"Bad defeat today" said Terry as I wandered in, my guts rumbling from lack of breakfast and surfeit of last night's booze/curry fest. 7.45am and I'd been awake precisely one hour ten minutes.
It always amazes me how the body processes toxins like alcohol and spicy food. Years ago, I never got hangovers. I'd just wake up feeling a bit 'off', then would have one big burp and a massive fart, and I'd be fine. Now, over forty, it takes whole days to recover. And what you really don't need is some bright, breezy, chirpy b*gger at 7.45am on a Sunday telling you your footy team is nailed on for a big loss at the home of sh*tness and backwardness.
Still, he sells cigarettes in those bloody awful brown packets with pictures of diseased lungs on 'em. I can't hate anyone who sells fags, even if they do charge me a tenner a pack. When you awake from a night out and find you've laid on the last two in the box (fell asleep in me clothes last night - and that was a 'fancy meeting for a few about 9' sort of night) and they've split and the tobacco sits in a well in your trouser pocket along with a tatty tenner and about £12 in change and a stiff hanky, well, you get up, cough and then decide you need a fag before you even THINK about starting the day. I do. I know how that feels You're not alone.
So Terence sold me them, with a Times and his pessimism about the derby, and a few banterish comments about how well I'm looking and how he gave up drink when he hit forty 'cos he started going down the gym, except the wife knew someone's brother who did that and they had a coronary and haven't been the same since. So he stopped and now he just does walking with a group of ramblers in the Stour Valley. "Ten mile hikes" he said, proudly. And then Mrs Tel corrected him. "You've not done one of them for a year!" she said. He cast his eyes cast downward in embarrassment. And I gave him me best wink as I left.
So Sunday lunch was the order of the day. Or Sunday afternoon repast as it was, technically, since the game would have finished by the time we ate. I'd got the drinks yesterday morning; a bottle of Amontillado, some hopped lagers, a few Aspall draughts and a bottle of Picpoul de Pinot and a merlot. Came in, prepped the curly kale and the parsnips and the rib of beef (butcher in Hadleigh), blitzed the chilled soup again and had a pot of natural yoghurt with a coffee for breakfast (and a fag or two). So the menu was:
Starter: Roasted Onion hummus with home-made flatbreads, crudités, olives and roasted peppers.
Main: Rib of beef roasted with mustard glaze, roast potatoes, roast parsnips, kale with orange zest and almonds, carrots and port gravy.
Pud: Chilled melon 'soup' with mandarin and grapes, Turkish delight ice-cream, shortbread biscuits.
Everything was bubbling away as it should when folks arrived, carrying wine and beer for the game. Set up the telly at 11.50, we all sat and listened to Dazzler Eadie being a prick and talking his sh*te, cheered DJ, even though one of my friends reckoned he was more a Forest man now. Then we were off.
"What the bloody hell's that?" said someone as the ref blew. No real shots, both sides cantering like it was a training match, their clearest chance an interception by Jonas which Bart scrambled over. The nervous feeling every time the scum broke. The jeers when both betting ads at half time had Cameron Jerome to score next at 11/2 and 'Arm the weld's biggest mug, me name's Ray' Bet 365 at 13/2. "I'd rather bet on Trump having sex with Meryl Streep" said my mate. But we knew Jerome had form in this one. And we hoped he'd be as sh*t second half.
When Jonas scored, the little dishes of crisps erupted. I've just finished cleaning 'em up. Any hope of another 1-0 away result dashed by that scrawny little kid they played who tried his luck and Bart missed it. Then that was it, apart from a great Bart save from Tittey. 1-1 again. We all felt we'd deserved a draw. Freddie was pants up front though.
So we ate, and drank and laughed at my mate's wife asking if Delia was the 'old bird on the left' as a shot of her and the hubbie and her mum hove into view, clapping their brave lads off after they'd drawn at home to a team who cost a fraction of Pritchard's prick. And we breathed again and we loved our team again, and we saw Ed Sheeran in the home end, and we all thought "maybe this season's not so bad?" and then we agreed it probably was. Fair result, nice lunch and Tel embarrassed. Not a bad day.
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