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It was Long Melford on Friday. A rare day off and a father who wanted to look for antiquities; just look, in case the traders had a surfeit of stuff that would suit a dresser or an occasional table. So I dressed in casual leather coat and jeans and looked like Lovejoy in Lovejoy country. Dad wore tweed and thin corduroy. His ageing sand boots squelched crepe soles in the mizzle. Melford, as ever, was wet, dead yet strangely alluring.
We arrived early as parking is a factor. Early enough to allow large china mugs of tea and bacon sandwiches in a local cafe. Or is it really a tearoom? Would it prefer to be a tearoom? It felt more like a tearoom, certainly. Paper doilies on tables and 'positive' signs on walls carved by machinery into Farrow and Ball painted placards which gave homilies about being kind and keeping on. A bacon sandwich was £12. Nothing kind in that. It came dressed with scraggly leaves of rocket and a bit of chopped pepper. The bread was toasted. The bacon was elastoplast fried until bubbles appeared. Still, a good squirt of HP and you could pretend well enough. Truth is, and I didn't admit it to Dad, I've had better in Wetherspoons at a third of the price. Still.....
Shorn of £30 for an unfulfilling breakfast (and I remember the days when £30 got you a sit-down meal for two with a glass of sh** wine chucked in), we re-entered the gloom and the damp to walk to Antique shop Number One. This was a converted warehouse, filled with stuff that glittered in the lights behind display cabinets and would have thrilled magpies or yanks. Indeed, it did thrill the American couple we walked in behind. He trilled to his wife about Olde England and our obsession with buying tat which preceded the Victorians, although he didn't say it like that, he was more effusive in his admiration. That was my affectation. We wandered, planting cursory glances at cigarette cases and trinkets and ornaments of maidens figured by Doulton and carrying prices which caused much wincing and rejection.
We came out, blinking into the gloom and purchase-less. An hour we'll both never recover, yet one which affirmed what we definitely DIDN'T want. This list was necessarily brief and involved not spending more than £100 on a single item and not coming home with anything too decorative. Or flashy as Dad put it. Given that ruled out 90% of the stock, we moved on in happy resolution. I started eyeing my watch to see when the pubs might be open. Dad mentioned a quick snifter a few times. Still a good hour and a half to go.
When we finally drank it, he a small Gordons and tonic, me a half of Nethergate Best (driving), we'd trawled all the stores, I'd got bored, he'd fingered lacquered surfaces and debated old Dinky models from the fifties, the chipped, bald-tyred dust-grimed state belying the age. He bought an antique alarm clock from a store for £40. Gilted case, bakelite dial, made a sound like a f**ked rape alarm let off underwater when it was set. It's disappeared into his home already, probably only to be found when I have to clear it post-mortem. He was happy though and that's the thing. You can raise eyebrows as much as you like, but if it makes him happy, it can't be that bad as Sheryl Crow once sang.
Yesterday. The nerves struck me early on the morning walk as I thought about Coventry at home. They'd been on some run. We were coming off the back of a drear performance at Oxford and the sort of no-show you'd expect of teenagers for an early morning appointment when we played Blackburn. I prayed in my head as I negotiated the muddy, wet lanes. Please don't splash mud too badly up my jeans and please, please don't let him play Akpom in the 10 role. Or Ashley Young at right-back.
In the end I had to change my jeans. Newly washed pair, tight on the thighs when first on but they stretched to be comfortable when I sat. It boded good omens.
Terry arrived at 10am. Dropped by Mrs Tel who was Christmas Shopping with her niece and sister-in-law at Bury St Edmunds. Ladies who lunch. They'd booked a restaurant for that. She kissed me from the driver's seat and the overwhelming whiff of Anais Anais perfume strayed to my left cheek where it could still be detected several hours later.
Tel was feeling chipper. He's ended his previous driving/portering job because his back started playing up. The pain went two days later, which caused him a spasm of regret at being too hasty, but they've already filled his former role, so he's out of a job again and back into the lassitude of semi-retirement. "Bleedin' back wasn't 'arf grotty for a bit" he explained, as medically astute as he was literate.
He dressed like Scott of the Antarctic. Clearly anticipating coldness, he wore an Yves St Laurent padded coat, a Helly Hanson jumper, two t-shirts and black Levis. He had to take the coat and the jumper off in the pub. Then he wore it unzipped as he couldn't be arsed carrying it.
We got the train after two cold pints of Cruzcampo in the Station Cafe. I've stopped drinking Guinness. It does unfortunate things to my internal organs. I stuck to the ale in the pub. They had several Xmas themed ones on cheap. They were OK. We ate a selection of pigs in blankets and cheese toasties and mini sliders with our beer. They were quite nice. Tel winced for effect every time he had to get up to go to the bar. The act of carrying two full pint glasses back made him make 'Oh' expressions. I advised him that he probably needed a chiropractor and he looked offended. "Bleedin' don't" he said with asperity. Then he asked if I was putting weight on deliberately.
The game! What a game it was. We parted ways at the Curve bar, him to walk to Sir Alf, me to join the throngs waiting to be admitted to SBRL. A cursory scan with a paddle-shaped thingy by a security person and I was in, just as the teams came out and the local kids waved their flags.
My initial fears were unfounded. It was probably our strongest team. I joined in with the fist-bumping and the joshing and tested the old voice early to the strains of Hey Jude. Why we bother playing that before we kick off is a mystery. Still, we've been doing it for a while. Like the antiques we saw in Melford the day previous, it'll still be around long after I'm not, I suppose.
The walk back to the station, punctuated by knots of Coventry fans proclaiming they knew we'd do them and generally denigrating the local surroundings, was sweet. Especially as I've been to Coventry. The Germans never went far enough, in my opinion. It's the only place you leave feeling grateful to be in Birmingham.
Tel joined me for a few in the pub and they we walked over the road and had a curry. I had the chicken shashlik with mint sauce and the poppadoms and king prawn biryani with some of the sauce from Tel's King Prawn Madras and we gulped Cobra like it was nectar. Mrs Tel met us in the pub over post-prandial brandies and had a small Baileys with ice. They've invited me for Christmas already, and also my dad so we're drawing up rotas for who brings what. We've drawn the booze. So it's shopping next weekend. Oh joy. More bloody shopping.....
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