Boot sale

Three generations are off to a boot sale in search of bargains. At the gate is a man collecting ‘contributions’. All a bit vague but I drop in 50p.

Where shall we park my good man?
Over there, says the collector of vague contributions, pointing some miles away.
What about that space there, I ask nodding in the direction of a handy spot just in front?
That’s for the disabled
What about my mother?
Oh, I can manage says tyrant mother who has just assumed the guise of the frail and feeble.
Take that spot then, collector of tonight’s beer money says guiltily.

We park and mother nips out of the car, clutches the arm of her grand-daughter and limps off.

Can he see us asks rapidly aging mother?
No.
Well, let go of me then she says, galloping away to the first stall. And by the way, what are we going to put all our purchases in, she asks? I scurry back to the car to retrieve a few dozen bags.
Perusing a stall full of nothing, I spot a number of white umbrellas. They could be handy for the wedding, I suggest to the bride-to-be. This is tricky territory. Rain is, of course, forbidden on the day of the nuptials. Nonetheless, one can’t control everything.

How many umbrellas are there asks my mother? A quick count on behalf of the stall-holder: ten.
How much for the lot then demands feeble pensioner?
A fiver replies increasingly intimidated umbrella purveyor. I might have some more in the van.

A quick search results in the discovery of a further fourteen.

How much for the lot then demands feeble pensioner?
Eight pounds plus the sack says terrified stall-holder.
Done says feeble pensioner. You certainly were my man. Twenty-four brand new umbrellas for eight quid. Bargain. We head back to the car with a large log basket, a smaller plant basket, an assortment of glass bottles, a book and twenty four white umbrellas.
You’d better hand that lot over I say to my mother. That man with the collection bucket is still up there.
Hang on then, she says. I’ll start limping.

Watman's idea of a joke

Birds

It’s a very small hedge; more a collection of leaves really. Nonetheless, it’s home to many feathered friends, all of whom seem to be currently building nests. Talk about overcrowding. I have flock of sparrows - if six comprise a flock – who are engaged on a joint venture. Four or five of them arrive simultaneously with bits and pieces to deposit in their end of the hedge. Two of them planned ahead and have brought some long twine which dangles from the top branches. Bits of this are regularly pecked off and taken into the darkness. They dart in and out, constantly chirping.

Down at the other end, two pigeons, who occasionally take time out from their amorous activities on the shed roof, are also engaged in the construction business. Every year they make a serious attempt to build a nest in the same place and every year it collapses before the job is done because they’re just too heavy. Presumably, pigeons don’t have a long-term memory. There are also two robins, two blackbirds and five starlings vying for space in this des res.
Up the road, in the remains of the old, falling-to-bits pub, the elite have apparently arrived. Quite who they are, is unclear. I heard the news from a taxi driver which, naturally, makes the story a little suspect. The pub has been empty for four years, since when it has fallen into an unattractive state of repair…or is that disrepair? Anyway, after many complaints to the brewery, a fence was erected around said venue towards the back end of last year. Recently, the fence has been painted green. Was this an effort to suggest the rotting building has somehow merged into nature?

Know-it-all taxi driver told me that Hall and Woodhouse can’t demolish this eyesore because it has become home to a rare bird.

Really? What type of bird is that then, I ask?
Red Kite he replies at once.
Really? Are you sure?
Well, something like that. Taxi drivers don’t like having their local knowledge questioned.

I’d heard that Hall and Woodhouse just don’t want to fork out to have the joint dismantled and I can find nothing to substantiate this new reasoning. Could be true though. Better watch out if you own a Pomeranian type of dog.

Shopathon

Trowbridge train station on a Saturday morning is pretty busy. Mind you, if you lived in Trowbridge, you’d be looking for a quick way out. This is the town of roundabouts…clearly designed by someone who was a fan of the Hampton Court Maze chapter in Three Men in a Boat, this is a cunning ploy to bring you back to where you started from. Still, at least attendance at this station has moved on from the days when the platform was adjacent to Bowyers sausage and pie factory: no longer is the wait accompanied by the squeals of pigs whose throats have just been sliced or the over-riding stench of death. No more are we gagged by the smell of hops brewing over at Ushers.


An excuse for a train arrives: three carriages, which are insufficient given that there is football at Bristol and rugby at Bath today. It’s impossible to get a seat together so I sit next to a woman who has a number of tissues stuffed in each ear.

I’ve been like this since Yeovil, she says. That man two seats behind is driving me mad.

I don’t know what man she’s talking about because all I can hear is Barbara who is behind me, having forced a youngster out of his seat by looking aged. So, there are some advantages to being in our sixtieth year. She’s engaged the woman next to her in conversation. This poor trapped being, it seems, started out on this torturous journey from her home in Poole. That would be her home which is in the next road to my home. Weird.

Meanwhile, the woman next to my seat starts telling me about the play they’re all going to see at the Theatre Royal to celebrate her sister’s birthday.

Who is in it I ask?
Pardon?
Who’s in the play I try again?
I was talking to my son she said. Rather abruptly, I thought as I looked round for said offspring; who turned out to be three seats in front.
………………………………………….

We make the mistake of going into Debenhams. Barbara says we’re just having a quick look at the shoes, then going for coffee. An hour later, she is still missing in action. During this time, I have tried on a number of garments, travelled to the top floor to use the facilities, travelled back down again and outside into the pouring rain where I had a lengthy conversation with someone, went to Sainsburys and bought some cigarettes, had a little walk and smoked a cigarette, went back into Debenhams and searched all the floors and ended up at the make-up counter.

Excuse me. Do you have a means of locating lost people?
A message is relayed over the intercom generally used for absent children and Barbara instantly appears clutching her newly purchased shoes.

I saw you once she says. You were going up an escalator.

Now she has to change the shoes she only bought twenty minutes ago because they don’t match the bag she hasn’t yet bought. I, meanwhile, have bought a very nice orange top that I don’t have anything to go with. Yet.

And so it continues. For some considerable time. At one point, I lost her again in M & S but I did at least receive a phone call to say she was depressed.

There are no bras to fit me she cried.
Get a grip woman; this is M & S. They have bras for everyone.
Oh. Just spotted a yellow one. I’ll call you back.

I bought another orange top. Still nothing to wear it with though. Yet,.
Hours later, we trudge back to the train station which necessitates a detour back through Debenhams.

Oh look she says. There’s an orange top you haven’t bought yet.
…………………………………………….

There are about 400 rugby fans on the platform. At least 375 of them are drunk. Reader, trust me: this is not an exaggeration. One man has located an ornamental tree and is wearing the bush part on his head like a green afro coiffure. Surely they’ll put on more than three carriages for the journey back? Wrong.

As many as possible from this throng try to get aboard and we wave at the 250 left at the station. Every time we reach a stop, there is a cry of ‘go, go, go’ as twenty five drunks disembark in order to let two people off. Barbara swings her bag round and it lifts the skirt of a woman crushed in the aisle. The woman with her skirt now tucked in her underwear turns immediately to slap the face of a man busily involved with a hip flask. It’s carnage. It’s hilarious.

When we leave this train, eight glorious hours will have passed since we first climbed aboard this morning.

A Range of things

I remember the good old days when people took their kids to the supermarket to abuse them. No matter whether it was Sainsburys or Tesco, you could be sure there would be women screaming at their offspring who were bawling in the aisles and hanging out of trolleys. It was comforting to possess that smugness that comes from having left one’s children elsewhere whilst you dashed round in mock disgust; knowing full well you’d get your own back on your own horrid offspring later with half a pound of pig’s liver, an onion and
 something that passed for mashed potato.

I went to the Range this evening to buy a photograph frame. The Range is a large store that can’t make up its mind what it wants to sell: something for the garden; something for the home; some nice things for those interested in handicrafts; some nasty looking food. Cheap and cheerful. Well, not so cheerful. It was like Armageddon in there; shortly after the four horsemen of the apocalypse had passed through on their way to neighbouring Matalan.

You can walk into some shops to be greeted by music or intercom calls relaying exciting news of the latest bargains. You walk into the Range and immediately feel lost in an NSPPC advert. The sound of children weeping envelops you. I look around to ascertain whether there is an obvious reason for such communal distress; a large dysfunctional family who have said ‘no’ to some joint childlike request perhaps; an unpleasant Bill Sikes type who has just beaten up his sons and daughters; the collapse of all the sweet-bearing shelves. But, no: this incessant screaming, screeching and wailing doesn’t emanate from a single source. Every child in this god-forsaken place has its own agenda. No-one is happy. Well, that’s extra-curricula activities for you.

Speaking of which, I escaped from work this morning to run a writing workshop for the Bournemouth Festival of Words in a local library. There were ten participants, two BFoW representatives and a photographer. We were cocooned amongst the book-shelves with plenty of room for the writers to break out and …well, write. The received comments were encouraging: excellent, instructive, inspiring. After that, I returned to work where a student told me I was fantastic. The day was progressing well. Then I spoke on the phone to a woman I’ve never met who informed me I was pretentious. It only takes one person to ruin the day. Bad move on my part to think The Range would make me feel better.

I went swimming and buried my head under water for thirty four lengths. That works!



Muffin or Spotty

In the pet shop in Royston Vaisey (aka Wareham) an ancient being is doing his best to have a pleasant conversation with the two surly looking assistants behind the counter.
On my knees, rifling through an assortment of nuts, I’m not really paying attention until I suddenly tune in and hear him saying:

They’ll have a dog up there and it’s almost bound to be called Muffin.
I used to have a dog called Muffin I say without turning round
Really, says he, pleased as punch at having some interaction. You know it all started with that mule? There was a puppet called Muffin the Mule he explains to the assistants who look as though they’d have more fun watching a jelly set. You remember how he used to walk?

This last is directed at me. Clearly, he thinks I’m also part of the bus-pass brigade. Not until September my good man. Anyway, he’s got my full attention now as he prances around the shop as if his arms and legs are worked by string that someone else is holding.

Oh no! I’m adamant. You’re getting confused with Spotty Woodentop.
Spotty Woodentop, he replies in amazement? I’m going further back than you I think.
Well, you may have started further back but you’re definitely doing Spotty Woodentop I respond. Look. And before I know what’s happening, I’ve put my bag of nuts on the floor and am doing my infamous impression of said dog. So now the two of us are pet shop puppets jumping in front of the counter.

It’s an education I smile encouragingly at the night of the living dead behind the counter. They’re not interested; too busy having fun sticking pencils in their eyes. I’d like a carrier bag for all these nuts but I’m not going to ask them. They’re a bit scary. Mind you, I expect they’re thinking the same about their customers this morning. I leave, cradling my nuts like a precious puppy.

On the way home, I decide to take a detour down Sandy Lane. I’m very impressed with a spot of topiary in a garden I saw the other day and want to take a photograph. Difficult not to notice it actually; although when I took my friend to see it, she asked what hedge?

Try looking up I said helpfully
Ah, I see what you mean

What we used to watch in the old days
 
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pffghjNSVUI&feature=related

Days like these (scroll to btm & listen to link whilst reading)

You have to be on time. Years of experience leave us with nothing but the unknown: he could be late, there could be a support artist, the band could play with no front man for half an hour …who knows? Certainly not the aged beings who pack the foyer, the toilets and the bars; all loyal followers who have grown old with the Man. The only thing I know is that special friend and I have walked two miles on this chilly March night to see him. In more years than I care to remember, this is the 24th time.


We have great seats, four rows from the front: having been on the ‘alert list’ forever helps. We might be competing with the temporal Florence and the Machine over at the BIC, but the die-hards are out in force. The auditorium is packed with so many old folk that it looks like a SAGA convention.
The announcement regarding the ejection of would-be photographers coupled with the confiscation of equipment is repeated twice. It’s harsh and unforgiving. So is the Man. We know that. We don’t read the biographies which constantly relate what an unpleasant person our hero is. We don’t care. He’s not coming round ours for dinner.

The lights dim. The band walks on stage and even before they’ve assumed instruments, Van is here at precisely 7.45, the published start time. Straight into Brown Eyed Girl and we immediately know that this could be a goodie and not one of those random, self-indulgent jamming sessions that we occasionally have to witness. And we are treated.

There’s something about him tonight. He’s having a good time. And the band is tight. Moon Dance…it’s a fabulous night for one. All in the Name of Love evolving into This is It…superbly whispered and roaring to a climax. In the Garden…Oh my god, not heard since the Georgie Fame days and the audience cheering before three notes have passed is enough to elicit a rare ‘thank-you’ from the Man who never acknowledges the fans. And now, St James Infirmary Blues, defying all description; the audience silently entranced by the chocolate brown voice; this is when we know we are in the company of genius.

One and a half hours without a pause for breath and suddenly the stewards appear at the end of the rows. Van doesn’t require bouncers because we all know how to behave so what are these guys doing here? Could it be? No, surely not? But yes, the soulful blues and jazz give way to the familiar beat and it’s Gloria: GLORIA, Gloria. Well what do these stewards think they can do? This aged audience is on its feet as a worshipful whole and we dance where we’re standing.

And the Man leaves the stage and the lights go up. No guru, No teacher, No method and no encore. An hour and a half of sheer bliss and he’s gone.

 Buy the music. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHZfWsdwKrY