Lazy Sunday

Sunday, people will tell you, is a day of rest. I do try to abide by that, as I would each day of the week if my employers didn’t continually insist I earn my money by going into the office and doing various things spuriously labelled as ‘work’. This Sunday we were thrown slightly out of kilter when plans changed early on. The present Mrs Hayward’s parents were supposed to be coming over for lunch but a phone call revealed that a stomach bug had struck my mother-in-law down (cue Les Dawson joke). We were therefore left with the day to ourselves.

This didn’t sit well with my body clock as I had got up well before lunchtime to ensure I continued with my rigorous exercise regime. I’d decided to take a risk and go out for a run/jog in broad daylight. I considered that as it was Sunday morning the good people of Bourne would have the decency to be indoors sleeping off hangovers but it turns out that this is not a universal concept and that real people are actually out and about.

Before hitting the streets I warmed up on the Wii Fit Board, which is surprisingly having the desired effect of working off the pounds for me and Mrs Hayward in a fun manner, something the gym never really offered, apart from when I used to chuckle at the guy who looked like Wallace from ‘Wallace & Gromit’.

OK, so the little Wii character that chirrups at me is really annoying and I’m getting a little ticked off with it playing the ‘fat music’ every time it weighs me but it’s all good fun. Oh, and the personal trainer character (I chose the female one of course) is definitely flirting with me. She’s a bit of a party girl as she told me that she’d had a late night, and also suggested that she’d be there for me if I wanted to work on my stomach muscles. Mrs Hayward has got her eye on her.

So after a bit of Wii exercise I went out for a quick pant around the block and discovered many dog walkers, kids on bicycles and old people off to church in the hope that their sorry souls will be saved come Judgement Day.

I have to make a plea to the people of Bourne (who probably don’t read this, but pass it on) to not try and speak to me while I am in full flow, as my ability to form coherent words is severely limited by my need to gasp for air. One chap (who I have never seen before in my life) decided to say hello. I think I said something back to him but it sounded more like the kind of noise a dog would make when their owners believe the dog is saying words. “Sausages” for example.

Which reminds me, I ran past a house that Mrs Hayward and I went and viewed when we were looking to buy an abode some years ago, and this one was inhabited by a particularly dotty old lady who insisted that her dog would tell her when the postman was coming, not by the usual method of barking, but by saying “Look Mummy, it’s the Postman”. The little Yorkshire Terrier in question was therefore a genius but was obviously shy on the day we met it as it just resorted to barking and sniffing, like a normal dog.

Had it given me a guided tour of the house I would have been more impressed. “Over here is the hallway where I sit and howl when I want to go for a walk, please note the wool carpet that I once left muddy footprints on. Here’s the kitchen, all recently fitted, please excuse the sticky floor but that’s where she dropped some bacon this morning and I licked up the grease, oh, and here’s the bay window where I watch the world go by and practice on my violin”.

So I carried on my way feeling very conspicuous and eventually arrived home, all aching limbs and sweaty, all the more surprising as it wasn’t even 10.30am, my normal surfacing time on a Sunday morning.

We therefore had the rest of the day to ourselves, we could do anything we wanted, the world was our oyster……….so we went to Sainsbury’s. There was method in our madness, the half a cow that Mrs Hayward had bought from our local ruddy faced butcher for Sunday lunch would need to be frozen as, now it was just the two of us, it would take us a fortnight to get through it so we were in need of an alternative.

I bumped into our next door neighbour in the shop but he didn’t notice despite me being inches from his face. I’m quite obsessed with the state of his health at the moment as his infernal coughing has increased markedly in recent months and I can hear him through the walls in the middle of the night, hacking up god only knows what. This of course has not made him think that perhaps he should give up smoking as that could be exacerbating it. Take the hint. I’d like to think that if I soiled myself each time I drank beer I would give it up. Mind you, there’s always plastic pants I suppose. Too much…?

He bumbled past me and then I watched him sway through the aisle being distracted by all manner of things, TVs, children’s books, his own reflection. He would be a nightmare to take shopping as he’s like a Magpie, constantly being attracted by shiny things. Throw some buttons on the floor and he’ll be stood there for days in awe.

This particular branch of Sainsbury’s had been closed for a short time for a bit of a refurbishment so we wandered round and wowed at the new embellishments, “Ooh, a rotisserie, ooh, a cake counter, ooh, Lambrini on the cider shelves”, and we left with a cooked chicken and the Sunday papers, “Ooh, Ashley Cole has shot someone, by accident, allegedly”, and went home.

Sunday afternoons are where time speeds up. A spot of lunch, a bit of crap telly from the night before, replace the bulb in the outside light, call the old man in Totton, faff around on iTunes for a bit downloading things I already have on CD but can’t be bothered searching through the box under the bed for, and before you know it, it’s Sunday evening and ‘Dancing on Ice’ is on. Now there’s a show with some really peculiar idiosyncrasies.

This series lost my interest the week Kerry Katona left without falling flat on her face or having a massive meltdown live on TV. You may think this is harsh but let’s face it, that’s why she was hired.

Any show that has a panel of judges that consists of one ice skater, a Spice Girl, and a guy in a flat cap, this week looking like the campest farmer in the world, is not taking itself too seriously. Let’s not even go into Tony Gubba’s commentary “she did a double sided twist there followed by a purple spider drop and a fish sandwich wall of death spin” or the fact that there seemed to be an Elvis impersonator in the audience, who looked as much like ‘the King’ as I do.

I usually hang about until Pip Schofield announces that the results are in and taps his ear, as if we’re meant to know what he means. I like to think that he’s letting us in on the secret that he’s just making it up and picking off people at random. Look deep into his eyes and you will see that one week he’s planning to bring his own shotgun. “The next couple, fleeing the ice in a hail of bullets, in no particular order, is……..”. Seriously, nothing would surprise me on this show.

Usually though this is my cue to go and put my teeth into soak, brush the wig, remove the false leg, take a couple of Sanatogen and hope that come the morning it’s revealed there was a terrible mistake and in fact I did win the lottery on Saturday night.

Come to think of it, I’ll probably do exactly the same next Sunday.