| The Warky League 1 Report: Christmas (A) 20:08 - Dec 25 with 1697 views | Warkystache |
The Shepherds weren't watching their flocks as I meandered through the fields. There was no angel of the lord and glory didn't shine around. Mud did, as did muddy water and the odd squawking pheasant. December 24th 7.30am. The rain started as I left the house but then it ceased for a bit and the roads, wet with it, reflected the twinkling Christmas lights from the houses. The kerbs were saturated. I drove to the river and parked near the sluice gates, feeling self-conscious.
The white egrets and the cormorants tiptoed bashfully amongst the sodden mud beds of the river, hunting at dawn. The sheep in one of the fields huddled like old women at a bus stop. Soundless, except for the noise from the road and the wind. I came back with wet jeans and a muddy sock, my right, when I'd had to negotiate a stile and trodden heavily in a puddle at the other side. This didn't feel much like Christmas. No snow for a start. Just windy and wet and desolate.
Tesco was like one of the three ships. It came sailing into view, lit brighter than any neighbouring homes. The bloke on the till scanned my newspaper and my brown bread and jar of thick-cut marmalade without comment. I asked for sixty fags and he grimaced and reached for the cupboard they keep them in. I wished him a Merry Christmas and he sort of grunted and nodded, and then I was off, my mask obliterating the harsh mutterings of 'miserable bastard' I found myself saying as I walked back to the car. Just as well. This wasn't the festive spirit.
Balls to the rest of the morning. You're not interested in the minutiae of my breakfast, sat eating toast and glugging tea from the pot and reading about Tier 4 and the amazing Brexit victory that wasn't. You want Tel. Well, don't say I don't please you.
The car pulled up at 2.30ish. The horn beeped twice, then the passenger door opened and my front door suddenly erupted. "Bleedin' late in't'we?" said the YSL clad apparition in the door, all gelled hair and five 'o'clock shadow. He pointed to the wife in the driving seat. "Told 'er ter gitter act togevver. Don't bleedin' start 'ooverin' at 2pm. She din't achully 'oover anyfin' up. Just makin' sure the place looks clean for yer". He snorted with derision and took the countless carrier bags I passed him, stopping to eye the contents of a few. "Blimey. We 'ave GOT drink, yer knar, like, already?"
I locked the front door and got into the back of their SUV. Mrs Tel greeted me with a peck on the cheek. She smelled like she'd bathed in Anais Anais. She wore an unzipped powder blue fleece with her black Levis and a black t-shirt with spangled design on the front, which I couldn't see properly. We drove off. Tel pointed out the decorations down my street. "Looks like a bleedin' poor man's Vegas" he said dispassionately.
We arrived at theirs. They helped me cart the bags from the car to the bungalow. There were seven in total. Some were very heavy. Tel got those. They clinked and clanked all the way up the drive. Three bottles of champagne. A bottle apiece of Sambuca, some sh*t flavour of Baileys, a Green Chartreuse my dad gave me last year which might have gone off (hadn't sniffed it in months), a bottle of some bloody awful-sounding cocktail mix I found in Asda, a bottle of Chambourd someone in Birmingham gave me as a farewell present in September. "The Russian Roulette's lookin' good later!" enthused Tel as I unwrapped these beauties from the bags.
House rules: There were none. The Chinese was being delivered at 7pm. Tel circled the order, a set starter for four which included spare ribs, seaweed, chicken satay on skewers, prawn toasts, dim sum, a whole peking duck with pancakes and something ominous called 'Capital Pork'. "Iss only starters, like, 'cos thass wot we said, don't wanna overload yer guts wiv all that grease". He looked pleased with this. I prayed that we'd have started the 'Russian Roulette' games long before the food arrived so it could soak up the crap booze.
We had a beer. Mrs Tel had a Coke with ice, saving herself for the later onslaught. We sat at their dining room table discussing horse bets for Boxing Day. Mrs Tel watched something on the telly and then came back in and we played Jenga. I lost, but only because Tel jogged the table at my turn. The little wooden bricks fell crashing. Two went under the table, and I had the unedifying sight of three inches of Tel's arse crack over his jeans waist as he bent to retrieve them.
We then got the cards out. We were only playing for 20ps but then it got serious and suddenly we were all searching our wallets for pound coins. We'd started on the champagne by this stage. Taittinger, £25 in Tesco. "Not a bad drop" said Tel, drinking it like lemonade. I told him it was James Bond's favourite in the books and he preened himself a bit and then glugged back a glass and tried his infamous Sean Connery impersonation, which consisted of adding a 'shhh' to everything while sounding like a pissed Irishman. Miss Moneypenny being bossed by a slightly irate Ian Paisley.
Tel was fifteen quid up when he decided to go all in on his final hand. Twenty seconds later, I was a fiver up. He eyed my winning cards ruefully. "Bleedin' racked they were" he announced.
We finished the second bottle of Champers by five thirty. My head swam like a piranha chasing a chicken leg. Tel cheered up, a sure sign he too was in the old festive spirit. We played Concentration for money and I won that as well. Another three quid. Mrs Tel came and played pontoon with us. Money wasn't discussed. Then Tel won four hands in a row and suddenly it was. But his winning streak deserted him.
It was Russian Roulette Round 1 time by then. I set the drinks up, small shot glasses of nice booze versus slightly larger glasses of rubbish. The game was played with dice - roll any higher than a seven on two dice and you choose a drink from one to twenty. These included the rubbish alcohol.
We played for an hour. Mrs Tel retired after 10 minutes and a gobful of my Sambuca, which she rolled dangerously around her mouth before disappearing. By the end of the hour, Tel said he wasn't sure he'd ever drink Chambourd again and he didn't like Green Chartreuse. We had a beer to wash the taste away. I went for a slash and laid my fevered brow on the tiles near the cistern. The room now swam like my washer on full spin.
The food arrived. We ate it, slightly pissed. I gave the delivery bloke my winnings as a tip. He thanked me. I said Merry Christmas and took the bags from him while Tel paid him. It came to £85 all in so he gave him £100 and told him to keep the change. That's not a bad tip in all.
Mrs Tel and I went for a fag while Tel laid out the plates and the food and forked up the duck. She was drinking Vodka and Coke from a large Libby glass. "Nearly 'ad 'arf a bottle" she giggled as we lit up on the patio. She apologised for the Sambuca. I said I didn't blame her. "Never liked it, 'ad some at me friend's weddin' in 1986; she'd been to Greece and bought it back. Dun'like aniseed or lickrish". She swayed slightly into me as she talked. "We'll get some choons on later, 'ave a boogie like". She smiled coquettishly from the rim of her glass and had another puff from her diminishing ciggie. "Bit'o' Spandau an' Wham" she said, smiling. I smiled back. I was slowly getting hammered.
The food went quickly. Being starters, it was ideal. Small portions and lots of them, although only Tel touched the crispy seaweed and only Mrs Tel ate more than five duck pancakes. It all went. We cleared away and loaded the dishwasher and then opened the third bottle of Champers and we all had a toast for a Merry Christmas and then staggered out to the lounge where we sat, shoes off, and chatted drunkenly about Covid restrictions and Ipswich and told stories from our lives. Tel went off to fetch some old photos and seemed to be rearranging the bedroom as he did. When he returned, he was armed with two large cardboard boxes. Then we had an hour of nostalgia, with gritty, Kodak quality photos of Tel and Mrs Tel in the 1980's, he looking like a non-gipsy version of Kevin Rowlands from Dexys, she doing a sort of Goth vibe in all black, a bit of pert, creamy boob peeking out from the armhole of her sleeveless black Stranglers top.
Tel pointed out the scenes in London; them at parties where someone appears to have taken Mrs Tel by complete surprise judging by her slightly wide-eyed expression. He showed me one of them in their new newsagents in 1987, him now the very model of the sober business owner, she seemingly in thrall to the tight jeans and jumper look slightly younger middle-aged people succumb to when they reach thirty. There was a strange one of Tel and a very young Paula. The photo looked glossier and newer. "2004" said Tel. Me and my best-ever worker. She was brill, was P". I looked at the photo and this young, Kappa-trackied girl with a blowsy loose perm in her blonde hair and a look of slight panic stood next to a grinning, slightly fuller-haired Tel. He was pointing at the camera with both hands. He reminded me of that Kenny Everett character with the massive pointing fingers.
Then we danced. The settee was moved back, the armchairs moved and we created a reasonable space for three drunk people to shift a few shapes to some terrible '80's music. This started with "Young Guns" by Wham and degenerated from there to "The Safety Dance" via "No more Heroes", which I liked, but then got worse with "Karma Chameleon, Rock me Amadeus, Tarzan Boy, The Reflex, Wouldn't it be Good, You Spin me Round, Love and Pride, Chant No 1 and Lessons in Love". Then we had a few slow ones to catch our breaths. And suddenly, I was dancing with Mrs Tel, slowly, arms wrapped round each other to Frankie's "The Power of Love".
Yeah, yeah, I know what you're saying, or thinking, or whatever. The truth is, I couldn't avoid it. I was like Mowgli trapped by the hypnotism of Kaa. The record came on, we were near each other, she raised her arms up to me, we danced. Her breasts rubbed my stomach. She didn't let go. Tel smirked in the background. When it ended he put on "One More Night" by Phil Collins and they danced to that. "Thass 'ow yer do it son" he slurred. "Jus' in case by some miracle yer ever get married agin".
I felt very awkward, so went for a fag, Mrs Tel coming as well. We sat and smoked silently. Then she said "We danced to The Power of Love at our wedding, only not that version, which is the one we meant. Ended up wiv the Jennifer Rush one. Should'a made it more clear". She puffed at her fag. "Still, least it weren't Huey Lewis".
She smoked and then stubbed out the cigarette. I stood up, embarrassed a bit, to let her past me and she paused in front of me and said "Yer never too old, boy. Keep lookin' fer the right one. You'll find 'er. Wish you was ten years older and lived in East London though. You're a smashing bloke. It'll happen, probably when yer least expect it". And then she smiled at me, encouraging, like my mum did when I'd hurt something as a kid and come in for tears to be dried and a plaster. And it was nice, and I suddenly relaxed again and chided myself for ever thinking anything else.
We had another round of Russian Roulette. This time Tel won. We cut the Chartreuse and the Sambuca and the Chambourd. They went where they deserved to go. Down the sink. ""Ave the cleanest bleedin' drains in the street at this rate" said Tel, thoughtfully.
So here I sit now, at my parents, bloated from luncheon, not fancying cold Xmas pud and repeats of The Good Life on telly. The hangover was fierce but a round of social distancing at church at 10am and a fair walk through the chill coupled with a shared bottle of Krug opening pressies and a goodly dose of Alan Brazil's new tome with its reminiscences of Ipswichs I barely knew, have cleansed the soul and rejuvenated the body.
Back tomorrow with the Tel's for cold meats and probably cold turkey, although hopefully not because I fancy another good drink. More later. Merry Christmas.
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| The Warky League 1 Report: Christmas (A) on 20:29 - Dec 25 with 1642 views | syntaxerror |
I told him it was James Bond's favourite in the books and he preened himself a bit and then glugged back a glass and tried his infamous Sean Connery impersonation, which consisted of adding a 'shhh' to everything while sounding like a pissed Irishman. Miss Moneypenny being bossed by a slightly irate Ian Paisley.
Amazing lines! Shades of Irvine Welsh. |  | | |
| The Warky League 1 Report: Christmas (A) on 21:50 - Dec 25 with 1556 views | giant_stow |
Another corking episode. I can never figure out if you're free as a bird or lonely as a cloud, but thanks for sharing so honestly and happy Christmas. |  |
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| The Warky League 1 Report: Christmas (A) on 21:56 - Dec 25 with 1538 views | J2BLUE |
Superb stuff Warkers. I hope we get a Boxing Day edition... |  |
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| The Warky League 1 Report: Christmas (A) on 22:12 - Dec 25 with 1509 views | jeera |
Enjoyed that Tashers.
Stay safe mate, and Merry Xmas to you. |  |
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| The Warky League 1 Report: Christmas (A) on 00:22 - Dec 26 with 1378 views | StochesStotasBlewe |
Ruddy, bloody marvellous. |  |
| We have no village green, or a shop.
It's very, very quiet.
I can walk to the pub. |
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| The Warky League 1 Report: Christmas (A) on 08:23 - Dec 26 with 1216 views | witchdoctor |
brill as per mate..enjoy the rest of your festivities 👠|  | | |
| The Warky League 1 Report: Christmas (A) on 09:34 - Dec 26 with 1160 views | Ace_High1 |
Wonderful and usual Sir Warkers. |  | | |
| The Warky League 1 Report: Christmas (A) on 09:41 - Dec 26 with 1150 views | BanksterDebtSlave |
Just perfect Warky....read out loud to Miss Slave as all your reports are. Sets the day up just right. Loved this....
"My head swam like a piranha chasing a chicken leg."Â |  |
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| The Warky League 1 Report: Christmas (A) on 11:07 - Dec 26 with 1080 views | EdwardStone |
Top writing fella
I enjoyed thoroughly
Thanks |  | | |
| The Warky League 1 Report: Christmas (A) on 19:58 - Dec 26 with 939 views | Eireannach_gorm |
The Warky doth protest too much, methinks.
Great to hear you and the Tels had great day, stay well and keep those reports coming. |  | | |
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