Hymn

Girl Talk

Oh God.  I’ve had a vision of the future.  And it’s not pretty.  Sitting next to four teenage girls for an hour.  I was invisible, irrelevant, utterly outside their comprehension.  And I was eavesdropping.  But I couldn’t quite keep up.  The conversation lurched from one subject to another following a fiendishly complex route that seemed completely random to the uninitiated.
“My mum’s driving to London a pink limousine for my aunt’s birthday.  She sounds drunk already.”
“Are you going to Mark’s party?”
“Maybe but we need to take something to drink.”
“I’ve never had to buy booze - I always have those little bottles like you get on planes.”
“You can buy some from the Spa outside the station.”
“Yes but my dad’s not happy.  He won’t take me.”
“I’m going to buy some shoes today.”
“My dad’s given me £20.  Tight arse.”
“I got £100 for passing my exams.”
“My mum pays half and then I just don’t pay her back.”
“We’re going to Tenerife”
“You can never miss the first week of school, you get stuck in the rubbish seats next to the nerds” 
“My dad wants to wants me to do ‘A’ levels and become a doctor.”
“I want to marry a doctor.”
“My mum used to be a doctor, one day this boy had had a bicycle accident and had his balls tangled up in his jeans, so they had to cut them off” 
“What?”
“His balls.”
“What, both of them?”
“How old was he?”
“He won’t be able to have children.”
“What are you going to buy?”
“I’d like a canoe.”
“My friend, who’s not really a friend, has just had a tattoo.”
“Have you had one?”
“No, I not having one until I’m 16.”
“I think I’m shrinking, my legs are 23 inches.”
“Mine are 26.”
“Julie Roberts is 44 from hip to toe.”
“I want breakfast.”
“I’ve got an Alpen bar.”

At this point, my head exploded.

Baby Calling

They left looking a little shell-shocked.  They hadn’t stayed with us since the birth and now we’d transformed into aliens - parent-shaped aliens.  It was a bit like having a phone conversation on the train - sentences interrupted, restarted, broken, threads lost and conclusions never met.  Chats truncated by external disruption - a smile, a cry, a burble, some sick, a burp, some milk, a nappy. They’d talked of having children themselves one day - I suspect after this weekend, it won’t be some day soon.

Stinging Advice

I’m told, the best strategy for nettles is speed - if you go through them fast enough they don’t sting.  I definitely wasn’t travelling fast enough today.   We wove our way down the weed-infested track for a mile or so as fast as we could.  Now I don’t want to sound like a wuss about this but fuck me they sting.  Really really fucking sting.  Six hours later and they’re still fucking stinging.   And don’t think about scratching them.  That doesn’t help.  Just encourages them to burn more ferociously.  Stupid bastard weeds.

Mind you, I’m sure the advise giver was related to the one who told me, when I was young, that the ice cream van only plays a tune when it’s run out of ice cream.

Rider

When I die there’ll be lots of terms that won’t be used to describe me: punctual; tidy; single-minded; well-prepared.  Today, however, I attempted to challenge one of those absent qualities only to have my designs thwarted by my obituary writers.

I jumped at the chance to join my dare-doing friend on a cycle jaunt around the local countryside.  For once, I had every eventuality covered - map, money, phone, tools, puncture kit, pump, spare inner tube, provisions - everything.  Fate, however, bided its time, waiting until the furthest point of the trek, the very moment we turn towards home:  my tyre explodes.  Not a hiss.  Not a slow puncture.  Explodes.  Nothing on the road.  Nothing sharp.  No.  A perfectly flat, perfectly clear piece of tarmac.  And bang, my wheel self-destructs.

My spare tube - valve too big for wheel rim aperture
My puncture kit - dried out and useless
The patch given by a friendly passing cyclist - too small for the rip
The offer of the helpful gardener - the same

As my heroic companion heads back for a car, I start the yomp home, smiling to myself as it starts to rain.  ‘Well prepared’ - with the proviso that one can never cover every eventuality or indeed any eventuality if its One of Those Days.

Seasoned Traveller

I tried to like him.  I really did.  After all, I didn’t really know him and we were together for such a short time.

Everyone was fleeing Town today, packing the trains solid.  The man at the gate was reluctant to let me board at all - “It’s all reserved” he said. 

I saw the very last seat.  It was partially hidden by a man and his bag.  Now this gets my goat: arrogant jerks who deliberately sit in the aisle seat and fill the window one with their luggage.  They stare rigidly ahead and avoid the pleading eyes of others with nowhere to sit - as if it’s perfectly reasonable to store a bag there and let people stand.  Well, that was my seat and I was having it. 

“Excuse me,” I said, “Would you move your bag, please.”  He paused just in case I might be talking to harassed parents and their four children squeezed around the table in front, then, huffing, lifted his suitcase out of the way.  He didn’t move himself of course, responding as though I might just be wanting to look at the seat.  And it was a good looking seat, I grant you.  But he sat, steadfast, and now encumbered with his case.  Unmoving.  He sighed heavily as a mashed myself past his satchel and his fat arse into the gap.

As I sat, he immediately seeped over the shared armrest.  I resisted the urge to ask him if he was going to piss over the place too in order to mark his territory.  Moron. 

I tried not to seethe.  I read instead.  I finished Hard Boiled Wonderland long before my stop, tried to distract myself with the passing view but was drawn inescapably back to my neighbour. 

He was late fifties, I’d guess.  Dark hair gone mostly white.  Big moustache.  I’m always wary of men with moustaches - it’s a matter of principle.  Thick set but not fat; heavy hairy arms that didn’t pause for wrists before emerging as bulky hands.  Strangely effeminate pink polo shirt.  I suspect pink lacy knickers too.  He was reading a film script.  But by the time we pulled into a station all I saw was a large whiskery slug, with gelatinous tentacles that oozed slime.  And all I wanted was a large pot of salt.

Confusion Rains

I’m not entirely sure what you call them.  We used to say “Gypsies” but not any more.  Apparently, some Romanians have made that a trademark, in same way that FCUK and Coke are protected brands with anti-establishment connotations.  “Travellers” doesn’t really fit - it conjures up romantic adventures meandering through exotic locations: this group moves from one municipal car park or recreation ground to another only through the threat of an eviction notice.  A neighbour calls them ‘Dirty Thieving Bastard Tinkers’ but I’m not so sure.  I’ll settle with ‘Caravan People,’ it sounds bland and nondescript enough to please everyone.

They’ve reappeared, overnight, on the disused side of the Cattle Market car park.  A dozen caravans and mobile homes.  And swarms of children. 

A large group of men stood around a car deep in animated discussion.  Children played in small groups around the site.  Some chased dogs or pigeons.  The three young girls nearest the edge were skipping.  They all seemed completely oblivious to the torrential downpour that made millions  of raindrops explode on the wet ground and filled the air with heavy drumming.  My sodden trousers stuck to my legs, my shoes leaked and the pathetic excuse of an umbrella merely channelled the water into streams that unerringly hit my face and neck.  They didn’t seem to notice a thing.

As I looked, I saw a train of kids running across the camp.  One wore grey leggings and a bright red puffer jacket.  Over by one of the mobile homes, another cluster, and amongst them, a slight girl in grey leggings and a bright red puffer jacket.  Obviously imagining things, I looked back to the first group; they were still scampering around but as I scanned further, there was a third girl, identically clothed in grey leggings and a bright red puffer jacket in the doorway of a mobile home.  The mildly unsettling aspect was that I could never see any more than one of the girls at a time.  And that made me feel as though I was bit part in a surrealist film.  Again.

Superman

In spectacles - blank looks of non-recognition.
Removed - squeals of infant delight.
To my seventeen week old daughter I changed miraculously from stranger to hero just by removing my glasses.  In my baby's eyes at least, I am, I hope, a superman.

Three Men in a Boat

I volunteered to canoe with the boisterous boys.  Rapscallions, they might have been called once.  But harmless enough.  Seven and half miles, three men in a boat, downstream, I grant you, but in the rain nevertheless.  There’s something slightly contradictory about water sports in the rain but my philosophical murmurings were rather lost on my wet ten year-old wards.  Let’s tell jokes instead, I ventured.  Now, hindsight is a wonderful thing.  Some might argue that suggesting to prepubescent boys that this was their chance to tell a non-parental adult some funnies, was a bad idea.  They might be right.  The first gag involved a discredited pop singer and children (no, not that one, the other one).  The second, an old lady, a rottweiler and some unmentionable act.  Both were slaughtered by a combination of incomprehension, explanation to peers, embarrassment and distracting paddling.  Still, it did present me with a dilemma: frown, tut-tut and disapprove, laugh along and risk the wrath of their parents, or just plead ignorance.  In the end it was easy - I’d already heard them and they weren’t funny the first time.

Pegs

“Ooo! New clothes pegs!”  And the saddest thing?  That wasn’t sarcasm, I was genuinely excited.  Someone, please, shoot me now.

Chasing Well Dressed Men

I’ve been invited to join an association by a stranger from Chasing Vincenzo.  And, frankly, while it may result in my mutilated body being discovered behind some bushes some day, I’m flattered.  Of course, apart from the rather deceptive photograph that graces My Profile, I am woefully under qualified to join the Legion of Well Dressed Men but who am I to argue.