I've been accused of turning these reports into some kind of 'Nature Notes', a sort of Town-supporting Roger Deakin, ruminating on the delights of the riverbank whilst simultaneously prophesising on our footy team and its' exertions to regain Championship status. I make no apology, natch. Some said it should be retitled the 'Walky Report', such was the paucity of footy action and the sort of 'Superfan' travails that Steve Curtis used to do in the EADT, name-dropping as he went.
I don't go away very often. Milton Keynes feels too much like travelling for work. It is sort of on the way to Birmingham (particularly if you catch a train from Euston, when they run, which is another unknown), a modern new-town full of roundabouts and concrete and pretend cows. Why pretend when real ones graze, occasionally pooing and swatting flies with tails, in the very fields that are so denounced and reviled? That's my excuse.
Take yesterday for example. Steve Curtis would've been up at five, ringing his mates Stumpy, Froggins and Karl Fuller for excited chatter about the trip. Had he packed his Murray Mints? Had he been to the toilet enough? But Steve, alack, hasn't been a regular in those pages for many years. Not that I read the EADT anyway. It long since declined in my eyes. Regular stories of cats stuck in trees and overturned tractors and trailers on the B1068 have been subtly replaced by knifings and gang crime and school closures. It's becoming another poor man's Mail. They'll have to give it away next, like the Evening Standard in London.
Part of the problem of buying that plastic bag of Kettle chips, Tracker bars and Kia Ora cartons they used to sell for a quid at PR on match days from the EADT stand is what to do with the newspaper. You can't read it at half time. Well, you could but that's only two minutes taken care of. You feel guilty if you chuck it. Littering. The bins outside are already full of half-eaten burgers and chip cartons and plastic pint pots. Leave it in the bogs? But they're already full of sh*t.
So home it comes, in that inside coat pocket. If you nip down the pub after, it's still there. I started leaving it in the pub, on one of those tables which they put out so drinkers playing the fruit machines have somewhere to stand their pint, til the Landlord complained that 'sum bastad keeps leavin' that bloody paper on the table'n' it gets chucked all over the floor, like' in confidential chatter which reveals he doesn't think it's you, but you think he thinks it is.
Yesterday's walk was great. I saw a Heron. And a Hare. I can't think of any other animal starting with an aitch I could've seen (definitely not a Hammerhead Shark or a Hamster, but you can never tell in the Stour. They reckon someone saw a Great White the other week off Cornwall) but there were loads of pigeons and the odd crow.
Paula messaged me on Tuesday. She's settled in her new abode. Her sister helped her move the last of her stuff in. She asked about the dressing table in my spare room, but it was my grandmother's so I said no, even though I don't use it apart from storage. It all seemed briefly sad, but then I pulled myself together and we moved on, metaphorically. My mum still isn't over the shock and I'm not yet invited for Sunday Lunch, which is a relief on the whole.
Terry's much the same. We met on Friday for a drink (without the EADT) and then went for a curry, as always. He's becoming blasé about the house sale. They've not had a lot of interest and he's thinking of taking it off the market again, for fear that he's asking too much or that interest in modern bungalows in Dovercourt is waning. "People don' appreesheeate the work we puttin' ter the place. Iss like they come in, wipe their feet an' then just peer at our stuff and leave". He later said it felt like they were exhibits in the Zoo. Still, he's loath to leave sets of keys with estate agents, fearful of 'bein' caught on the bog' when they arrive, a symptom I was sympathetic with.
He can't make Burton next Saturday. "Braintree" he said indisctinctly through a mouthful of Lamb Balti. I can't make it either. I've got a friend's 50th and I promised to help him set up. He lives in Kelvedon. Oh well.
No Mrs Tel (swimming and some sort of dance class with Sandy in Braintree) so we had a taxi back and decided we'd go our separate ways rather than the pub again. Tel was surfeit with drink and Indian food and sleepily bade me farewell at eleven, on his way home for a few brandies and the wait up for Mrs Tel. I too had drunk rather more than I needed, so the drop off at home was welcomed. I sat up watching some rubbish on Sky and drinking whisky before bed, conscious that the break up with Paula means this'll probably be my life until I die, sat up late drinking and seeing memories in the shadows. I don't really regret but I do miss the companionship at times. Still, she's young. She'll find someone better in time.
We went 1-0 up quite early and the fear when we didn't get a second was of MK equalising. Fortunately, they didn't, and the Soccer Saturday confirmation of our victory, coupled with Plymouth's hammering by the Posh made for a nice reflective few moments at the bar as I chatted desultorily with the barmaid Gemma, who knew Paula a little bit but didn't comment on our break-up. Gemma has a husband by the way, a local roofer called Jason who Tel knows as he used to be one of his paperboys back in the 1990's. Tel likes Jason. He once replaced two tiles on the bungalow free of charge. You get to be liked locally by doing stuff like that.
Home by eight, carrying a take-out of kebab meat, chips, a pitta bread, some salad and a small tub of the Kebab place's incendiary chilli sauce. I had lagers in the fridge, brandy and more scotch in the cupboard, clean plates and cutlery. All I needed was an urgent phone call from George Carter saying they'd got Sid Smith in for questioning and some job was going down, and I'd've been Jack Regan from the Sweeney on a Saturday night. Birdless, Bribeless and Lonesome.
It's Birmingham next week. Even my former slight love interest in the office there has left. Why don't these things happen when you want them to? Unknown pleasures. Very unknown, innit? |  |
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