There's a strange dress code operating around these parts at the moment. Shorts. The wearing of them to walk your dog, or in Tesco picking up a loaf and a four-pinter and whatever other commercial pap they sell which seems to please the far-North Essex palate.
Shorts in winter sounds like one of those stories your Grandad told you when you were a nipper. That and rickets and school caps and hop-picking holidays and the lack of medical care. The days when beer was tuppence a pint and everyone had jobs, and lager was considered a girl's drink. My own grandfathers were similarly anecdotal in those moments during Christmas, while merry on rum or ginger wine, when they actually told me about the 1930's and 40's, Christmases being a time for drunken reflection on lives that weren't necessarily lived but just happened. Like osmosis.
Shorts were a popular topic, as was frost on the inside of bedroom windows and outside lavatories and how the 1930's were, in many ways, better than the 1990's. Bare knees were the badge of pride in schoolboys. Whether they should be similar in modern-day hairy-kneed men whose creamy calves resemble tree trunks is a moot point. Paired with knackered Reeboks and those half-socks, it all smacks of desperation for the summer.
I didn't attempt Plymouth yesterday. To be honest, I've never been there. My South West begins and ends in Oxford and the Cotswolds. I've only been to Cheltenham for the horse-racing. It's all very nice countryside and that, but you can have enough of nice countryside anywhere. I bet Kier Starmer thought that yesterday, forced as he was to watch the scum narrowly beat a fading Sunderland at home. That should ensure at least twenty thousand less Labour supporters come the election. It won't of course. The current government are so bad that even The Liberals should be licking their lips.
It's been a strange weekend, really. No Terry. He went to London with Mrs Tel and the in-laws to see Jersey Boys and eat dinner in Chinatown. They had an hotel, the Marriott, and "a rearly good deal, like" which he bragged about. I wished him well of it. Sounded nice. Not my cup of tea, but each to their own. He still hasn't come back home. They were staying tonight as well. He was hoping to have next week off to catch up, which, since his employer is also his brother-in-law, is less a hope and more an expectation. He breezily mentioned a meeting on Friday for dinner at our local Indian but I'm busy. That's not mere churlishness on my part. I've got a Friday nighter in Birmingham again. I took the opportunity as we're away in Wales at 12.30pm next Saturday. I would have gone to that, only I fear my hangover would be too great to contemplate the trip.
The household chores are sorted and next week's shirts ironed. The shopping, diminishing by the day, sits in the fridge and the larder and the beer gets colder. Lager, A girl's drink, my Grandfather once said. He liked mild and bitter. Although the one time he tried a lager, back in the 80's on a hot afternoon when my dad offered one, he rather liked it.
2-0 away and second. Life's sweetened by our form. It's too early to boast and I for one won't be carried away until we're sure of promotion, but it's looking good. Tuesday night should be a cracker under the lights. I've taken a half-day already. Just to be sure. Perhaps Sir Kier might be in attendance? Just in the interests of balance? Who can say? If he is, I pity the poor sod who gets to sit behind him. That hairdo is more Mister Softee than Mr Brylcreem. You might just have to stand up to see.
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