Greetings from the gutters somewhere around Manningtree.
I fell in one the other night. Fortunately it was dry. Walking home from the pub, tipsy (not paralytic, oh no, not me) and I misjudged the pavement. Bang, straight down, fortunately no-one saw and thus came over to help the fat old man back to his feet. Bruised knee. Grazed leg. Sore feelings. That's about the size of it.
In other news (which has been seldom), the Terries are in Spain for three weeks, just as we've got hotter weather here. They're back on Friday week. Not Marbella. Tel couldn't actually pronounce where they'd gone but it sounded like someone we should be signing for that tricky right wing position, Playa de something. It's near Malaga. Five star resort apparently.
"Needed a bit'o'heat, like" he said before he went. After his housewarming party in late May, when the weather was a bit chillier and his lawn looked like it could do with a cut and tidy. The housewarming was a bit of a mis-event as it turned out - there were fifteen of us in the end, including myself, Tony, Sandy, their son (Tel's nephew Simon who was allowed two of his mates and who b*ggered off into Braintree about an hour after they'd arrived - the foibles of youth) and a few assorted Halsteadians and former Dovercourteans. No-one else that I knew. Paula didn't make it, as expected. She's three months pregnant. It seems a lifetime ago. Probably doesn't seem like yesterday to you all. That's the magic of these reports. Heartache, splits and new beginnings can be glossed.
Anyway, we all drank plenty and avoided the barbecue and chatted and then it lulled after the food and Tel, Tone and I started on the brandy and became secular, debating where his longed-for pool should go and discussing how he'd need a gardener.
Mrs Tel bummed fags off me and looked serene in her Stranglers T-Shirt and blue Levis and black wool cardigan. She's taken up Pilates, which she pronounced to sound like Pirates, which is what I swore she said when she mentioned it to me as we sat puffing on their new patio ("Free Fousand quid an' they're cummin back like to sort the water feacher" said Tel when I admired it). Bit old to be playing pirates I thought. Then she mentioned standing on one leg and I had a brief and unsavoury mental image of her wearing an eyepatch and Yo-ho-hoing with a parrot on her shoulder. But then she showed me a rubbery mat and I realised she meant Pilates. "Ah can do a handstand agen'n 'i'm nearly 60" she said provocatively, like Anne Bancroft to Dustin Hoffman in the Graduate. I smiled sweetly, tempted to ask her to prove it, but then realising it'd be difficult on five large Bacardi and Cokes and several bits of barbecued meat. So I just sounded sort of impressed instead.
I stayed the night and helped them clean up. Then Mrs Tel drove me home in the early afternoon, with Tel, so he could come and have a pint in his old local and she could go and see their old neighbours and spy on their former home. And now they're in Spain.
The fixture list, that first taste of a new season, is out next Thursday. I'm going for away to West Brom on the opening day, home to QPR after. It could realistically be anyone except Norwich. I haven't been keeping up with developments off the field, although several gratifyingly optimistic (though probably erroneous) reports of players we're after, mainly from Coventry and Brum fans who are pleased we're back and not any longer because they think it'll be six easy points next season, oh no, we're a different kettle of fish these days and the word I'd use when they banter with me is respect. Tinged with a bit of fear that we'll be difficult opposition. Still, I'd happily take Hamer and Gyokeres and Khadra. Although I'd wonder how we'd fit them into the team and surely Gyokeres and Hamer are beyond even the Gamechanger budget?
Still, with midlands away days to be planned and pubs and hotels to be booked (on the credit card, which I've now cleared ready, and which took me the months following Paula's departure to acclimatise the balance; her being the main reason it was gently hammered in the first place) it's looking likely to be an expensive season. I've been making promises to come to St Andrews, The Ricoh, The King Power, the Hawthorns and even Molineux from the Wolves supporters who would like to introduce me to their environs even though I've got them pencilled for relegation with Luton and Bournemouth next season. I've been ignored by the solitary Stoke fan, who doesn't really work at the Birmingham office anyway. The only other supporters we have are either Villa (dreaming of the Champions League qualification and who regard the rest of us with a patronising smirk) and the odd Walsall who everyone looks down on, much as they did with me when we were in League One.
Anyway. The Ashes starts in a mo, so must be going. I'm off for a weekend in Huntingdon tomorrow so this'll probably be the only day I get to see any play. We're going to Bruges in a few weeks, just before the school holidays start, so I'll try and fit another report in when I come back, hopefully with new signings and a sense of the season being only a few weeks away.
Happy, sun-kissed days to you wherever you may be.
Love
Warky |  |
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