Mrs Trellis

Mrs Trellis doing the raffle at one of my allotment open days

I caught up with Mrs Trellis this morning in both meanings of the word as Mary and I came across her on the Marian road trying to pull her Greyhound, Blue off a dead rabbit.
She's had new kitchen tops, and has been to the Cotswolds with Voel coaches.
Blue went for Mary as he thought she was after his rabbit, but Mary wasn't bothered. She's too quick for even a greyhound to catch.
Mrs Trellis was bounced around the lane in her effort to keep him under control.
Her long white hair was blowing untidily in the wind.
I told her we were off to New York soon, but she didn't seem very interested and seemed more preoccupied with a long story about Church business than the Oyster bar under Grand Central.
We walked past the footpath on the side of Gop Hill and talked some more about this and that

" It's very hard being on your own" she mused " People think that they can take advantage"
I didn't explore it any further , I didn't have the time.

Audit

" What have you done today darling?" 
So asked The Prof over a very passable low fat lasagne
" Not much" I told him
Nothing could be further from the truth.
Fucking kitchen tiles! That's what I've been sorting out today....fucking kitchen tiles

Project managing!
I've made an audit of" tile-gate" that's how Effin sad I am
65 minutes on line, (the line has been discontinued after I bought half the tiles!
14 phone calls ( yes 14!) - approx 1 hour 20 minutes of my time
One 20 minute visit and quote from the lovely old tiler who fell in love with Winnie and who promised her ( and not me) that she could watch him lay every tile!
Oh and  one 40 minute journey to B&Q to buy that last box which some fucker had removed three tiles!
All for 5 square metres of ceramic

It was bloody less stressful looking after a ventilated patient on ITU

" Dangerous Jonney"

I've never had a car accident...caused hundreds.....never had one!
So goes the old joke.
I'm not one of the most confident of drivers it must be said
This drives the Prof to apoplectic distraction .
Surprise surprise he is a very confident motorist.
He calls me " Dangerous Jonney"
I passed my driving test first time and my driving instructor eyebrows left his forehead when I told him.
"I'm a better teacher than I thought" he quipped as we shook hands before I drove off in my Austin 1300.
I was too happy to notice the irony .

Date Night

The Prof and I went to Liverpool tonight to see the Liverpool Philharmonic orchestra perform Mendelssohn's Fingal's Cave.
The music was lovely! The audience was geriatric, the ginger ice cream at the interval was refreshing, my haphazard negotiation of the traffic including the Wallasey tunnel afterwards was questionable
And the subsequent argument on the journey home-was......... inevitable 

Coming Out- Yorkshire Style

Many years ago I asked my best male friend, Mike for a pint in Sheffield.
He jumped at the chance to have a Thursday night out at The Dog And Partridge. 
The pub was always warm and welcoming and full of amateur folk singers and our nights out together were always full of chatter and banter about film, current affairs, news and gossip.
That night, however, I had an agenda.
For that night I had decided to come out to him.
I knew Mike very well, and thought deep down that everything would be alright, but as he was straight and a typical no nonsense working class married Yorkshireman I was surprised to suddenly find myself very nervous and fearful of a reaction I didn't want and more importantly couldn't cope with if everything went tits up.
I told him after a spirited group rendition of The Irish Rover
And afterwards he sat silently for a moment looking at his pint glass.
After what seemed like an age ( but wasn't) he nodded and said in his broad Sheffield brogue
" Does that mean I have to occasionally go a gay bar with you ?"
" Perhaps!" I replied and he nodded again
" ok!" He said brightly " it's your round!"

Time

It's 15.25!
Mary and I have walked to town to collect the car. I bought peas and mangetout and some eye drops for William.
I've cleared the garden of the downed ceanothus, did washing and spent three quarters of an hour looking over some legal papers for an elderly neighbour.
I've bought some dolls house furniture from eBay for my mother in law ( who has just renovated her childhood dolls house), cleaned up and collected firewood and stocked up on fuel ovoids
The afternoon is almost over and I still have things to do

Your Thoughts

The School Run

The Prof usually leaves the cottage well before 7 am and as he leaves I get up to walk the dogs.
Uncharacteristically this morning he left at 8 am and so the village was busy with school run traffic and people commuting to work as we stopped for wees and poos!
The older of the village children lined up with their smart phones at 1-3 London Road waiting for the school buses to arrive and I was suddenly reminded of dark depressing winter mornings when  I walked to school with my heavy briefcase and chilblains.
Breakfast time at home before school were not Betty Crocker times when I was a boy. My father generally would get up after we had left for school and my mother often had a hangover or was still asleep    So there was no cooked breakfasts made, no cheery words of goodbye and no smell of coffee brewing.
I do remember making jam on toast whilst listening to the ever cheerful Terry Wogan on radio 2
He was a friendly soul .
Mornings felt a lot colder then than they do today.