| The Warky League 1 Report: Swindon (H) 13:20 - Jan 10 with 692 views | Warkystache |
The slow pace continues. No, I'm not talking about the team, although like everyone else, they looked half-dead yesterday. Creatures who shuffle and blink in light, ponderous, rabbits with advanced mixey, walking blank-eyed around Tesco because it's there and it's open.
Face masks, avoidance, the papers filled with mock distaste-cum-triumph over the last drippings of the Trump fiasco, frosty branches and grass, the long slow dawning of a winter day where everything is bathed in phlegmatic acceptance and milky sunshine. It was like awakening from hibernation then finding it wasn't yet spring, but the bedding had got cold while you were up.
The morning walks have necessarily become localised. Like a stye in the eye, I walked in my red cagoule, greeting perfunctorily the dog-walkers with their squatting steam-wreathed pets as we crossed paths, the odd early-morn cough eyed suspiciously as though I wore cowl and bell and a big red cross on my chest.
I've stopped drinking alcohol. Yes, really. I had a nasty moment last weekend; I won't bore or repel you with details, suffice to say that it was a wakener far more effective than any radio alarm set permanently on 'Kerrang'. At forty-six, nearly forty-seven, the realisation that I am mortal after all was painful. I feel very, very old. And very, very sober. San Pellegrino and various cordials/squashes and juices now align themselves in the drinks cupboard. I've not bothered with the low alcohol alternatives, lest they reawaken the appetite without slaking it.
Tel's in-laws have the dreaded virus. He rang on Wednesday, breathless and sweaty-sounding himself, to divulge the news. "All got it. Coughin' an' lost their taste. They never 'ad much anyway, just the money to pretend they 'ad". Tel is now a series of quick phone calls and badly-spelt texts. Mrs Tel won't allow him out and they "don' like the idear of yer cummin' over ter see us at the mo, like". So we correspond via mobile phone and my landline when he remembers. Which is erratic and compulsively, like a teenage kid with a slight crush.
Walks, breakfast, work are all punctuated with fatuous texts meant, I suspect, to 'cheer me up' but which contain no portion of the personality of the sender. Sometimes it's memes that he's had and laughed at, briefly, then shared. Mostly it's bad jokes and cod-wisdoms, flanneled by lonely sorts who don't have lives on Facebook. There's nothing worse than conventional thought reheated as originality.
Our phone conversations include Mrs Tel who appears onstage like a self-conscious kid in a school play with just one line to slaughter and then a whole scene stood watching the mains. "Say 'ello love" says Tel. "Ello darlin'" says Mrs Tel. Then she's gone as though murdered on the spot, not leaving a familial trace of her ever having been. No chuckles in the background. Nothing more.
""Avin' takeaway ternite, from the chippy, fancy fish'n'chips" said Tel, leerily on Friday morning, interrupting my train of thought on management restructures at work. I've not bothered with grub much this week. I do a big weekly shop and fill my freezer with stuff that I can cook easily, and quietly despair at the lack of variety. I'm eating more fruit and veg. I made veggie bake last night; cauliflower, potatoes, carrots, leeks and a nice béchamel sauce with herbs. It was delicious. I washed it down with a glass of orange squash and felt self-righteous. Breakfast is toast and marmalade. Lunch is normally a ham salad with coleslaw and wallies and a bit of leftover Xmas chutney. Simplicity is often better.
I watched the football yesterday evening clear of head and eye. It didn't help. I presume everyone else saw it, of those of you who can still be bothered watching eleven players go through the motions in front of cardboard supporters and echoing stadia. We were bloody dire at the back. McGuinness and Woolfie seemed to back off a lot. Brett Pitman, he who runs slowly and resembles someone living rough at the back of Yates, scared our defence.
Screaming at the telly, the sort of insults I'd usually reserve for moments when I stub my toe on furniture, we huffed and haltered back into things. Like a cut-price synthetic Arsenal, all little passes to nothing and no-one, all dawdling in front of the ball, all headless panic behind it.
I switched off when they went 3-1 up, juddering the remote, inadvertently changing the channel to a repeat episode of Antiques Road Trip; Anneka Rice cooing over a 'rather old statue'. I wondered if she'd been watching Stephen Ward attempt to play the wing as well.
Ho-hum. The acceptance is a dull ache somewhere unfathomable. Like a loose connection that you can never find, we totter on, forever destined to remain a beatable club in a tin-pot league, overstuffed with pretty little midfielders who try hard, but. I'm sure it won't change. We'll probably be the first to vote 'Yes' if the EFL fancy cancelling. Just to save on the lecky.
It's all a bit of a downer, innit? Long, drawn out and low. Never mind. Carry on Camping. Or Isolating. With Sid James as the lothario and Fenella Fielding as the looker. |  |
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| The Warky League 1 Report: Swindon (H) on 14:17 - Jan 10 with 615 views | Ftnfwest |
Love the pitman reference. I had him down as finally reaching’fat plumber’ status. Maybe he’s a fat homeless plumber (who’s still more lively than our defence) |  | | |
| The Warky League 1 Report: Swindon (H) on 15:09 - Jan 10 with 563 views | Eireannach_gorm |
| The Warky League 1 Report: Swindon (H) on 14:17 - Jan 10 by Ftnfwest |
Love the pitman reference. I had him down as finally reaching’fat plumber’ status. Maybe he’s a fat homeless plumber (who’s still more lively than our defence) |
Rather old statue was even better. Keep up the good work, Warky, its balm on the thousand cuts. |  | | |
| The Warky League 1 Report: Swindon (H) on 16:12 - Jan 10 with 519 views | Ace_High1 |
Keep healthy Warkers. [Post edited 10 Jan 2021 16:12]
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