A new day in Kingston upon Thames and London with so much to do.

I have not driven my car for about two months as I have been out of the country for such a long time, and Mee Len wants to see her two sisters, Mee Chee and Mee Wah. Mee Wah is visiting for a few days from Dubai.

I go down to get the car, and the battery is flat, no power. These days there are so many electronic parts on a car that the batteries run down, even if it is not being used. I spend more on batteries than petrol, having to replace them every year as I only do 2,000 miles a year, they never get enough charge.

Eventually I get the car to start, and we go to Leatherhead, for a quick lunch, and then the girls go of into London to the Victoria and Albert Museum, not for me, so home I go.

The internet is not working as my ISP has been taken over by another company, and I have to move once again. It goes wrong. The more I try to get it going the less it works, but I do not have time to work on it, I have to meet the family in Fulham, near the Chelsea Football Ground, at a restaurant called the Blue Elephant, based on the Thai cuisine.

This restaurant has many branches throughout the world, London, Paris, Brussels, Copenhagen, Lyon, Dubai, New Delhi, Beirut, Malta, Kuwait, and Bahrain, and as the list of locations would indicate, the cost of the food is expensive. Ok the atmosphere is good, lots of flowing streams with fish, criss cross the restaurant floor, were even the eating assistant, let me call her that, as she was allocated to me to show me to the table, as she got lost between the array of split levels and small little sections of tables, in this dimly lit place.

The service is fantastic, there are so many waiters and waitresses, that the plates are taken away and the next course would be put in front of you before you could say "Jack Robinson".

The food was good, certainly better than airline food, but quantity wise, you got less. We did get a complimentary soup, small in quantity, about two table spoons, which started the meal.

The first round came with about five Dim Sum type offerings, spring rolls, a green jelly with coconut cream topping, a banana paste wrapped in a banana leaf, and something else again wrapped in a banana leaf. 

As always, I hardly ever know what is served to me on my plate, I eat it and wait until I have digested it before I ask what it is. 

                                                      

The main course is served, with seven dishes and rice. Laid out in front of us they looked inviting, and the taste and quality was good, perhaps not spicy enough, especially as the sister-in-laws had ordered "three elephants" spicy food. That is the hottest. No elephants next to the menu item means bland, then one elephant being mild spice, up to three elephants. Mee Wah ordered extra chili sauce to spice up the meal.

I did not want to cough, as I knew that would be an extra charge on the bill.

This place is for the once in the year celebration, or the Chelsea footballers, earning a fortune. I could eat at McDonald's every day for a year on the price of the bill.