of France it would be un pain au chocolat.

There are many mysteries everyday, surrounding the non-Chinese, Chinese looking Delphine.

She finishes the wrapping with an enthusiastic spin of the paper bag.

This leaves her finger trapped in the twist of paper and for a moment she is unable to reach for the five-euro note that the customer offers her.

She blushes.

The customer leaves and walks next door to the pharmacy where he buys toothpaste and something for his cat.

The cat’s name is Pablo.

The owner of the pharmacy is a little surprised by the combination of toothpaste and something for the cat but she is professional and goes about her work.

She is Alice’s mum.

Alice is not at home, she is in Australia.

She is sleeping at the moment even though Australia is several hours in advance of France; the New Year always arrives in Sydney before Paris.

Alice is much closer to Sydney at the moment.

In fact she is sleeping next to him, though he spells his name with an ‘I’, unlike the city from which he comes.

Sidney was born in Sydney but his parents were born in Birmingham; they emigrated to Australia when the car factories closed.

At the time there were incentives for people to settle ‘downunder’ from ‘up over’.

Today immigrants are discouraged, unless they want to buy an empty disused mining town in the outback.

Sidney’s parents run a grocery store, they specialise in Brummie Biscuits.

Brummie biscuits are not a traditional Black Country recipe but the result of Sidney’s dad’s imagination when business was particularly slow one Saturday.

By a strange twist of fortune he now has a customer in Solihull in the U.K. who imports Brummie Biscuits back into the Birmingham Area and sells them as a local delicacy.

His name is Reggie.

Reggie is an immigrant even though these are discouraged as much as possible by the present British Government who are an exceptionally strong bunch of idiots after a long run of other idiots who held that position.

On the wall of Reggie’s shop is a hand written notice; it says ‘customers get the service they deserve.’ 

It is his humoristic take to an old saying that goes ‘the people get the government they deserve’.

The sign is written in Mandarin.

Reggie comes from China.

Delphine who works in a French Boulangerie looks Chinese.

But she isn’t.

    (ALL ABOUT ROUNDS)