Small hangover this morning.
Not a huge one…..I don’t do them any more, but one big enough to warrant my best filter coffee and not a coffee bag this morning.
When I was a singleton in Sheffield I was a big drinker.
Thursday nights were always “ Nurse” nights at The Ledmill where taxies home were only a fiver and cheesy chips could still be bought on Hillsborough corner before locking up.
Monday night was always a pub quiz in Walkley. Then Walkley was a cross between an up-and-coming and a down-in-heel residential village perched on one of Sheffield’s seven hills.
It was full of terraced houses, mostly filled by nurses and University Staff who couldn’t afford Crooks and Broomhill and often on my drunken walks home to Hillsborough , down in the valley, I would help myself to flowers growing in the tiny front gardens, no bigger than an average coffin.
( as you may realise my relationship with cut flowers stems many years)
One day, after a rather heavy lock in post quiz , I remember waking up to hundreds of daffodils , all crammed in a plethora of containers , cups, vases, saucepans, milk bottles, The KETTLE !
There were hundreds of them all over the house
Several hundred in fact……
And perched, pride of place, inside my Charlotte Rhead vase was a single, and obviously much prized, black tulip
God knows where I got that from
I remember nights at the Leadmill with my late husband who was born and brought up in Sheffield, it was one of those places that when you walked in you stuck to the floor but always a great atmosphere. Heather
ReplyDeleteI adored the Ledmill …dancing to ABBA like a loon
DeleteSarah here. I was a staff nurse on Brierly 2 Northern General in the 1990s I remember Thursday nights a great deal , and I remember seeing all the chaps in their wheelchairs from lodge moor
DeleteThis warmed my heart, although sorry to read about all the hangovers. My sisters favorite flower was the daffodil. She regularly brought a bunch home for my mother from the kiosk by the subway station. She’s buried in Sheffield.
ReplyDeleteOur paths have crossed before x
DeleteIt's awful when you wake up in the morning and cannot remember what you did the night before. Fortunately this hasn't happened to me in decades. The proud gardeners of Lower Walkley would have probably had your guts for garters if they had caught you.
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely …..YP where you a fan of the Ledmill?
DeleteI wouldn't say I was a "fan" but I did go there a few times, witnessing some great music.
DeleteGardeners all over town were cursing you!
ReplyDeleteQuite rightly Steve
DeleteGood job there was no such thing as CCTV then!
ReplyDeleteOr mobile phones
DeleteOlder and wise enough to not do that again.
ReplyDeleteI haven’t stolen anything in a drunken state since I was in New York (2001)
DeleteI wonder whose garden you raided. I bet they weren't too pleased in the morning! I quit drinking alcohol back in the early 1990s and I have never missed it!
ReplyDeleteYes the poor homeowner , but on reflection I think most of them were stolen from the area near Hillsborough library ..( still no excuse) lol
DeleteHmmm... I would be sorely vexed if some drunken young man had pinched my prize blooms! Hope the hangover has now receded.
ReplyDeleteMe too…it was dreadful behaviour ..I’m only remembering not glorifying
DeleteJohn - I still think you should be putting all this into a book. There is a chapter here with a bit of embroidery.
ReplyDeleteOh yes…I won’t ever repeat the party we went to in a ex patients house ( spinal injury) where I stole an expensive oil painting
DeleteWhen an art student my daughter had a room in a house share, the rest were student nurses. They got tanked up on small bottled G&Ts and the like before going out on the bevvy...and made a huge racket when returning in the wee small hours..even more than the junior doctors next door!!
ReplyDeleteNurses in my experience, can cause more havoc on a night out than any other minority ( apart from rugby players)
DeleteWork hard……play hard
DeleteHaha ... I had to laugh. These days you would have made all the headlines on social media. 'Mystery thief steals ALL the daffodils from the gardens of two streets in Sheffield'.
ReplyDeleteI would have either filmed doing it, by the homeowner or filmed by myself doing it
DeleteWhen reading your title, I wondered about daffodils blooming at your latitude but they do continue to bloom in memory. Another for your book!
ReplyDeleteHugs!
Daffodils are the flower of Wales
DeleteDrunken THIEF. Heard of karma? If so you won't be too disappointed if someone steals from your garden.
ReplyDeleteI've done things I regret but I've never been a thief. You however seem to think it's acceptable to boast about it.
Hands up totally, I Was very badly behaved
DeleteI’m not boasting at all, just remembering
DeleteI just knew Anon would rear it's ugly head. Outing you as a thief; you beat them to it though with your post. Sad really, what is it that they hate about you..I can never understand such vitriol. Myself I love your posts.
DeleteJo in Auckland
I am laughing at the ending....I was waiting for the big reveal that your friends or a friend had done it. Not a sauced person in your own bed. Beth
ReplyDeleteFunny story. Lucky you did not get caught.
ReplyDeleteWat's funny about stealing? Those people will have worked hard for the money to buy bulbs and some scrote steals them.
DeleteI deserved a punch in the head , the stupidity of younth
DeleteAnd it’s what’s not wat
DeleteYou're hardly qualified to judge someone's English or spelling when your own is often attrocious.
DeleteI’m still right though !! Lol
DeletePs it’s atrocious with one t
DeleteFucking funny lol
DeleteDiane
Hahaha! P'ing myself here.
DeleteJo in Auckland
She really is an arsehole isn’t she?
DeleteI remember "curing" hangovers by going back to the pub the next morning! Foolish youth that I was x
ReplyDeleteI’ve never done that , but I have washed patients with an oxygen mask on ( a great cure for a headache)
DeleteAu Revoir - Adieu - Goodbye
ReplyDeleteWho am I replying with ? And saying goodbye to?
DeleteAnonymous John. Bye.
DeleteThere must be a meaning to this goodbye but you are playing games
DeleteI can relate as I did some things in my youth that I not particularly proud of. My partner remembers swinging from a village signpost - one of those lovely cast iron ones - and yes he broke it. To be fair he was about 14 but even so. He also used to pinch those red road lanterns…I should stop now.
ReplyDeleteI wouldn’t trust anyone who hasn’t done something wrong along the way
DeleteI was quite the hell-raiser when I was young, did a lot of things that I regret. Youth can be a foolish thing, I survived, but I am not proud of a lot of the things I did. Good of you to admit......
ReplyDeleteWe are all arseholes when growing up…I’m just a natural thief when drunk…..I have also stolen a painting and several pieces of silver but returned the stuff before the party was over
DeleteYou have reminded me of a similar tale John.
ReplyDeleteSo we are talking terraced houses and the boys had been to watch the Arsenal and they won a V. Important Match. A few too many celebratory sherberts later, the lads arrived at our house. Where us girls and assorted children were waiting their return. Our next door neighbour had some lovely pink roses which were still in bloom in his front garden and the boys (average age 30) decided to pick most of the petals then knock at our door throwing said petals all over the path in greeting!
Hauling them indoors, with a clip round the ears, a dustpan and brush swifty scooped up the blooms, and as the owners were out, we stayed schtumm and never told them what had happened to the flowers. Probably some bored youngsters at work! The lads got a right telling off anyway and no further alcohol was available to them, we carried on drinking though! Tess
Arrrhhhh “ it was a good idea at the time” phrase always comes to mind
DeleteHello john,
DeleteI have been thinking about your commentator who always “ looks for the black side of your nature”.
Their vitriol seems overblown and designed to illicit comments rather than to just insult you.
They ring hollow to me, and strike me as almost false.
The psychology of such behaviour is lost on me, a damaged soul is the phrase that comes to my mind.
Keith
Xx
Don’t worry your head, Keith dearheart x
DeleteIt was well after midnight , probably 1 am when the terrible deeds were done
ReplyDeleteNaughty …..naughty
ReplyDeleteLOL. I had a vision of a very drunk version of Tiny Tim tiptoeing through the daffodils singing to the moon. And finally, with his arms full of daffodils he sees one black tulip.
ReplyDeleteI can always predict when someone is about to lecture you,lol. Actually that's not right...I never would have thought your recent "lists" blog would bring about criticism,yet there it was.
ReplyDeleteMany years ago we lived on a farm in Kent, one day when the farmer was away there was a big storm, and the wind blew many walnuts from the tree. I happily carried many armfuls of walnuts home and put them in our bathtub. I have always felt bad about that.
ReplyDeleteI bet it all smelled wonderful!
ReplyDeleteCeci
When I was 18 I lived in a share house by the beach where half the houses were old beach shacks and half mcmansions. (All mansions now.) I exercised racehorses at that time and had to be up by 5am 6 days a week and would get very crabby about the parties that went long into every night. Most people were still at home and used our house as the party house. One morning I got up and found these planters full of large plants on the front verandah. The 3 twits I lived with and their drunken mates had stolen them from the front step TWO DOORS DOWN! They were obvious as dog balls. The owner later that day came and got them, not saying a word. It was a more tolerant time! Tina in west oz.
ReplyDeleteI would be unwilling to drink as much as I have done occasionally when younger. That feeling when sobering up of embarrassment, guilt or horror at a dangerous situation I just about escaped! Takes the fun out of it somewhat. Although I can't help laughing at the thought of you waking to see all those daffodils and some even in the kettle.
ReplyDeleteI remember a friend of mine taking a liking to some shrubs on the way home one night. He pulled them out of the ground roots and all and took them home to his garden less apartment
ReplyDeleteHarbingers of spring on the first day of the meterological autumn. My favourite daffodil is the tiny Welsh daffodil. And the best daffodil quote is nothing to do with Wordsworth, but Tom Odell's beautiful song Another Love - "I brought you daffodils in a pretty string, but they won't flower like they did last spring." A forest of feeling in one deceptively simple line.
ReplyDelete