I may see you all permanently much quicker than planned.
I had meant to follow up much quicker after NYC but thought it prudent for you to recover from that monumental offering. To warm you up here is a short snapshot from those other hotbeds of internationalism ……Hull, Cardiff and Whitby.
You all seem remarkably buoyant given the price of fish, butter and whippet food and the shutting of 30 pubs a week (is that true?). This phenomenon has not hit the good old Wellington and various “residents” who have now taken up a PhD in physics and most specifically the thesis title “Cripes! Has 6 months really passed since we were last supping a Kriek - an analysis of where time goes when one is not paying attention” .
My hedge has attempted to redress the stratospheric imbalance caused by the destruction of the rain forest and the redcurrants appear to have thrived better than when tended. And a number of my closely cherished family myths were dashed:
1 During a visit to The Deep my mum revealed that they too had kept a tank full of jellyfish as kids when I had thought they had a green budgie called Joey and a 4 minute mile chicken called Christmas Lunch.
2 My mum used to be a nurse and all the time she had been a frustrated urban and river regeneration planner – declaring from the café in The Deep – that it was disgusting that they were doing nothing with all that water (The River Humber)
3 Mum again - That it was very nice that we all came to see her and spend time with her but sometimes she wished we’d all “Just Sod Off” – a phrase she never used to use.
4 My children only half appreciated the puddings I gave them as kids – they broke into hysterical laughter when I discovered and then developed a guilty conscience over the fact that they I appeared to have been force feeding them ginger pudding and custard for YEARS.
I hope those of you that remember the photographs of them I used during student records demonstrations have just fallen off your chairs...but please don't say haven't they grown because that was a phrase my parents friends used of me when factually I never HAD or DID!
But I'm not bitter...
A day in Whitby in the rain and stopping off at Fimber tea shack with the bikers reminded me of why I am so sure that I am English and despite petrol prices and lack of sunshine…
What do you call a collection of Morris men on a Whitby beach.....
A Morris Major.....Sorry
It was just unfortunate that P texted when he did to ask if I was eating fish and chips since he had said before I left the US that if I did I couldn’t come back to Texas. In for a penny in for a pound I also let slip about the Yorkshire curd cheesecake.
Oh and the shortage of sherbert pips, sherbert lemons, spearmint chews, midget gems and wine gums is all my fault sorry. Well you have to do something on humungous road trips.
And then it was to Cardiff with an evening drive down and some cloud formations and skies as good as Texas
And to moving Roisin from one flat to another on the one day it was like a Texas summer and she had omitted to tell me that the new place was 4 flights up. During this time I:
- cornered a skunk smelling bath mat in between 2 bin bags
- sent Rentokil into liquidation by buying their entire stack of rat poison
- performed the “strength twang and twist test” on the piece of string and screw suspending the shower curtain rail
- tested out the light which had been sellotaped to the ceiling at an angle perfect to illuminate the dartboard the previous occupants had left
- checked Roisin's means of escape in the event of a fire which is, to slide down one roof onto the roof of the building below. Failing that, she could see if her Imelda Marcos collection of shoes would dampen the flames long enough for the firemen checking out the fire fighting practices in the LAP DANCING club across the road, to hear the screams.
- Went to a pub that out the back had a Bedouin tent with red chaser lights.........well I think I did
Ah, here is P, what price the penalty for sarcasm on official forms …….
- a completely essential crown replacement $3,000, if he is not to look like Knobby Stiles until Xmas
- WOW Mr Dentist has never seen fillings that big and there is decay so crowns would be better $3,000 each ………
- And the incidentals….
And I cannot bring myself to calculate the total
Yours having just fused the calculator with bitter tears while trying to work out what 20% would be of the total I can’t bring myself to tote……
P.S. I wonder if I could sell my blog to a publisher
PPS it was lovely to see "Y'all" even mum who “nobody appreciates anyway”
PPPS Bryan have you got the builders in yet? I expect a reproduction of Buckingham Palace at Xmas.
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