Monday 25 July 2011

Chatty Man


This week has been a week for random conversations with people. It started on Wednesday when I boarded a train at Peterborough station. I sat at a table and before I’d had a chance to get comfortable the guy on the opposite side decided to spark up a conversation with me. He said that Peterborough was “a wild west town”. This was news to me. I’d not noticed anyone strolling through Cathedral Square on a horse wearing a cowboy hat and no wagons have been attacked by Red Indians lately. 

I glanced at the people across the carriage who I noticed were keeping their heads down. They’d obviously been on the train with him for a while and had heard quite enough for one day. I quickly established he was getting off at the next stop so decided that politeness was the best course of action and so I nodded and smiled. It turns out that he was an East Londoner, originally hailing from somewhere near Wapping “up the road from Murdoch”. 

He now lived in Stamford but found the place to be too much like “Midsomer Murders”. I guess this was an observation that there’s not a great deal of social diversity in Stamford when compared with the Old Kent Road rather than a confession to a series of grisly murders. He seemed surprised that strangers greeted each other in the street in Lincolnshire without there being the underlying threat of impending physical violence. From what I could make out he seemed to like it in Stamford but, after three years of “recharging the batteries” he was moving back to be within the sound of Bow bells. 

Apparently he “knows what’s what” in East London, although the picture he painted was less than rosy suggesting that all the urban areas of London were at war over immigration. He had apparently had an animated discussion about this with George Galloway when he turned up on my fellow passenger’s doorstep canvassing for votes. According to him he “told Galloway how it is” until “he got all intellectual with me”, so I guess that George wasn’t reprising his impersonation of a cat.

The chap got off at Stamford and we bade each other farewell. My new companion at the table from there on was an old lady with an impossibly large rucksack. Maybe she was the murderer and the rucksack contained the bodies, either way she wasn’t chatty at all.

That evening I was staying in a pub-come-hotel in rural Gloucestershire. After enjoying an evening meal there I decided to prop up the bar for a last pint of the evening and soak in the local atmosphere. Fast forward a couple of hours and that last pint had increased to a few last pints, one given to me on the house from the barman, Tom, and I was getting a guided tour of the pub and the cellar from the landlord, George. It turns out that it was a very old pub and was once used as a court house by Judge Jeffreys back in the 17th century. I was even shown the tree from which the guilty were hung. 

I retired from the bar late that evening having met pretty much everyone in the pub. I’m not sure how that happened but all I can say is that you don’t get that sort of camaraderie in a Premier Inn, regardless of what Lenny Henry says.

On Saturday night I found myself on Twitter. I like Twitter. If you choose to you can end up in conversations with all manner of people. For instance that night I ended up having a brief Twitter chat with the guy who slapped a plate full of shaving foam into the craggy chops of Rupert Murdoch. I discovered that the perpetrator of this brief blast of social anarchy had not used the cheapest shaving foam money could buy. He used Nivea, as that was all he had in the house. I suggested that he was doing the octogenarian aussie a favour and that the aloe vera will in fact serve as a very able moisturiser and that perhaps Mr Murdoch senior should be thanking his assailant rather than pressing charges but unfortunately we both agreed that this may not be the water tight defence he was looking for.

So it turns out that I can have a random conversation anywhere really, propped at a bar, trapped on a train, or via the information superhighway after a few light ales. There’s no moral to this story. Just a sort of shrug of the shoulders and a comment of "it’s a funny old world”. 

I suppose it makes me wonder who I’ll meet this week although I think I’ll aim for less of the anarchists and more of the genial pub landlords dishing out free beer and local history lessons.  That way I stand more of a chance of finding out useful pub quiz information and less chance of being assassinated by Mi5.


Tuesday 12 July 2011

Spider/Man


I don’t like spiders. I don’t know whether it’s their sneaky behaviour what with all their weird web making shenanigans or whether it’s just the look of them. I’m not hugely enthusiastic about most bugs but I can accept that the spider has a place in the general food chain and helps to tackle the menace of flies.

I would be happier however if the spider population would keep themselves to themselves. There are clear boundaries as far as I’m concerned and any rebellious arachnid spotted in our house is duly apprehended and escorted from the premises. This arrangement has been working well and I’m guessing that news has got around that all spiders are persona non grata at Hayward Towers as less and less of the eight legged devils have been bothering us.

Mind you I did have a bit of a stand-off with a particularly large brute a few years ago who gave me no option but to use maximum force.  He pushed his luck though. After a lengthy pursuit around the lounge I finally got him cornered, just behind the sofa. At this point the sensible thing for him to do would have been to back off and allow me to show him to the door. However instead of capitulating he took a run at me. 

Startled by this turn of events I did what any red blooded male would do and dived out of the way with a girly shriek. The spider, not believing his luck, made for the safe haven of behind a radiator. The only option was to inflict the ultimate punishment for trying to make me look foolish in front of the present Mrs Hayward. The vacuum cleaner was unleashed and this mighty foe was sucked up to spider heaven. 

Our latest visitor arrived just last week, in the shape of a small beige coloured spider who was trying to blend in with our bedside table. He failed in this chameleon-like activity but had the good sense to make a move before I could point out that he was trespassing. Since then he has hung around the bedroom in a hard to reach place, in the corner of the ceiling above the bedside table, and so we have reluctantly shared this communal space. 

Last night I woke up at 4am with a tickly cough. I spluttered a little and put it down to a dry throat. It tickled again and I coughed. This wasn’t going away and after a few hearty coughs I sat up and reached for the glass of water beside the bed. As the water washed down I could feel something tickly washing down with it. Had I swallowed a hair? No, that feels different. I gulped down all of the water until I felt the tickle reach my stomach which started to gurgle in eager anticipation of this early morsel.

While I was sat there, listening to the birds twittering outside and watching the first glimpse of early morning light creep through a gap in the curtains, I remembered a statistic I’d heard. The average person swallows four spiders per year whilst they are asleep. I had taken this to be an urban myth. I mean seriously, how could that happen? If that happened to me I would wake up, probably coughing and with a weird tickling feeling in the throat……oh.

I flicked the bedside light on and looked up to the corner. My squatter had vanished. He’d been there all week and now he’d gone.

I can only assume he clambered down to investigate where the loud snoring was coming from and had tracked the source of the offending noise to my open mouth and rattling vocal chords. Unfortunately this curiosity was his first and last mistake. They say curiosity killed the cat, but you can now also apply this to spiders. 

On the bright side his death may serve as a warning for other daring beasties. The giant two legged creature that lives there eats spiders. Stay away. I do hope so.  

Saturday 2 July 2011

Life on Earth


I am alive. I feel that’s worth pointing out as I’ve not posted for a little while. A busy week at work and then a week off distracted me from chronicling events from my existence here. 


I can’t even say that much of note has happened. Well, last week cows seemed to play a small but noticeable factor in my life. Usually I can get from point A to point B without encountering any form of cattle but last week one stray cow held up the train I was on and the next day, whilst driving to Great Yarmouth, a sign warned me of cattle on the road. 


Sure enough, there up ahead of me was a great horned beast ruminating in the middle of the road. The bovine in question seemed unconcerned at the traffic trying to squeeze past him and he just stood there chewing the cud. The locals also seemed to be used to navigating around cattle so I felt obliged to take it in my stride and not mention it when I arrived at my client’s site. I went for the great British talking point of the weather; you can’t go far wrong with that.

I didn’t get a chance to have a look round Great Yarmouth sadly but I made up for this disappointment by taking in the Las Vegas of the east coast on Monday, Skegness. A popular destination for people from Sheffield judging by the number of football shirts I saw, an almost equal number for both Blades and Owls. We did the usual seaside things, a whirlwind of ice cream, arcade games and gift shops. I did however reclaim the Hayward Championship Air Hockey crown after a bitter fought battle with the present, uber-competitive, Mrs Hayward. At least she didn’t try to take out a passing punter with the puck this time. She takes no prisoners when she is in the Air Hockey zone. Blood has been spilt, but rarely our own.


I also bought a holiday hat in Skegness. It’s a marvellous straw effort with a blue band which I stuck on my head for my own amusement, and surprisingly Mrs Hayward said she liked it. I sought reassurance that she wasn’t taking the piss but she seemed to be genuine in her appreciation so I bought it. I find it goes well with my new Hawaiian shirt, although I do look a bit like an extra from the TV series Benidorm, apparently. We’re going on holiday with some friends in August, they’re in for a treat. 

On Tuesday it rained, so I bought a grass strimmer. I haven’t used it yet but I’m looking forward to the moment I crank it up and attack the harder to reach grass and weeds in the garden. I am also in the market for a hedge trimmer and a garden vac. I never knew that gardening could be such fun, just introduce a few gadgets and I’m there. 


We also went swimming on Tuesday and I was able to startle Mrs Hayward by showing off my new found swimming and floating skills. I have recently discovered I can swim under the water for a few metres without dying so I feel quite optimistic that I am finally getting the hang of it. I even swam a length (albeit in two halves) in a depth of 1.25 metres. You may think I’m getting ahead of myself but I think 2012’s resolution may involve snorkelling or diving. I shall be a modern day Jacques Cousteau.


Wednesday brought a trip to shops and some clothes buying for our foreign holiday later in the year, followed by a trip to the pub with a friend who was one of the public sector workers striking on the Thursday, so was rightly taking advantage of the extra day off. As far as I could make out she had no plans to stand by a brazier with a placard on the picket line but I guess her absence made the point.


Thursday brought us our 6 year old niece for a few hours, who has all the energy of an army of 6 year olds. We took her to Paint a Pot in Bourne which is an entertaining experience. I found myself reverting to her age as I sat there painting a pottery Tortoise. However whilst I was painstakingly trying to stay within the lines, but failing badly, she was going for a more production line approach and painted a plate and a spoon rest in the time it took me to badly paint the little creature. I mean really, I’m 37, surely I should be able to manage something better than this….

It was a fun experience though and I realised why parents know so much about kids TV. You get sucked in. Our niece was sat there watching Roary the Racing Car but eventually wandered off to make some chocolate crispy cakes. I however just sat there watching the constant stream of children’s programmes being blasted at me. Eventually she came back whilst I was engrossed in Emily Elephant’s first day at school in an episode of Peppa Pig. She looked at the TV and then looked at me quizzically. “Uncle Tezza” she asked, “why are you watching kids programmes?” It was a very good question for which I couldn’t provide a suitable answer. She wandered off again and I turned over to Top Gear on Dave, although I couldn’t help but wonder if Emily Elephant eventually settled in. I suppose as long as the school isn’t over-run by ivory poachers she’ll be fine.

 On Friday I decided to go for a run in the woods. I haven’t been up there for a while but thought that it would be safer to run there in the middle of the day than dodging the trucks on Cherry Holt Road. Mind you I almost turned round and went home when I pulled into the car park as it was all looking a bit Brokeback Mountain. A guy in a sports vest was there, in the car park, doing press-ups and another was doing star jumps. I’m sure that’s fine and it’s probably a lovely location to undertake some press ups and star jumps but I’m suspicious of energetic shenanigans in Forestry Commission car parks so I just parked up, got onto the trail and started to run. 


There weren’t many people around so I could jog through the trees without fear of embarrassment. It also means that I can go at a comfortable pace when no-one’s around, as for some reason I tend to speed up and try to look as if the whole thing is effortless when I encounter people. 


I did have a brief reunion with a hound that I had met a few weeks previously. There was I jogging uphill (yes, I know, a hill in Bourne, but this is the north-west side of Bourne where the flatlands end and normal landscape resumes) when this brown Labrador appeared in the distance. Thrilled at the sight of someone other than its owner it started bounding towards me. So suddenly I am in the bizarre situation of running towards a dog that is also running towards me. I was just considering the insanity of this situation when a voice shouted out “Princess!!”. Both the dog and I stopped and looked around. On reflection there was no good reason for me to look round, I haven’t been called ‘Princess’ in years, for shame. It was then I realised this was the same dog who had bounded towards me some weeks earlier.


The owner was friendly enough and he said a cheery ‘hello’ to me as we passed. I breathily returned the greeting but sadly it was accompanied by a little bit of drool and a sudden and unexpected expelling of gas, thus making me appear to be significantly less civilised than his canine companion. I have to be careful with that, a friend of mine once had a bit of an accident after going out running when he had a dicky tummy. The end result was that he had to make his way home through some city streets during the early evening in the middle of summer wearing an obviously soiled pair of white shorts and brown stains down the back of his legs. That, as he would say, is another story.


Friday night brought drinks with friends and Saturday morning brought the inevitable hangovers, although Mrs Hayward suffered more than I for some reason. However with the careful application of Orange Lucozade and Flumps she recovered so well that she was fit to go off with the wife in waiting to see Take That again, this time at Wembley. There were some rumours that Robbie had exposed himself onstage in Cardiff which led to some giddy excitement that it could happen again. Personally I don’t see the attraction but I hope they have a nice time. 

 So that leaves me home alone on a Saturday evening. What to do? Go out? Stay in? It’s a tough decision. Knowing me, by the time I’ve made up my mind it’ll be time for bed.


So that was my week more or less. How are you doing?