| The Warky Lg 1 Report: Saying Okey-dokey, singalonga Smokey (H) 22:31 - Aug 23 with 683 views | Warkystache |
Days of thunder and high winds. The bloke in the car in front of me dropped his coffee at the drive-thru counter on Thursday. Just dropped it. They got him a new one, but the dropped one glugged lazily down the sloping paving like a brown tide. The cardboard and plastic it came in skittered in the wind, a wanton labrador rolling in sh*t. No-one bothered to retrieve the empty cup, so I did. The young woman serving didn't say thanks. No manners these days. The two drivers of the cars behind me looked at me like I was nutty. I'm not. I don't like litter.
My own fault, really. Shouldn't have stopped at McDonalds on the way to work. It's making me fatter for one thing. I don't even particularly like their bacon rolls. The roll's too soft and mine clearly had the ketchup applied by someone jumping on those little sachets near it. Of all the little annoying Americanisms that have stealthily crept into common vernacular, McDonalds is the most annoying. Plastic food, scalding hot coffee that takes half an hour to become even reasonably drinkable, and you eat it in your car looking out at traffic during rush hour, feeling like a pig when a bit of hash brown breaks off and falls in the front well, or the paper bag it came in looks like you've smeared it in butter.
Work are on the brink of letting people work from home again. Birmingham is the latest place to be threatened with spikes. My boss and I had a chat on Friday. He wants me to work at our other office in Colchester for a few weeks. "Just a few weeks loike. Yer can cum back when it's safe". He himself is working from home in Solihull next week. Just him, the wife, their two teenagers, the cat and the goldfish. So, thankfully, no more early starts and no more Kettering McDonalds. Should do wonders for the old waist.
I think Terry misses work. Now officially finished with Sainsburys, he's been keeping himself busy by doing DIY jobs around his home; a sort of 'work trial' before he starts working with his brother-in-law as a plasterer, a job he's still not sure is starting yet. "Did the gutterin' terday" he said proudly as we met on Friday night in the pub. "Bleedin' covered in toot, I was". He's also re-varnished the garden furniture. "'I 'ad to put a sign on it in case the wife sat in it". He smiled. "She nearly did after I'd done one o' the chairs. Nearly 'ad a good laugh out of it, til she remembered". Surely you'd have shouted a warning to her?, I said. "Yeah, might've" he said, winking.
He's doing the paving next week. "Two slabs, biggun's, came a bit loose so I'll cement 'em back an' then do the steps up ter the garden 'cos they're a bit loose'n'all". He sighed and unconsciously flexed the puny muscles in both arms. They went up about a millimetre. "Gettin' a good workout anyway" he said, satisfied. I fought the temptation to laugh aloud. Fortunately, it was his round.
The pub (not the local by the way. We've stopped going in there. It's dead) was half-full, weekenders coming out to their second homes, a handful of locals at tables inside drinking IPA and teasing each other in thick rural accents. They've started doing Hoegaarden on draft, so we've been drinking that, even though I suspect it was this that gave me the squits yesterday. Not bad ones. I wasn't sat on the bog for hours. Just a bit runnier than my usual Saturday morning effort. Sorry. Too much information.
Tel likes Hoegaarden. Whether he had the sh*ts as well yesterday is unknown as he went to Braintree with Mrs Tel. He was unsure about the wheat beer to start with. "Looks like turps" he said when the foaming pint was laid before him. But he tasted it and his face sort of lifted. By the end of the night, we'd drunk five pints apiece. The brandies were actually an anti-climax at the end. Mainly because Tel didn't make it clear that he didn't want them with a squirt of lemonade. Mine were neat and better.
He's had rather a funny call from Paula this week. Not actually a rebuke for quitting the job, because Paula isn't fearless/stupid enough to invoke his wrath, but Tel said he came out of it with the distinct impression that she was unhappy with him. She's not happy anyway. Tel said "Blake's in the bad books. He's agreed to go to Switzerland with his mates in October, snowboarding. They're s'posed to be savin' for a new conservatory". He raised his eyebrows in mock terror. "I wun't wanna get on the wrong side'o' Paula. Been there before. You remember when I 'ad to have a go when she got me paper orders wrong, back when she was complainin' of bad period pains?". I didn't, but I nodded anyway, just in case we went off on a tangent about Paula's menstrual cycle.
"Well, the bleedin' row I copped off 'er, it was like I'd called her fat or summink. Went 'ome in floods, wife 'ad ter go rand there and apologise for me". "Course..." he continued with a smile, "probly made it worse by saying' wot she needed was a right good seein' to off a boyfriend. She couldn't attract flies at the time. Right spotty little madam she was. Some o' the paperboys even called 'er Mrs Blobby. Be'ind 'er back of course. She'd 'ave 'ad their knackers if she'd 'eard 'em".
Lost in reminiscence, he told me about the time he couldn't flush the toilet downstairs in the shop. "Put me 'and down there and pulled up a load of tampons. Should've seen it. I could've reinsulated me loft".
The night got later and the darkness darker as we sat in the lights of the pub garden, the wind blowing beermats off the tables, us and a couple near by who looked like they were freezing. Mrs Tel arrived at 11.30pm to collect us and we managed to convince her to have a Coke while we finished our brandies. She sat primly, like a latecomer at a riotous party, sort of out of the loop. Tel reminded her of Paula, and Mrs Tel said "Yeah" and that ended the conversation. He looked at me with a shrug and upturned eyes. They're still having problems, I reckon. Not bad ones, but still. She looked like she'd rather be anywhere than in the pub garden.
There was a noticeable eagerness on her part to get us in the car. She yawned a few times, hand barely over mouth. I took the cue and drank up. She was kindly giving me a lift home. It seemed churlish to play Tel's game. He took his time over the brandy, swilling it against the ice, sipping it like a novice. Then she said "Are we done?" in a tone that suggested we'd better be, and he swallowed the rest in one and picked up the empties. "Jus' need a slash an' I'll take these back" he said to both of us. Or neither of us. I couldn't tell.
I had a walk yesterday after all the toilet problems. It was a good idea. The breeze blew me along the promenade at Harwich. I had fish'n'chips from the shop and ate them on the waterfront looking out at the docks. The sea squalled and rose in white-peaked waves. Bad weather for a ferry crossing. I remembered the time we went to Zeebrugge and it was like this. Sick everywhere, all over the lounge floors and near the bogs. I'd taken Sea Legs so I was OK. But I spent a lot of time outside, getting wet from the spray. 1988 that was. My mum hadn't wanted to go because the Herald of Free Enterprise happened the year before. But my dad got cheap tickets from a mate, so we went. Ended up in Bruges. That was lovely.
Many reasons to be cheerful. Even in adversity, something always pulls you round. I'm not saying this is adversity, far from it. But it'll do until the proper adversity turns up. |  |
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