Anne Dickens | The Day After Yesterday

The outside was pretty ordinary, but the inside was superb, opening out onto a Bamboo Garden which had an oriental design.

After a first rate meal and impeccable service, Rob turned to me and challenged me to a competition.

"What kind of competition?" I asked warily.

"A napkin-folding competition," he said, "you in?"

"Yeh, of course I am," I replied, "how hard can it be?" were my fatal last words.

Clutching our weapons of choice (linen napkins), a neutral third party (Gary) selected the first 'thing' we were to create using only napkins.

"A swan!" he declared, throwing down the guantlett, "let the competition begin!"

We folded, tweaked, teased and ruffled our napkins until Gary finally shouted, "time's up."

The results of round 1 are shown in the picture above, with Rob's effort on the left hand side and mine on the right. The votes were cast, and shockingly, 8 out of 9 voted Rob's swan the winner (I voted for myself, obviously). "Hang on a minute, what's wrong with my swan?" I asked defensively. The general consensus was that it was a bit flaccid.

"I refuse to be beaten," I shouted, let's have round 2.

"Ding, Ding, let the folding commence," Gary announced, "and this time I want a lotus flower." Phew, this was a tough ask, especially as I didn't know what they looked like. After another ten minutes of bending, rolling, and folding our time was up, and then came the 'big reveal'.

My lotus flower is on the left, and this time I thought I had clinched it...... until I saw Rob's offering.

"Where on earth did you learn to do that?" I asked as I looked at the many intricate petals. He just laughed at me and I conceded defeat, bottom lip out.