That Sinking Feeling

I write this post today to say goodbye. Au revoir. Auf wiedersehen. For tonight I will die a terrible death that I have foreseen for many months now. Ever since I thought it would be a marvellous idea to motivate myself by posting about it on here I have known that the day will come when my limp pale body sinks lifeless to the bottom of the swimming pool at Bourne Leisure Centre after an overconfident attempt at the breast stroke.  Not so much running before I can walk, more swimming before I can float.

This may sound a tad overdramatic but I am taut with fear at the prospect of my first swimming lesson. It’s all come round so quickly as well. I only popped in today to put my name down thinking that lessons wouldn’t start until next week at the earliest, but no, they start this very evening at 7pm. 

I’ve paid for my 15 lessons up front so if I contemplate chickening out now I will be losing money, and I don’t like losing money. I gained and lost £1 at the weekend when the present Mrs Hayward and I visited Homebase. 

I say gained, I found an abandoned trolley in the car park and was delighted to see that it was one of those you stick £1 into. I felt so smug all the way round the store knowing I was going to get a little bonus at the end of my shopping trip. Then, while I was loading our purchases into the back of the car, Mrs Hayward helpfully returned the trolley herself. I know what you’re thinking, but no.

I watched in vain as she returned it to its correct place with the other trolleys but didn’t connect the little dongle. I started to wave frantically but my hopeless attempts at semaphore were met with a confused look and she just came back to the car to see what I was flapping about. I looked beyond her to see some other chap come along and take the aforementioned bonus trolley and my £1 gain was immediately lost. 

Mrs Hayward couldn’t see what I was upset about as I sulked all the way home. Her opinion was that it wasn’t my money anyway but that wasn’t really the point. I was just hoping that I hadn’t missed out after all and someone had rammed a foreign coin or a bottle top in the slot so that this other chap didn’t have a small windfall either. Knowing my luck he claimed the £1, bought a lottery ticket and won the jackpot, the swine. But I digress, anything to take my mind off my imminent demise. 

As well as drowning today I’m also worried about the dress code at the pool. It wouldn’t have crossed my mind, I would have just dug my trunks out of the drawer, an attractive blue pair with ‘Arena’ (that well-known sports brand) emblazoned across them. However I went into a sports shop today to buy a pair of goggles. Someone I know suggested they would be a good idea so that I don’t get water in my eyes while I’m gasping for breath at the bottom of the pool. Well she didn’t put it quite like that, she was suggesting some exercise where I put my head under water to see how long I could stay alive. This is supposed to help with my confidence but I’m not at all convinced.

So whilst I was in the sports shop I took a look at the array of swimming trunks for men and saw that they range from proper shorts you’d wear down the park to speedos, which you wouldn’t. This has made me paranoid about my own trunks. I came home and tried them on and, to my relief, they fit perfectly. However they are, well, not very long in the leg shall we say. 

They also don’t leave a lot to the imagination. I’m either going to be very popular with the ladies or I’ll scare the living daylights out of them. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to boast here by any means, it’s just that these trunks accentuate what little I have.  

Oh well, at least it’ll be a talking point for the paramedics when they dredge my sorry corpse out of the pool later this evening. 

If I do survive (and this will be mostly down to me clinging for dear life onto the edge of the pool) I will let you know how I got on. 

If I don’t make it then I leave all my possessions to the present Mrs Hayward, including my Doctor Who collection which she must ensure goes to a good home. 

Just to clarify though, a good home is not a charity shop, on a bonfire, or in a skip.

Bottoms up!

White Van Man

There are some things that I should just accept that I either can’t do or don’t have the patience to do. Gardening may well be one of these things. If you read my last post you will know that this weekend we embarked upon an exercise to rid our weed ridden garden that looks like it may have originally been designed to be a patio and to replace it (eventually) with lush grass. 

To be honest we are well on our way to doing this. The slabs are up, the top soil is down, the fertiliser is in and, just for good measure the trailing ivy that is slowly toppling the dividing wall between us and our neighbours has been dramatically trimmed.

How much I contributed to this is not entirely clear but I know that my talents may not extend to raking in top soil. I could see by the look on the present Mrs Hayward’s face yesterday morning that I may not have been doing a very good job. I was reminded of the look on her face when she witnessed my attempts at painting the banister on the stairs in white gloss a few years ago.

Actually that face was slightly angrier as she felt my attempts at gloss painting weren’t entirely the neatest and that I was applying it in a random and haphazard manner more reminiscent of Rolf Harris. I didn’t have to ask whether she “could see what is it is yet” as with her own eyes she could see that it was a poorly painted streaky banister.  My use of matt paint was marginally better but in a good light you could say that it was a little, well, patchy. Like all great artists I like to show my style in the elegant brush strokes and textures. It turns out that all Mrs Hayward required was a nice evenly painted wall rather than a Jackson Pollock tribute.
So my gardening efforts were much the same. What I can do though, I do well. If you need something lifted then I’m your man. If you need something driven somewhere and lifted in or out of the back of the car, I’m in my element. I really should have been a white van man and if you’ve seen my flamboyant driving style I’m sure you’d agree.

So lugging heavy slabs around and driving to Homebase for bags of top soil are well within my abilities. The delicate art of applying and raking over the soil, perhaps not.

It’s therefore a surprise that we are in a position to be able to add the grass seed next week and then, apart from applying regular water we can sit back and enjoy the fruits of our labour. I am not a particularly religious man despite being strangely lured by the sound of the church bells chiming on Sunday morning (which never came to anything as they strangely disapprove of people turning up at the church doors in just an old t-shirt and some worn through boxer shorts. Talk about Christian spirit) but I shall be praying to whatever all-knowing deity chooses to listen to my pleas for little green shoots to appear.

It doesn’t seem like a good time to be growing grass from seed due to the surprisingly ‘summer of 1976’ conditions we have been experiencing but I have to remember that this is Britain, and an absolute downpour is never too far away. 
So with all this in mind I have next weekend to look forward to. I don’t mean the Royal Wedding, that will pass me by with a pleasing sense of ‘don’t give a damn’. I’m still trying to find the perfect activity whilst Bill and Katy tie the knot. Back in 1997, whilst the world was sobbing in front of their TV sets as Elton John warbled in Westminster Abbey I drove to Chichester to collect my best mate’s girlfriend and her pet rat.  It was a great time to do this as the roads were empty and I’m hoping for the same on Friday. Well, I’m not expecting to be transporting vermin this time but a trip out might be in order.

No, the real reason this coming weekend is exciting is because on Saturday I actually get to drive a white van and lift many things. I shall be in white van man heaven.

So, if you need anything large or heavy picking up and moved somewhere just let me know. I’ll turn up in an in a grubby t-shirt and jeans, the music playing too loud and I’ll park in the middle of the road with my hazard lights on just like all good white van men. However If you want someone to landscape your garden or paint your walls however, call an expert.

Green Fingers

I am not Alan Titchmarsh. In some respects this is a blessed relief but, if I was, our garden would not be sporting the council estate chic that it currently has. The shed is looking shabby, the weeds are bursting their way up through the crooked patio slabs, and all the plants that we wanted to come into bloom and bring fragrance and light into our lives have all given up the ghost and died. It has become a home for discarded pots, gates and, for some reason, a tyre. 

To be honest the tyre should have been discarded a while ago but if my memory serves me correctly the present Mrs Hayward had some creative idea that she could transform the discarded tyre from a Vauxhall Corsa into a decorative plant pot. I was less than convinced that she could pull this off and subjected her idea to derision and ridicule. Not being one to be put off by my opinions I guess she eventually came to the same conclusion and the tyre now lives, unloved and unpainted, beside the shed. 

Thankfully we never embarked upon Mrs Hayward’s other creative idea, to turn an old toilet pan into a novelty flower pot. Again, I pooh-poohed the idea (if you’ll excuse me) as I didn’t see the attraction in trying to entertain guests at a barbecue whilst sat next to an old Armitage Shanks loo. Even with the prospect of Begonias bursting forth from it, for me it didn’t shout sophisticated or charming. Perhaps I’m a Philistine and my wife is a visionary. Time will tell.

Mrs Hayward’s solution to our troublesome garden is to patio it over, but properly, with no scope for weeds to appear. However with a tight budget of minus nothing this isn’t practical but inspired by our new neighbours (on the unattached side) we have decided to press on with a solution. Grass. Yes, grass is the future. OK, so it was my idea all along but if you leave an idea long enough to germinate in Mrs Hayward’s mind she eventually comes around to my way of thinking. It’s like Sky+ and smart phones, despite initial resistance she eventually concedes that I am right. 

OK, I’m pushing my luck here as she won’t agree with that point of view at all, and she is also reminding me at every turn that the grass is a “temporary measure”, just “for a couple of years” until she comes in with a load of slabs and a cement mixer and patios over the lot, but we’ll see. 

So, over the next couple of weekends the old cracked slabs will disappear and a new lush lawn will spring up. Which is a good idea in principle but I am not built for manual labour and I know that three slabs in I will be wishing I’d not started such a painstaking endeavour. I’m looking forward to driving the slab laden van to the skip but the rest of it is a bit of a pain and all the time I will be dreaming of a cool beer in a pub garden. 

I have to keep reminding myself that without pain there is no gain and so I will persevere. We are using grass seed so there’s a bit of prep work involved although the Homebase website has been very useful in this respect. I may even use the Elephant poo I got for Christmas as a fertiliser.

Of course once you start you begin to get ideas. The shed’s days are numbered as we intend to downsize to something more compact and sporty, and we really need to put a fence up at the end of the garden as the current wall is too short. Oh, and then there’s the ugly planter. We’ve never really known what to do with that but are loathe to remove it as we suspect it’s holding up the wall between us and our neighbours (on the attached side). With a bit of time and money I would take the whole lot down and get a higher wall or fence erected, mainly so that our neighbour doesn’t hang over it and try to talk to us, like an older and slightly more inebriated version of Chad. 

He’s a nice guy I’m sure but too many times we’ve been caught up in one of his never-ending and slow moving conversations. He will start the chat but never formally end it. He just stops talking and stares at us until his wife comes out to get him or we fake sudden illness. I’ve even been known to drop to the ground and crawl on my belly to the back door so as not to be spotted when he’s in his garden. 

Seriously, ask Mrs Hayward, I’m not even joking. I was helping her put the washing out once when in mid-conversation she turned round to find I had disappeared from view. She eventually spotted me face down on the ground, dragging myself back to safety by my fingernails.

So whatever you do over the next couple of weekends, please spare a thought for me, trying to force myself to be practical and manly when I would rather be standing on the side providing moral support and encouraging words or being pushed about in the wheelbarrow.

Mind you, when it’s done, you can come round for a barbecue. 

Airport 2011

I know, I know, I’ve been quiet for a while but I’ve had issues. Not earth shattering life altering issues but technological ones that made me make strange noises like “grrrrr” and “fnarrrrg”. Combine that with my ever melting brain and you’ll be glad you haven’t heard from me in a while.

I’ve got to have a life though. In fact I have one on order from Play.com but it’s not shown up yet. All I’ve received so far is a couple of t-shirts that read “I Love Clunge” AND “I’ve had it up to here with midgets”. Seriously, these t-shirts randomly turned up in the post one morning. I thought that someone had broken into my account and were using my bank details to order comedy clothing but it turned out to be a belated birthday gift from wife-in-waiting. Bless her. 

I’m not quite sure when I will get the opportunity to wear the “I Love Clunge” t-shirt. Maybe at a family do or a church fete. As for the midget t-shirt, I’d better not wear that at a party that Warwick Davies is likely to attend. You don't want to offend an Ewok, they're tricky blighters. You may of course think that I’m not likely to be at the same party as Warwick Davies but strangely that has happened. I was as surprised as you if I'm honest. He seemed like a nice bloke, cute kids.

Anyway, I have a resolution to write less but post more frequently. I’m not sure if this will happen in reality but it’s a nice plan. I’ll see how it pans out.

In the meantime I’ll spark up my brain to prevent it from freefalling at dizzying speeds. Well I’m not getting any younger, something that has been preying on my mind of late. I wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat realising that I’m at least half way through my life. Then I rationalise that there’s nothing I can do about it and before long I’m back in one of my action adventure dreams where I’m saving people from a disaster and running away from bad looking men with guns. Sometimes they’re aliens, sometimes they’re terrorists, and sometimes they just don’t like my tie. My brain likes to give me a bit of a workout in the wee small hours. 

Often my dreams involve a plane crash. I’m not always in the plane but thankfully on each occasion it all works out well as a result of my intervention. I feel that this is thanks to the fact that I enjoy watching ‘Air Crash Investigation’ on National Geographic.

I’m not a confident flyer at the best of times. I’m well aware that the big metal tube that catapults me to my destination is only able to take off and land safely due to quite a lot of complicated technical factors and that disaster could strike at any moment. However I’ve figured that if I watch ‘Air Crash Investigation’ I can pick up a few tips so that I can go and take over from the pilot should he pass out at the controls. I can go and press buttons and pull levers and shout “more thrust” or “nose up” or even “brace for impact”. 

Those last words are not ones you’d want to hear are they? Especially if you’re heading towards the sea. I’ve seen enough episodes now to know that a landing on terra firma is a better option than landing at sea despite what those little safety cards say. Aside from that amazing landing in the Hudson River a couple of years back most landings in the drink end up with the plane shattering into a million tiny bits. 

Oh, and don’t be taken in by turbulence. That covers all manner of sins. To be fair, in most cases it will just be turbulence but it could be a bird strike or even ice dislodging itself from the wings and smashing up the engines. It could be instrument failure or volcanic ash but either way I now consider myself to be an expert in such matters. In the event of an aerial catastrophe I can now leap into action rather than cowering down the back of the plane drinking the trolley dry of miniatures.

You see, one advantage of being a bit older and embarking on a mid-life crisis is that I’ve started to fancy myself as a bit of a daredevil. If I had a few quid I’d have a crack at learning to fly properly. As I don’t have a few quid I’ll just wait for the aforementioned looming disaster to try my hand. 

Now if I had more than a few quid I would be definitely putting my name down for one of those commercial space flights that are likely to start up in a few years’ time. How cool would that be, blasting off to the stars and drifting weightlessly around high above the Earth? Should there be a disaster I can leap to the rescue. Especially if there are aliens involved, I’m good with aliens. 

In reality of course, if you’re ever on a flight with me and the whole damned plane starts to spiral down into a nosedive, hold me back. I have no idea what I’m doing and I don’t listen properly so when the brave air traffic controller is giving me clear instructions to guide me down I’ll suddenly and inexplicably pull the lever that allows the wings to drop off. 

Then where will we be?