Welcome back. I've just walked in at home. Mrs Tel dropped me. They've returned to their saleable asset in Halstead for a late dinner of prime rib-eye steak cooked on their grill with mustard butter and served with chips and asparagus. I'm debating between M&S Quarter Peking duck, M&S cod fillet wrapped in parma ham and served with new season salad potatoes and local farm shop cabbage and granny smith coleslaw, or cauliflower cheese made with taleggio and Keens cheddar with a gammon steak. Might do the cauliflower cheese and gammon. The peking duck can wait until tomorrow.
I've sat with Tel since 9.30am. Mainly drinking pints and 'catching up'; his news, the gossip about Paula and her ongoing trials as a single parent, adrift in a world where independence seems to be a government-led punishment. My Dad is fine, I reassured him as he got my news out the way quick. My job is largely specious to him - it happens and I get paid from it, but as to the technicalities of it, well, it might just as well be brain surgery or rocket ship maintenance for Elon Musk; he doesn't understand it and so treats it with mild contempt.
It started in my kitchen and developed further as we caught the train from Manningtree; him moaning about the sudden incipient chill from the wind as we walked down the hill, me sanguine in my wind cheater and wooly jumper combo which he'd scoffed at around 9.30am. "S'not gonna be that bleedin' cold terday is it?" He monopolised the conversation. Sale of his home ("not 'ad a sniff yet, only two's come rand ter view it this week, still, Easta innit? It picks up agen on Toosdy, got free more by Fursdy"). My 51st birthday on Friday and his party for me next Saturday ("Come rand about six, we'll 'ave some beers before the Indian, don't open til 6.30 anyway"). Mrs Tel ("she's drivin' me nuts abart the 'ouse. Don't want 'arwich agen Tel. We've started lookin' at Ramsay. And Oakley, bofe of 'em"). On and on it went.
Mrs Tel is fine. I'm conscious I've missed a bit of her in the last few months and people who know me always ask how she is, possibly because I've not really 'fleshed her out' as it were in these reports much. Today she wore a neon pink Ipswich away shirt, a three-quarter length leather jacket in charcoal grey and a pair of indigo Levi's. The Ipswich shirt threw me a bit, mainly because I sold my season ticket back to the club for today's penultimate home game as Terry's neighbour in SAR upper couldn't make it and gave him his ST so I sat next to him. More anon. If you can stand it.
Mrs Tel is fine. I've said that already, haven't I? She's still a full member of Thorpe-le-Soken's finest establishment The Lifehouse, and she still goes regularly with Sandy as they did yesterday, for facials and swims and general women-style pampering and the odd strangely-named mocktail as neither now drink the hard stuff, probably for fear of replacing those sweated calories. She gave me a kiss on meeting and smelt lady-like. Thierry Mugler and a passing shot of Anais Anais hand cream. She's looking forward to Marbella in June. They're having a weekender in London to see that Abba thing fairly soon.
The conversation from Tel changed to all things footy as we entered the pub. He watched the scum lose 5-3 on Friday and was confident we'd redress the balance of Town on top next season. He related the Pompey goals like a man describing a new train journey; details were innate, the hint of a funny thing never far from the tone. He sank his new pint quickly and went for another for us both.
We left at one-forty. He was eagerly eyeing the side dishes of roast spuds they started serving for lunch. We'd had light snacks, him some loaded chips, me a dish of chicken wings in bourbon sauce. No Broadhead. Delap on the bench with someone called Boniface. He looked hopefully at me and I shook my head. Some kid we'd promoted to taste the tears of a heavy home defeat? We took our seats, him puffing at the climb up the stairs, me feeling a bit precarious in the upper SAR, as though encamped on the side of the Eiger.
You all saw the game so I'll spare it again. Tel snorted, sang a few songs, looked pained when Davis was red-carded "Whaffor? Thass a yellow all day! If that'd been Rice, he'd've got a bleedin' yella. Ref's a tosser". But we were clearly, keenly second-best all game. The late arrival of Chappers was the only bright spot.
"We need a few in fer nex' season to make that a team" said Tel afterwards. He'd have also played Woolfy rather than Greaves, who he seems ambivalent about. "Don' mind if we sell 'im to be fair, never seems to be readin' it right. Mind, who'd pay the money?".
Collected at Manningtree by Mrs Tel who'd had an Easter Sunday at home, tidying up. Tel gave her a smooch and said "Lost four-nil" as she opened her mouth to ask. He said it quickly, as though heading off any further comment and, to be fair to him, it worked. She had the radio set on Classic Gold or one of those channels that plays Fleetwood Mac a lot and Supertramp came on with Breakfast in America, which used to be one of my late Mum's favourites, so we all sang along. I was surprised Tel knew most of the words, thinking him an old punk and therefore immune to the pleasures of Supertramp and ELO and that. Just goes to show you can't ever tell.
To paraphrase ELO, it's a Strange Magic in the Prem. I've not exactly enjoyed it, but I have enjoyed some of it, especially the wins against the odds. Just Brentford and West Ham to go at home, two of the games Terry is most looking forward to before we drop back into the more settled waters of everyone being able to beat everyone else and the expectation from the fans starting to ramp up high again. I hope for two wins but, to be honest, I've hoped for two wins before and it didn't happen.
C'est La Vie |  |
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