Work, walking, good diet and not drinking. The sort of life I'd have had nightmares about last year; health, wealth and an uncanny knack of ordering slightly-too large clothing online.
Convinced by previous forays into the world of online clothing that most stuff needs to be a size larger than I usually wear, I end up ordering stuff that sags and bags on me like a tent from Millets. Still, it's comfy. Who cares if the crotch of those jogging bottoms summons the memory of MC Hammer videos on MTV in 1990? You can't touch this? No-one would want to. It could start a new trend; lockdown loose. Most of Cotton Traders stuff is also very easy to wash and iron. It gets here in two days. No 'international shipping' or any of that malarkey. It's just, well, depressingly safe. Striped rugger shirts, plain joggers and chinos. The uniform of a man who has given up and taken safe over sexy.
Tel is slowly adapting to lockdown life. He came over on Thursday afternoon, ostensibly for a chat and a beer, dropped by Mrs Tel who sat resolutely in the car with the windows wound up and waved from the driver's seat. "She wants ter go'an'see Tone and Sandy an' the kids but they're still isolatin' after that Corona so...." he trailed off as I got a beer from the fridge. A Hophouse lager. He eyed it critically and then sipped, slowly, lest it be as bad as he expected. It wasn't. He relaxed and gulped more. "Nice this" he said, slightly breathlessly. "I'm on ter Superbock at 'ome, they were on offer in Tesco". I have three bottles of lager I left when I stopped drinking. The Hophouse, a Cobra and a big Corona, all of which i left in case Tel dropped by. I made a lime and soda and sat drinking it with him. "Bleedin' serious abart this teetotal lark then?" he said. I nodded.
"Fing is, ennyfing can make yer guts dodgy" said Tel conversationally, harking back to the incident two weeks ago which left me convinced that alcohol was affecting me. "Missus'n'I 'ad a pizza delivered on Tuesdy an' we bofe felt dodgy the nex' mornin'. I could only eat two bits'a'toast for breakfast on Wensdy. Thass un'eard of fer me. I'm usually four bits wit butter an' Marmite an' a big cuppa". He looked crestfallen at the memory. "Pebbledashed the bog" he added, unnecessarily.
This wasn't just a stomach ache though. They did liver readings and blood tests and my liver is enlarged and my kidneys aren't functioning as well as they should. It's too much drink. I also had the beginnings of gout, apparently. So I stopped and I feel brilliant for it. Sleep is better. More energy. I walk further. Give the fags up and I could be entering a fitness renaissance for 2021. And how many can say that?
Tel snorted. He's gone off walking ever since that day before Christmas that we went for one. "Wait til the Spring, might join yer then, bit warmer an' less wet and that". I now do a circuit walk near home, six miles in all there and back, through the dripping countryside. Yesterday's was through the light covering of snow that hit us early, the flakes driving into my face, each step a crunch rather than a wet sloosh. I saw a Barn owl in the murk and a fox and what looked like a badger but could just have been a cat. I came home with raw, red face and hands and made a cooked breakfast; egg, sausage, bacon, beans, grilled tomatoes and a few slices of toast and sat reading the papers and sipping hot tea and felt wonderful.
Tel stayed for a snack, chinese bits I'd been to our local M&S for. Prawn toasts, dumplings, funny money-bag shaped thingies full of crunchy veg and pork and prawns. I made a curry for last night, king prawns, coconut milk, peanut satay sauce and extra chillis. It was lovely with a few noodles and some mange tout. I added mango pieces and some potatoes to it and let the remainder go cold. I had it cold for breakfast this morning with a frozen naan I reheated. Bloody delicious.
I missed the Ipswich game; couldn't be arsed to pay the tenner for the pleasure. I went for another afternoon walk in the rain and through the remaining slush. It felt like a naughty treat, a glorious effortful waste of time on a Saturday. These used to be sacrosanct, Saturdays, a day in the week when I wasn't working and could get jobs done like shopping and housework and still see people at Ipswich home games, rushing off on the train to be disappointed by the match, reeling home drunk for a curry. Now it's like a 'lost weekend' wandering round a stately home on your own, finding little bits of interest. We did this a lot when I was a nipper. My mum loved stately homes. I remember spending a Saturday dressed in an approximation of Tudor gear made by my mum, at a re-enactment at Kentwell Hall in Melford, one hot summer day when the smell of woodsmoke was pervasive and the peaches were ripe and I got moaned at for dripping the juice down my tunic.
They were great days. I still get a funny feeling of warmth and sun when I smell woodsmoke. Like sitting in a pub garden under an umbrella at a wooden table drinking Coke through a straw, or strawberry-picking in the local PYO, all sunburn and red squashed smudges and gritty knees, or going on the beach at Frinton, with the smell of Amber Solaire and the eighties Laura Ashley floral skirts and the picnics of cool bag ham sarnies and quartered pork pies and a Dracula ice lolly from the Mr Softee van parked near the Greensward. Washing the sand from feet at the taps and ingesting it with the sarnies. Great days.
I came home in time for the results on Sky. Leeds lost. Derby lost. The grins were starting. Then the Burton score flashed and the grin was complete. Tinged with ambivalence though, for I've started the process of being ambivalent where we are concerned. It only hurts more when we fail if you hope. I think we will fail as well. Other teams seem so much more 'up for it' than we do. Plus we play as pedestrian-like as Ipswich town centre. Minus the aged/fat on their disability scooters.
It's said that you hark back to childhood memories when you're depressed. But I'm not. I'm fed up with the lack of unnecessary shops open which sell clothing I can try before buying, and I miss the Town sometimes, but mainly just the socialising bit, not the football, the crowd, seeing friends, listening to the smartarse comments and singing the songs. I don't miss the spots, the feelings of unworthiness, the fumbled attempts to remove a bra, the lackadaisick efforts in school, the novelty erasers which smelt like Coke or strawberries, the double maths on a Friday, the double PE on a Monday, the grey slacks and badly-knotted ties, the smell of cabbage at lunch, the latest Smash Hits with Sonia or Five Star on the front, the expectations which I was unworthy enough to disappoint.
I don't miss anything really. I've adapted. And, though it is often lonely, this is it. Get on with it. |  |
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