Yes - 47 years young today.....it seems longer. Now teetering towards fifty, when I'm supposed to have officially grown up and checking my pension pots and worrying about the grey hairs amongst those in my nethers and on my bonce.
This morning's walk was chilly but fresh, the wildlife reticent except for the dogs being walked. A buzzard took off in fright from a field, soaring up to the heavens on fingered wings. A kestrel hovered near the towpath, head bent, watching something small and furry. Two dog owners grunted 'Mornin's' at me as I passed. I'm becoming known. I might even have my own nickname. My money's on 'fat plonky Harry-no-dog'. That's what I'd call me if I saw me coming at 7am on a Sunday.
I've given them nicknames (clearly ignorant of real names as we don't stop for a chat, which is something very modern and bad mannered). There's the bloke who looks like 80's Spurs striker Steve Archibald, with his greyhound/whippet thing that seems scared of me and therefore gives me a massively wide berth, even venturing into nearby fields to avoid contact. He's 'Archibald's Ghost' due to his wan complexion and habit of never uttering a sound. We've got 'Proud Mary', an overweight women with an arse like two beachballs ('Big wheels keep on turnin'") who rolls to the river and has an overbearingly loud voice when she calls her spaniel Rusty ("Oi Rusty, 'ere!"). Then there's 'Captain Beaky', a bloke with a big hooter who wears a Chelsea baseball cap and walks a friendly Staffie he calls Sid who cocks his leg a lot (Pissing Sid). There are others, but they haven't earned a nickname yet. They're yer crowd cast.
Tel celebrated my birthday with me last night, a paean of several pints in the pub from five, followed by a taxi back to his and a Chinese takeaway of such proportions that my belches still taste of chilli sauce and aromatic fried stuff this morning. We met in the pub on Friday as well, sat outside in the sun, the breeze rippling the Coke umbrella at our table. "Nicer now 'e's cut the bleedin' grass innit?" said Tel, dipping an index finger into his pint of Estrella to remove an adventurous insect of some description. The pub was half-full with people who looked like walkers, enjoying liquid refreshments after a slog around the Constable trail, backpacks slung carelessly on seats. One bloke even ordered a mineral water with a straight face. "Bleedin' warter in a boozer" said Tel contemptuously. The food, a strange mix of traditional pub fare and the deep-fried exotica of Iceland (not the country- the cheapo supermarket), kept coming on plates and dishes doled out by the face-shielded staff.
The bloke who picked us up in the Taxi was Liam, one of the local drivers we've had before, a man whose wife left him in mysterious circumstances last year and was never seen or heard of again. Tel thinks he murdered her. No, sorry, Tel is convinced he murdered her. He's wary around Liam as a result, lest an unguarded word should suddenly, like the Incredible Hulk, make him angry. So we passed the drive to Tel's ("'E knars where ah live'n'all" said Tel, meaningfully) having upbeat conversations which sounded a bit banal, like Geoffrey from Rainbow to Bungle.
Mrs Tel greeted me at their door with a kiss and a hug. She smelt like she'd showered in neat Anais Anais, her black Levi's and classic "The Jam" T-shirt a bit looser than I'd remembered. We went for a cigarette, Mrs Tel trailing behind as I opened their patio doors, Tel gone for drinks. The patio was a bit messy as they're having a fountain installed in the garden, but the chairs were out and we lit up, me pretending to admire the base of the new fountain which was, in truth, just three concrete breeze blocks cemented together.
"Lovely innit?" she said, looking up at the cloudless climes. I nodded. She asked me if I was pleased to nearly be a year older, and I replied, honestly, that like every other birthday, nothing felt different. I'd had previous birthdays which were a pleasure; the trip to Barcelona with the wife on my 40th, the night in London when I awoke in a strange woman's bed on my 30th. I've also had bad ones; the sickness and diarrhoea after my 21st, the hospital stay for major surgery on my 17th, the food poisoning episode on my 28th in Portugal. I can remember great times with the Town on my birthday; winning promotion at Oxford United on my 18th in 1992, the play-offs in 1999. As a child, my birthday treat was a trip to PR around this time if they were at home. I watched us beat Oxford in 1986 to nearly stay up. They were better days.
The Terry's bought me a cake, one with the Ipswich badge sugar-pasted on the top which I took home as no-one fancied a bit after the Chinese. They also bought me a bottle of Taittinger champers, a bottle of George Clooney's tequila (Casamiras) and a bottle of Cloudy Bay sauvignon blanc. I thanked them profusely. Tel said "Well, yer catchin' us up aint ya? Need to start drinkin' proper booze at your age, you do. I'm sick'o' seein' yer drop them Guinnesses. Bleedin' Mick muck".
Mrs Tel is going into hospital for her yearly "Ladies Things" check next week. The appointment came with more leaflets about Covid prevention than I'd seen in my local GP Surgery. She seems unfazed by it all, accepting it as a requirement of her condition, which I've never really asked too much about. It involves terms like 'pelvic floor' and 'uterine disengagement measurement". It's 'down there'. That's all I need to know.
We hugged again as I left. I didn't watch the Town draw 0-0 again. Balls to that. Even as a birthday tradition, it seemed pointless. That's the shame of it all; I never missed a game around my birthday, even when we were so bad it was a foregone conclusion. Tel had us for the draw on the footy bet again, so at least someone's happy. I'm off to my parents in a mo for Sunday lunch with champagne and a few pressies and a stay there tonight so I can sleep off the excess of wine and whisky. He'll give me the gentle piss-take about the fortunes of my footy club, probably with a tinge of sadness at the futility of it all, with Super Leagues in the offing and another season becalmed in mid-table in a league where even the crappest team can succeed if they fight a bit.
Take care folks. See you soon.
Warky - 25th April 2021 - aged 47 years 0 days. |  |
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