Food – onetruekev

Soporific September Scribblings

Besides the fact that nobody knows how to drive, the main thing I notice when tootling up and down the A23 between Crawley and Hove is just how many vans, trucks, and lorries there are with the high vis striping on the back of them, and the infamous words ‘Highway Maintenance’. They are everywhere, always moving, going somewhere. But the question is where? Whenever you pass large sections of roads on ‘major’ roadworks, they are never to be seen there doing something, all that can be seen are tons of cones. And every minor road you travel down, from windy country lanes to speed bump afflicted side streets are full of holes. So the next question is, just what the fuck are all these highway maintenance vehicles doing, and where ethe fuck are they all going to at all times of the day and night, because there is absolutely no evidence of them doing any maintaining of any highways, all they do is drive around badly, being fucking menaces on the highways.

When I do make it to work it seems we are plagued by fuckwits in their four rings of the apocalypse cars who think that no entry signs don’t apply to them, and one-way systems are only advisory.

Inside the building, which becomes a more soul sucking shithole every day I am there, it is just a case of being plagued by more morons. Those who think banana skins and wet paper towels are recyclable, but somehow cardboard boxes are general rubbish. And the ones who have spoilt little shit syndrome who just dump their mugs in the sink for someone else to deal with. This despite the fact there is a dishwasher available to load up, or if full that the thirty seconds it might take to clean up after themselves will cause them to have a fucking aneurism.

And every day I’m in the office I become more convinced that the much-heralded revamp of the office space was actually designed by a drunken toddler using a buggy version of AutoCAD 95. The obvious routes to well used places, such as the kitchen or toilets are blocked by randomly position pieces of office furniture laid out at jaunty angles in a desperate bid to seem cool. Only for there to be wide open spaces in areas where no one would ever walk through and are totally unused. They’ve tried to be trendy and ended up with the worst of all worlds, making it difficult for staff to get from a to b without having to invade others personal space to get past the miniscule gap between desks.

On Saturday morning when I opened the curtains it was bright sunshine, yet an hour later by the time I’m walking there it is throwing it down with rain. Which as I sat in my usual window seat in Maccy D’s watching the world go by having my breakfast there is very little world to watch going by. It would seem anyone with any sense is hiding from the rain, which judging by the soaked appearance of my rucksack would be the right thing to do. At least the new raincoat works well though.

It is mornings like this upon which I really miss Debenhams being open. Not because I’d want to buy anything (although a browse through the Mantaray stuff might happen), no but because it meant I could get most of the way from Maccy Ds to the library without getting soaked.

There are always a couple of old guys in the library early on a Saturday morning on the computes. I’ve never realised what rude cunts they were until this morning. Shouting at a librarian because the West Sussex Times wasn’t in its place on the papers’ carousel. When they did find a copy for the bloke it was the previous week’s copy. When it was found by the librarian the bloke snatched it off her without a word of thanks, had it for thirty seconds at the computer and then went back to the desk and threw it across at her.

I wonder as I write these notes how long it will be before I get around to typing up publishing this. I have a few pieces dating from July and August which may well have been typed up now, but still haven’t been published, and I’ve got pages of stuff which needs typing up.

That seems to be part of a much wider malaise. The only thing that gets done at the moment is anything to do with the football such as match reports, they are usually written, typed up and published within a couple of hours. The football appears to be my main current obsession at the moment. Enthusiasm for anything else in life is next to nothing. I’m not really writing anything else. I’m going through the motions where camera club is concerned. I don’t really want to go anywhere or do anything and I’m forcing myself to do things just to stop me curling up into a ball and atrophying. I’m sure I’m probably driving Helen around the bend with the apathy.

I’ve got my next (and last scheduled) set of eye injections on Monday, but it seems as if I can’t help sabotaging myself. The absolute sugar free route has slipped, bread items are regular, and calorie control is a bit lacking. I know it’s not helping with anything, but it is like I can’t stop shooting myself in the feet. Just such a twat.

Random thoughts. I heard someone going on about being a ninja master. Not long ago that would have been a Japanese martial arts specialist, yet nowadays it’s more likely to be some muppet who thinks they’re a bit useful with a fucking air fryer.

On the train there is an announcement ‘if you have got bags on seats, please take them off,’ and I now have visions of some old Yorkshire bloke turning and saying to his missis, “you best get up then love.”

The train filled up massively at Kettering as if there was some mass migration going on. I never thought Kettering was that bad to be honest.

It always seems there is a large group of twenty-something blokes on any Friday train journey, off to get pissed somewhere and they’ve started on the cans already. They’ve always full of shite, talking bollocks, but why do they always all seem to have identikit black Helly Hansen duffel bags?

The woman making the announcements has the air of someone who’s never used a microphone before in their life, veering between ear splitting screeches and whispers, and speech more stilted than a Caribbean resort’s beach huts.

On the way back it shows how much I’m on the edge of losing it all the time, going ballistic at people getting onto the train before we’d had a chance to get off, shouting and screaming and swearing at them. It’s deeply ironic just how angrily impolite I get about moaning at others for being impolite.

It’s only taken just over a week since I started writing this before it goes to print. Best to do it before there is an all-day work team meeting.

I failed, and that was as horrific as expected, I don’t think I can deal with people anymore, it’s too overwhelming, and certainly in the morning session it was all I could do not to burst into tears. Lunch was mainly sandwiches, which in my current frame of mind wasn’t going to do me any favours, far too many of them eaten, but they made the afternoon more bearable, but that doesn’t stop me being a twat for eating so many.

July Jumble

After do a couple of May mutterings full of useless little bits and pieces, it has been over a month since I’d typed anything up, and I hadn’t really written much in the notepads. I went to four writing group sessions and didn’t write a single thing in any of them. A week in Cornwall didn’t elicit any scribblings either. But I have a few garbled pieces slung together.

I had the opportunity to go and watch the Europa League final in the suite at the Broadfield Stadium. Helen had gotten invites due to her being a member of the Devil’s advocates. I think we both thought it was on the Thursday night as all the other Europa League games had been. So when it turned out to be a Wednesday night after all I bailed as I was already due to be going to the camera club meeting. It was the monthly club competition results night, so I went to that, and Helen took Lynn to the Broadfield.

Despite being a Spurs fan for over forty years I’m not bothered by them at all now after the European Super League malarkey, after which I became a Crawley fan. Even with it being an all-English final, it still didn’t sway my attention, after all the seasons both Spurs and Manchester United have had, it is rather like two bald men fighting over a comb. Albeit a golden comb with diamond prongs. As it turned out, the comb went to Spurs, which would definitely have been my preference, not because of the long prior support, but more along the lines of anything is better than United and their self-entitled muppet fans having anything to celebrate. And if City can lose in a final then why not make it a double headed loss for Manchester?

Not that I was holding out any hope for a decent result in the camera club competition. All of the entries were very much ‘they will do, they are of interest to me, and they most definitely fit the month’s theme of the letter S.’ It was a surprise that my ‘seven sissling sausage’ scored the highest of my three photos, and that it only just missed out on the top ten.

If the May entries for the camera club were of a ‘they will do’ effort level, June’s entries were even worse. But there is no accounting for the strange voting from some people, as one of mine was a deliberately all black photo taken with the lens cap on, and someone gave it top marks.

In between the two I swerved one of the camera club meetings, as I couldn’t face two hours of talking about postproduction chat, and I didn’t make it to the museum exhibition opening, and I led one of the writing groups in which I didn’t write anything.

I had a few random thoughts, but most of the time, even my CBA, CBA. But three nuggets (definitely more chicken that gold).

So when the items from a to do list have been done, does that mean it is now a ta da list?

For some reason I saw a lot of mentions of the word camouflage all over the place, but the more I saw it, the more my head was translating it to be camel flange.

If people who are wittering on are talking shite, does it mean they are shittering?

I had a foot appointment at the K2 mid-month, and when finished I went into the toilets there. The signs weren’t obvious, but I double checked I was using the right ones. Then whilst in the cubicle I heard the door open, and people come in and start talking in what sounded very much women’s voices. Panic kicks in, am I in the wrong toilet? I came out of the cubicle to find it was school kids, boys using their squeaky pre-pubescent tones. Deep sigh of relief.

A week in Cornwall should have brought a load of travelogues. But all I can tell you (at this point anyway, I may revisit at a later date) is that we went to Fowey, St Michael’s Mount, Marizon, Penzance, Bodmin Railway, and a murder mystery night, Mevagissey, Polperro, Looe, Charlestown, and Castle Dore.

Before a writing group (in which I did no writing) I was in my usual position having breakfast in the window of Maccy D’s. A woman with three kids stroll into Maccy D’s all eating Gregg’s chocolate doughnuts. And they walk out five minutes later all eating hash browns.

It must have been one of those crossover mornings as when I was leaving Maccy D’s, one of the regular full time Maccy D’s employees was coming out of Greggs eating a chocolate doughnut.

We went to see Billy Ocean at the Brighton Centre. Our previous gig had been seeing Goldie Lookin’ Chain at Shrewsbury Castle. The crowd for this one was less hip hop and more hip-op. And speaking of Billy Ocean, if you can’t get to see him, don’t worry there are plenty of other (Billy the) fish in the sea.

Pizza beforehand took the common four cheese pizza and raised the bar with an eight-cheese pizza, which included an entire large whole burrata on top.

It has been warm, even with cloud cover, and the fountains have been up and running in Queen’s Square. On a Saturday, every one of the little jets appears to have a child playing with it, or sat on it, and they are all squealing and splashing each other. Parents and guardians are wisely standing back as if there is some kind of exclusion zone around the area, out of the way of potential spray, keeping a (very) distance eye on their little soggy darlings.

I’ve been doing the typing up I should have done at the end of May, and there were three poems I wrote on vastly different subjects and in totally assorted styles on the same night. All three when typed up were the same number of words – 256. Not something I, or anyone else could do if they tried. Instead I’m freaking myself out with the regularity of it all.

And finally, it would appear, “I’m not a funny fucker, I’m the funny fucker’s son, I’m not fucking funny until the funny fucker come.”

More May Mutterings

I was having one of those days. It would appear I had forgotten how to eat. First of all, when having some toast in the office, I half coughed, half sneezed and somehow ended up with a small lump of toast stuck in the recesses of my nasal passage. Which irritated the hell out of my nose and made it run like a tap, but no amount of blowing or sniffing would dislodge the piece I knew was in there somewhere. It was half an hour before an especially big blow forced it out and into the tissue.

I suppose that should have been a hint and a half to stay away from bread, but on the way to writing I had intended to get a Maccy D’s, but it was chaos in there, so I got a sandwich from the Asda convenience store next to it. A plain cheese one on white bread, only for my first bite to not only get the sandwich, but also take a chunk out of my lip. Which meant I then proceeded to leave little red marks on the white bread with each subsequent bite I took as the blood seeped out of my lip.

On the way to writing I had a touch of vertigo and nearly careered off the road. The exit from the A27 at Shoreham down to the A283 is an interesting long loop down. I wasn’t going that fast, but I caught a glimpse of the drop down from the side and my head went funny and I had to slam the brakes on in a panic as I felt I was going to go sailing off the side.

It is my own fault for going that way. Every time I go to Horsham straight from work for writing group, I vow to myself I’m going to go the other way so as to not have to drive the damn A283, with its cyclists, tailgaters, and general fuckwittery. And every time I find myself coming down that loop and swearing at myself.

On the A24 after getting the sandwich I come out at the junction with the A272 and to go north there is a slip road for about quarter of a mile to allow you to get up to speed to get into the traffic. But can anyone else use the bloody thing? No, of course not, the SUV in front of me stopped blocking the entrance to the slip road as it waited for a gap in the traffic to get across into the lanes of the A24, and once it edged out, I went up the slip road, undertaking it and leaving it far behind. Learn to read the fucking road.

I was back in Horsham on the Friday as well and whilst in Deichmann I overheard someone say, “I couldn’t live without my Uggs”. I looked up and they were wearing a Packers (Rodgers) jersey. And thought to myself ‘that explains it all.’

In Ask I overheard another conversation where a woman asked what is Calamari? Her partner obviously didn’t know and Googled it and then read the search result entry out to her. I looked around expecting it to be youngsters, but no, it was a couple in their seventies. How does anyone get to being in their seventies and not have heard of, or know what Calamari is?

On the Saturday, the next-door neighbours were having an FA Cup final get together, and I’d agreed to put a quiz together. The teams ended up being males against females, and in a reversal of fortune not seen since Greg Norman’s collapse at the 1996 Masters to gift the victory to Nick Faldo, the males lost a five point lead going into the final round to lose by three points as they were clueless on FA Cup final songs, whereas the females listened to the lyrics (which gave massive clues) and had been paying attention to the answers from previous rounds.

It was good that there was a new winner of the FA Cup, and that Manchester City didn’t win a thing this year, even if they might have been a bit hard done by with the VAR decision on the handball outside the box. Though if I were a Manchester City fan, I would be laying the blame squarely at the feet of Puma. As I noted at the Charity Shield back in August, using comic sans as a font on the back of a football shirt for numbers and names is not a great look, and their season has been quite comic (at least from the view of a great many other teams’ fans).

Nipping to the local shop on Monday I saw the driver of a Red Bull van. Their saying is ‘Red Bull gives you wings’, but judging by the demeanour and gait of the driver of the van, it looked more like they were giving him chronic back pain and a bout of depression.

I was looking at a cardboard box dumped next to the recycling bin outside the house, fascinated by the big label with NAFOON written on it. It took a dozen passes before I realised that it would have been a parcel for Helen’s son, and that the name had obviously been taken over the phone and that was how they thought that was how you spell Nathan.

April Assorted Anecdotes

The sun brings them all out. Fortunate weather for a school holiday. The café’s tables usually sparsely occupied are all filled. People stopping for refreshment, to sit and bask in the sun. the fountains gurgle away happily, the sound of their upwardly expelled water crashing back down onto the concrete slabs is accompanied by the little squeals of joy or excitement from the small children playing among the jets. Short sleeves on the whole are the order of the day and eager men, women, and children take the opportunity to get their legs out on display. Baggy three quarter length, tailored just above the knee, or short short and tight tight hot pants, the whole gamut is here. The sun’s rays are reflected off the chrome and glass of the modern buildings surrounding the square. And there are smaller glints, flashing motion, rebounding off the plethora of sunglasses worn. The pace seems slower, the quick head down scurry of the winter months has gone. It is more a casual stroll, head up as if to enjoy the sun, or for them to pose and show themselves off now they no longer have umpteen layers to protect themselves from the cold and rain. And there are smiles on faces as if the warmth has caused the edges of mouths to curl up instead of pointing down. There is chat, there is energy, but it is relaxed. It is a surprise how little of the masses of flesh on display is milk bottle white. The tanning salons of the town must have been busy over the shorter days and longer nights.

No watching the world go by as I had breakfast on Saturday morning before going away. I wasn’t in any rush and was happy to let a couple of undecided people go in front of me at Maccy D’s, and all the window seats were free. Big mistake, those I let in front of me took all of those window seats. Although the watching isn’t as interesting now that the market stalls have moved from their spots in front of Maccy D’s to their new home of Queensway. Though having walked past their new location since the move a couple of times, they do look better over there.

Inside Maccy D’s none of the usual Saturday morning crew were on, which means it’s the usual piss poor attention to detail. The first words on any order ticket are ‘eat in’ or ‘take out.’ I always select eat in, the sticker attached to the order says eat in, but they dump it all in a bag for take-out, and when I said I ordered it as eat in all I get is a gormless expression of a teenage zombie. It is always the same when there isn’t at least one of the two regular full timers working there.

And they are making a pigs ear of the Just Eats / Deliveroo / Uber Eats collections as well, but as I’m sure I’ve mentioned lots of times before, anyone who uses those companies to get Maccy D’s breakfast deserve all they get. Cold congealed food.

I’m having a coffee with breakfast and as always, I wonder why (apart from misplaced snobbery) anyone would pay two quid more to get a coffee from Costa (especially one of their random convenience store machines where it’s not even being made by a barista) or Starbucks.

Speaking of the latter, now that Amazon Prime foists adverts on us, we have seen the terrible Starbucks start of day advert more times than any sane person would ever need to. The advert is of course made far worse by the fact that AC/DC have lost their collective minds and licensed their music for the soulless corporate coffee smucks to use. If only Starbucks could be thunderstruck, lightning struck, earthquake struck, tornado struck, flood struck, any kind really just as long as they are struck off (the rhyming implication is deliberate).

On Good Friday I’d gone to Birmingham to watch the football. It’s well known that I’m not a fan of the city, the routes there and back were strange because its Easter weekend and there are engineering works going on all over the shop. On the way there I went via Leicester (no time to have a wander around there though), and into New Street. Which is one of the reasons I have a deep-seated hatred of the city, down at platform level it is the place where the seals between worlds will break, and the demons will pour out from platform nine. Fortunately, I arrived at platform ten. Upstairs they have improved it massively. On the way home the train was from Moor Street to Marylebone. What a difference. Only five platforms, but the whole station is above ground and looks like it belongs to a bygone area and wouldn’t be out of place on a heritage railway. I know that New Street is where all the through lines go, but when terminating in Birmingham why can’t they all terminate at Moor Street. I’m sure that if that had been the case when I was younger then the city wouldn’t seem so horrific to go to now.

A Lack Of Health

I have never been the healthiest person. I have been overweight since I was a toddler. I was pretty much always the fattest kid in my year at school. There have been a few times in my life where I have easily been over twenty-five stone, possibly nearer thirty stone. I have smoked, I have been a long-time alcohol abuser. And when not drinking alcohol, it would be nothing but full fat Pepsi all the way, none of that diet rubbish for me.

Pizzas, kebabs, burgers, ice cream, biscuits, chocolates, and anything else even remotely unhealthy has been shovelled down my throat, with nary a vegetable in sight (unless it was on the kebab). I was wearing four XL tops and fifty-four-inch waist trousers and allergic to any form of exercise.

The five years I lived in Manchester it was always a surprise to wake up each morning and be alive. My housemates would not have betted on me making it to my fortieth birthday, let alone for me to get into my fifties.

I was a walking (well, technically waddling) time bomb, and yet every (very rare) time I came into contact with a health check, the doctor or nurse would look at certain results, look at me, look at the results again, look at me again, and ask if they could redo the tests. Which would come back with the same results. I had low blood pressure, low cholesterol, and perfectly normal blood sugar readings.

Since moving in with Helen most of my habits have become healthier. I no longer live on a compete diet of take aways. There are vegetables in my diet. I gave up alcohol completely two and a half years ago. I am now in XL tops and forty-four-inch waist trousers.

I got myself a full BUPA health check through employee benefits at work and went to have the medical on a Friday, ambling along to their centre near Euston. Only to find the so-called healthier version of me is a complete old crock now and there are at least three big issues with the results from the test.

The first is blood pressure. After years of low blood pressure readings, this one was so high that BUPA wouldn’t let me do the bike test part of the medical as they aren’t insured for me to pop my clogs whilst on their bike.

Then came the blood sugar readings. Which are through the roof, was above the top of the OK range. They have doubled in the last couple of years to a point where they would diagnose me with having type two diabetes.

Finally for this hat trick was Haemoglobin and iron levels. The first was well below the normal levels, which as it was said to me it was iron levels was a puzzle as Helen has us taking iron supplements with 120% of the RDA, and I have Grape Nuts for breakfast which have 80%, so that’s double before anything else goes into me during a day, but still not enough apparently. Only for me to get the full tests which suggest I have exceedingly elevated levels of Ferritin which stores iron in the blood cells. It is strange.

The cholesterol and ECG were both good, and the advanced tests came back with everything in normal levels apart from a below normal level of creatinine which may suggest kidney issues.

It would appear that it does all catch up with you in the end in a quite rapid and unexpected style.

It’s a lot to take in, and a lot to take out of my diet. Not quite bread and water – bread is a bit of a no go – but it will be close.

Having given up fizzy drinks, cakes, biscuits, chocolate, sweets, crisps, ice cream, and pretty much eliminated bread and pasta (and taken with the fact I don’t really eat potatoes or rice anyway), the carbohydrate intake is way down. There isn’t much fat going in either, protein is staying about the same, but fibre is through the roof. In six weeks, I lost two stone, and that is still with a pizza Friday night and curry Saturday.

I had an appointment with the diabetic nurse and had to do new blood tests before going to that. The blood sugar level was reduced by a third, down from the diabetic range score of 66, to 44, only just inside the pre-diabetic range. And I am under eighteen stone. I really couldn’t tell you the last time I was at that kind of weight. There is still weight coming off as well. Not the big losses I saw over the first few weeks, but a pound or two a week, or a hundred grams in a week where I was away for five nights staying in hotels and eating out all the time, which was a bonus as was expecting a bounce back up.

A change in C foods will be the main reason. There is no cake, crisps, cookies, chocolate, cola (of the full fat varieties), candy, or chips, and a vast reduction in cheese. Instead, there is now celery, carrot, celeriac, cabbage, cannellini beans, chickpeas, and cold water. With lots of dashes of chilli sauce to replace the extremely high salt intake. The blood pressure was right down as well. At BUPA it was 159 over 90, at the diabetic nurse it was 117 over 73.

And it continues. Everything gets looked at now for calories and for sugars. It is an eye opener just how many ‘healthy options’ have much higher calorie, fat, and sugar values than items you might expect to be less healthy.

Aside from the shrinkage that has gone on, I have noticed another side effect of the weight loss. I’m cold a lot more often. I spent years of being warm all the time, wearing shorts and t-shirts in winter, and I didn’t own a jumper, or gloves. Now I find myself wearing multiple layers nearly all the time and gloves a lot of the time when out as my hands are cold most of the time when I’m outside.

I think it is like the drinking, it is easy at first to go cold turkey and not touch all those bad for me foods and drinks. With the alcohol I don’t miss it most of the time, but there is an occasional moment where I’d love a tot of rum, or a glass or port, or when sat in a French café in the summer sun, a cold beer. I am seeing crème eggs on sale, which were an absolute favourite. I look longingly at bottles of normal Pepsi, and a sausage bap or cheeseburger or doner kebab wouldn’t go amiss. Especially when working through a bowl of salad. But resist I will, as it is what is needed. For me, and those around me.

End Of The Tether

The trend is expanding, and it is annoying as hell.

And what trend is this I hear you ask? (Well, I don’t, no one gives a shit really.)

Drinks. Soft drinks to be precise. Manufacturers now tethering their plastic lids to their plastic bottles. It started, as most terrible, terrible things do, with Coca-Cola putting them on their brands. So, you can’t take the lid of the bottle and hold it away from the bottle to use it. it stays attached to the bottle making it stupidly awkward to drink directly from the bottle, or to pour from the bottle.

Now, I do understand why they think they need to do this. There are so many pieces of artwork around the country made from discarded plastic bottle tops. Dropped on the ground by thoughtless morons. But in doing this they are now punishing the millions, if not billions of people who aren’t complete fucking morons and are perfectly capable of putting the lid back on the bottle when finished with it and putting the whole thing in the recycling.

As ever it is all about making life harder for the customer as companies don’t give a fuck about the consumer or customer. All they are interested in are being box ticking cunts.

If they really gave a fuck about the environment, they so claim to care about then they would go back to the seventies and put everything in glass bottles with metal lids and have a deposit on them. It worked amazingly well back then.

Yes, there would still be a whole host of utter morons who would just discard the bottles as they do with plastic. But with the prospect of getting money back for them, there would be plenty of others who would quite happily go around picking them up to cash in on them.

So, just fucking stop it with your ridiculous box ticking annoying as hell shit tethers and let those of us who aren’t complete cockwombles carry on drinking and pouring unencumbered by your shit.

More Mindless Mumblings

We went to the previously postponed ‘Tea And Tales at The Mill’ on Sunday. It had been part of March’s WORDfest, I’m not sure where the three intervening months disappeared to.

Now, I’m not sure what I was expecting, but being read original versions of Grimm’s fairy tales, and HG Wells in front of a rotating mill wheel probably wouldn’t have been the first thing to spring to mind. It also pointed out how we take Disney versions of fairy tales to be gospel. Pigeons instead of fairy godmothers, cutting off parts of feet, they didn’t appear on screen in Cinderella.

But it was good, and the location is an unusual one to do this sort of thing, perhaps somewhere to bear in mind for next year’s WORDfest for the writing group.

Afterwards it was across country to the Plough for food. Only for them to be fully booked. We went to sit on the bench opposite the pub to check out alternate locations for lunch, only for one of the blokes from the pub to come out and say they could squeeze us in in five minutes time. Nice. Glad we sat down to work out where to go instead of doing it on the move.

There were a couple of old dears having Sunday lunch in the corner of the pub. I heard one say to the other that she didn’t drink. I suppose it could have been non-alcoholic wine in the large glass she was guzzling from.

They were also talking about going to Ibiza. We were laughing at the images that was conjuring up. The ones of some poor lad waking up the morning after with someone’s granny lying next to him. For some reason Obie Trice’s “Got Some Teeth” springs to mind.

Elsewhere I could hear one of the blokes from the pub telling another table ‘you can have double cabbage next week.’ I’m going to assume they actually want double cabbage. As to me it sounds more like a threat or a punishment. I’m tempted to run screaming from the pub. “NO, please don’t make me have the double cabbage. I promise I’ll be good from now on.” Or it sounds like something the old dear might say to the young lad in Ibiza. “Thanks for last night sonny, you can have double cabbage later.”

Single cabbage was bad enough, at least I could get rid of the case with the syrup pudding, which came in enough cream to float a battleship. And it still wasn’t as large as Helen’s sticky toffee pudding. At least we’d got a few miles to wander home to walk some of it off.

A Couple of Little Things

Why is it that when we go somewhere else apart from our own sofa to watch an England game, they are always such a crushing bore and usually not a great result? And is it just a coincidence that these games are the ones that are being shown on ITV. There appears to be a pattern emerging from recent tournaments. It did leave me wondering whether one of the channels hidden away in the upper reaches of the Sky channels is dedicated to watching paint dry. Just interested for alternative viewing for the next England game ITV show.

If the game wasn’t very good, it was a good gathering. Lots of Italian fare on offer. Pizza, dough balls, garlic bread, mozzarella sticks etc. I suppose it’s one way of getting the Italians involved in the world cup. I couldn’t resist asking Simon (pronounced See Mon) how Italy were getting on in the tournament in their easy group (consisting of themselves, Scotland, Peru, and New Zealand). He didn’t look impressed, not amused. Not that sarcastic me cares.

And if the game was bad enough, they left the same channel on, and so I got subjected to the first episode of I’m A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here, in this lifetime. I failed to see any celebrities, and feel that none of those there should get out, in fact it would do many people a favour if they just landfilled the whole site with everyone still in situ.

There are some tacky TV ads featuring players at the World Cup, but none of them are as bad as the radio ad for Muller Rice. They have Declan Rice, and they sing Rice Rice Baby. If I ever find the person responsible for that shitshow then there may be a prison sentence coming in my future.

Anyway, Saturday morning came, and the long running bugbear about Maccy D’s breakfasts annoyed me again. When you customise an item, it costs extra to add items (obviously, fair enough), but it doesn’t reduce the price if you remove items. If it costs 80p to add an egg or sausage to a double sausage and egg McMuffin, then why doesn’t it take the same amount off when you remove one? I always customise mine to remove the egg and add an extra sausage. Both items show as being the same price, so why get charged extra when all that has been done is in effect a swap of one item for another of the same price? It’s just a way to rip customers off again.

It isn’t as if they are putting the extra money towards staff training. Even basic reading skills would be a bonus. If the order clearly says eat in, why is it not on a tray. Why is it in a crappy take away bag?

And since they removed the self-service area for serviettes, condiments, straws etc. why are none being added to the bag? Why are they staring at me as if I’m some kind of mass murderer if I ask them for a serviette and some salt.

I get it, they don’t want to be there, but by the same token, I don’t want to be having to speak to you. But if you make the decision to remove these items from self service then you have no right to be looking at customers as if they are a piece of shit.

And as for the arrogant teenagers in there. No, it fucking well isn’t your seat. You are not Ronald McDonald. If you are that desperate to sit in the seat, I am in then you can wait until I am done (granted I may now take even longer to eat my food than I was originally planning on doing). Or you can fuck off and find another seat.

October Flies By

The first weekend of the month was a write off, as I spent most of it working. I never want to see a sickness reason code again in my life. (And to be honest, I never wanted to see one in the first place, but such is life.) I racked up a lot of time, so took an extra day off on the Thursday of the next week to make it a four-day weekend. Helen was off too, but she was off to deepest darkest Somerset with her mum to visit other family members. Something I politely passed on, and so I was left to my own devices.

I didn’t spend the whole time playing solitaire on my laptop (though the draw to it was real), and I was up and over in Horsham before midday, full details of that trip out are in a piece I’m writing on my Medium page.

I’d let the furry fussy pest out before going out, and when I returned, Sniffles was laid between the plant pot and the meter cupboard to the side of the front door. It is a good snoozing spot for him as he’s protected on three sides. On hearing footsteps, he lifts his head and looks around to see who it is coming before he recognises it is someone who will let him in, and he lets out a welcoming whine. Well, I’m not sure if it’s welcoming, it sounds more along the lines of ‘where the fuck have you been?’

He did the same thing when I got in from wandering around town on Friday. There is something about the way he does it that makes me laugh. It reminds me of Brad Pitt playing Mickey the Pikey in Snatch when Tommy and Gorgeous George turn up to buy a caravan and he’s squatting down having a crap and his head bobs up to see who it is that has arrived. Sniffles has mastered that action.

Anyway, on my way out on Friday I was aiming to stop and sort out physiotherapy sessions. Helen had bought them for me for my birthday and after some unsuccessful phone tag I was still no closer to a session four months on. The physiotherapist is only around the corner from where I live so I thought I’d knock on the door. So, I ambled down Southgate Drive and knocked on the door. I did think it was odd that there was a big Volvo estate blocking most of the drive that I had to squeeze around to get to the door. And when the door opened it is hard to say who was the most confused about me asking about physiotherapy sessions; me, or the old Asian woman who answered the door.

The actual house I wanted was on Southgate Road, not Drive, so I went there on the way back from town. I walked past it once because I though the blocks in the large driveway were all saying number 10, but it turns out they were all the physiotherapist’s logo marking out parking spaces. I knocked but that didn’t sort out a session. They were going to give me a ring on the Saturday to sort one out. Two weeks later and there has been no contact.

The confusion stakes carried on later in the evening. Sniffles was curled up on the blanket in the corner of the sofa when Helen rang me. As I was talking to her, Sniffles got up, looked around, and then wandered over to me and looked up before heading back to the corner. Only to come back and end up with his paws on my chest staring at me all confused. I put him down and he got the hump and went to sit on the box of Halloween decorations in high dudgeon glaring at me. He eventually came back and investigated what I was doing, but it would seem he was confused that he could hear the voice of the nice lady who usually feeds him, and fusses over him, but couldn’t see her. He was looking at me as if I had somehow imprisoned her in my phone and was wondering when she was coming back. As when the phone call ended, he curled back up in his corner of the sofa and went to sleep.

After writing group on Saturday, which went quite well considering I was winging it big time. I headed for another afternoon of walking. I got a bus to Turners Hill and meandered back to Tesco’s at which point the walking boots I’m still breaking in were making both feet and knees scream at me, so I got the bus home and vegged on the sofa all evening.

Sunday saw a bit of cooking (well, chucking bits in the slow cooker for a chili, so cooking might be stretching it) and sport watching. The GP was odd, the football mildly entertaining, and the American football very entertaining. The 49ers eased to an easy win and top the division after five games as all the other teams in the division lost. And this win despite more injuries to key players (which came back to bite us the following week as we lost to the Falcons of all teams).

Crawley meanwhile lost whilst I was out walking on Saturday. 3-0 away to Grimsby Town. I had considered going to that game and had scoped out travel times for trains and hotels for overnight stays as there wasn’t much to do with Helen being away, but I decided against it. It was a wise decision by the look of things, as another poor result saw us ending up as the strongest team in the football league – bottom – holding all the other teams up. And it saw Kevin Betsy being sacked.

I still want to go to Grimsby. Well, Cleethorpes really, as I want some photos for other pieces I am writing.

Work was still shit when I went back, but it was only four days before ten days off. Although most of that time was going to spent with relatives of mine or Helen.

When work came to an end on Thursday evening, we went and picked Helen’s mum up and headed north. We were heading for Lichfield, as an overnight stop on the way to North Wales for a seventieth birthday afternoon tea.

Three times on the journey to Lichfield the ‘smart’ motorway signs signalled to move over for workmen in the road ahead. After there being nothing the first two times it was tempting not to move over the third time in a boy who cried wolf fashion.

We turned on the sat nav for the last stretch, only for it to immediately to yell turn left, only for that to be the exit to the south and a nine-mile detour to the next junction and back before we were on the right track again.

When we got out of the car at the Holiday Inn Express at Lichfield Helen’s mum asked where the cardboard box was. What box? The box that was in the porch. Well, at a rough guess, it’s still in the fucking porch, as it’s the first we’ve heard of a box. (A neighbour was rung, and the box retrieved).

Between Lichfield and north Wales, we were told of how Helen’s mum likes to stroke bees. Which both of us found a bit bonkers, but no one else we spoke to at the party batted an eyelid at. Who knew stroking bees was a thing?

Breakfast in the pub was interesting, as the coffee was served in a cafetiere, but appeared to be instant coffee.

The invites to the party did not have a standard start time on them. Some had midday, some 12:30 and others one o’clock. Most of the relatives going to the party were in the pub first, seemingly delaying the going to the party until the last possible moment. This included Bob whose party it was. In total there were thirty-five people invited, and a miraculous thirty-one of them turned up. But there was a mini exodus from the room just before the party games started. Strategic absences involved to avoid playing feed the baby and blind makeup. Packing up only took a few minutes compared to the hours setting up the room did, and most of the relatives headed to the other pub in the village straight after.

When it comes to it being time to leave the pub to drop off a couple of people at Joanne and Bob’s and to pick up Helen’s mum, we find that the room key to our room is still in the village hall, and there is no one there for us to be able to get it. Fortunately, there was a spare so we could get into the room and get the car keys. We may also have left some tweezers behind, as before dinner Helen’s mum asked if we had any tweezers as she couldn’t find hers, and she needed to screw the curtain rail back up. I still don’t know what the hell was going on, but our rooms didn’t have any curtains, let alone rails to hang them off.

There may well have been a spare key to our room, but it wasn’t fully legit. It allowed us to lock the room when we retired for the night. But it would not open from the inside in the morning. We had to get one of the staff to go into the crawl space outside the other end of the room for us to pass the key out of the window for them to come around and open our door from the outside. And that wasn’t even the worst part about breakfast.

We get out of the pub and drop Helen’s mum off at Joanne and Bob’s and head north to Morecambe for four nights at my mum’s. Despite the attempts at force feeding and the horrendous driving conditions over the next three days out, it wasn’t a bad stay. There are lots of write ups from those days out on Medium (or will be depending on which order I post things).

We met up with Joanna and Bob at Lymm services on the way home for a handover of Helen’s mum, and after dropping her off we were more than happy to collapse on our sofa and do nothing.

I know work is rubbish, but sometimes having time off can be more tiring.

Random Rubbish From An Overheated Mind

Helen bought some sun cream / lotion thing the other day. She read out that it had five-star protection on it. It sounded quite specific to me. Why would sun cream be able to protect you from 5 Star? Does it protect you from other random eighties bands as well, r is it just 5 Star? Is it because it protects whether it’s “Rain or Shine”? Or does it go on like Silk and protect like Steel? Stay tuned for more stupid questions.

Such as, what is the best time of day to go to the dentist? 2:30 of course. (Tooth hurty for all those who can’t quite grasp the extremely poor level of humour happening here.)

This morning, Helen’s sister was complaining about here mobile coverage, saying she couldn’t get any signal. I suggested helpfully that perhaps she should try changing to Colgate. It is lost on some people.

You have probably all heard the vast array of “why did the chicken cross the road” jokes. Well, around here there is the one about why did the cat cross the road? In Sniffles case it was so he could flop down in the middle of the road and start washing himself whilst holding any traffic up. It won’t be like the hedgehog visiting his flat mate, it will be a flat cat one of these days. It is more of a surprise that he isn’t flat already.

Although, saying that, he is laid flat out on the dry yellow grass in the shade in the back garden. I’m sure it’s only a coincidence that the shade is under the tree with the bird feeders in it. He’s not really trying to catch any bird with a lower IQ than Sniffles who happens to be stupid enough to try and peck at some of the fallen food.

Just in case I’ve never mentioned it before; I hate this weather. The only time it is acceptable to have a temperature in the thirties or forties is when it is being measured in Fahrenheit.

And I’ve got a train journey to deepest darkest Somerset to do in the morning. I had deliberately booked an earlier that necessary train to get there. Mainly because I’m an unsociable bastard and wanted to make sure that I was on a train that none of my work colleagues were going to be on so I could sit in stony silence enjoying my own company before having to spend the next twenty-four hours with hordes of them in an enclosed environment. My misanthropic behaviour may well pay off in unexpected ways. The journey will be early in the morning before temperatures and tempers have increased. Plus, I should get there before all the rails buckle due to the heat.

Yes, it is churlish to moan about warm weather. But as I’ve said thousands of times before; I’m not made for anything above about twenty degrees centigrade. I should have been born as an Eskimo.

It is boiling out. Just in case I haven’t mentioned the heat before, or how much I hate it. So, with Helen off in Greenwich with her sister and mother with tickets to a Canaletto exhibition, followed by a meal on the banks of the River Thames, it means that I’m left to my own devices to sort food out. Now in this heat, some people will be having an ice cream bath; possibly with chocolate sprinkles on (not the sprinkles in Eddie Murphy’s Delirious though). Or a salad, or a platter of cold meats and cheeses. But no one ever accused me of being sane. Not even slightly so. So, off I go, out in the sun, up the close and past the shops to the Downsman, where I order curry. Hot curry. To heat me up rom the inside.

I’m working on the assumption that people who live in hot countries all the time know what they are doing and the fat that all the hottest, spiciest, chilli laden dishes around the world come from countries firmly ensconced in the Tropics. And as I don’t want to beat them, I will join them. I may still be hot, but at least the food will be tasty, and I won’t have to have made it myself.

As I’ve been sat on the sofa in the heat of the afternoon, I have heard the faint tinkling of the chimes from an ice cream van. It can’t be that far away. And I put my trainers on so that I’m ready when it arrives. So, I can jump up, get out the door and hustle to the van and get my Mr Whippy fix. And I hear that tinkling, close, but not on the Close, from all around. One, two, three, four, five, six times, messing with my head with no reason or rhyme.

But it doesn’t appear. Two hours come and go, but the ice cream van doesn’t. Again. It never seems to come to the Close anymore. It used to be here every day, rain or shine, hail, gale, or snow. At night in the dark, or in the bright of the afternoon sun. But no longer it would seem.

On another purely coincidental note. The drug dealers moved out from the Close at a remarkably similar time to the cessation of the ice cream van services.