Hymn

Super

There is a set of conversation topics that usually only surface with alcohol-induced buoyancy.  It includes The Clangers, spending lottery winnings and the colour of participants’ underwear.  This week one of that set has escaped the world of fermented sugars.  “What Super Power would you want?”  Simultaneously betraying an excessive amount of time daydreaming and simple, childish, tastes, I had an answer instantly.  Most sober people that I asked had to think.  “To fly” I said without hesitation.  Thankfully, I’m not the only daydreamer, some people really have thought about it:  ‘I wouldn’t want to fly,’ he said, ‘The wind would make my eyes run and I’d arrive covered in splattered inspects and flies.’  It’s a fair point, I conceded.  ‘Teleporting, it’s the only way.  But actually, I’d really want to be able to project images into someone else’s mind so they believed it was true.  But not like hypnotism.  “Eh?” was my best intellectual reaction, “To do what?”  It was such a refined wish that I knew it must have fairly sophisticated reasoning behind it and was probably the solution to a specific challenge.  Depositing large amounts of money in a bank account for example, or convincing a girl that she’d had a good night out and the conversation had gone further than the United game.  His comeback presented more questions than answers: ‘So I could convince muggers that they’d already successfully robbed their victims.’ he declared as though it was the most obvious application in the world.  Sadly, the journey ended before I got to hear the story, but makes you wonder doesn’t it?

Up Your Nose

Now I’m all for alternative lifestyles.  Why, sometimes, I even buy porridge oats instead of Weetabix for my breakfast.  But I do object to having nihilism rammed down my throat.  There must be some demo going on Up North because tonight’s train was full of, I think the term is, Crusties.  Now I don’t mind the piercings (except when they’re in front of me at airport security) and I actually like the fabulously offensive tattoos (that always make my mother remark - ‘What will they look like when they’re old?’)  I can’t comment on the clothing given some of the appalling rags I troll around in.  And I’m green with envy for their hair and the fantastically ornate dreadlocks though I spend so much time shaking my head I’d suffer permanent lash marks if I were blessed with such tresses.  What made me and most of the rest of the carriage uncomfortable tonight was the smell.  Now, I smell.  Sometimes.  After a hot journey, on those rare occasions when I do something arduous and physical or when I’m playing some game or other.  And there was that 46-day trek through the jungle to escape the Colombian drug lords when I didn’t change my socks once but, generally, my stench is not a lifestyle choice.  But this man, I think it was a man, reeked.  He had that horrible long-unwashed pong about him: the smell of fusty clothes that sinks to the base of your lungs and stays there like mustard gas in the trenches.  It was a pervasive and fetid perfume.  Of course, no-one acknowledged it in anyway, although the businessman sitting beside him did shrink away as much as the seats in Chicken Class allowed, though quietly, as if he were slumping into slumber and the girl opposite developed a surprising cold and spent the journey sniffing through her tissue.

As I was leaving, I heard him, somewhat unconvincingly answer the unasked question to the remaining occupants: ‘It’s these trainers.  They make my feet sweat.’

Buh is for Baby

I suspect that only parents really appreciate how young children develop on a day to day basis. How between Monday and Tuesday, the little one transforms himself utterly by some simple new action.  Contrary to most other areas of life, change here is noticeable at a minute and frequent level.  Of course, this is largely to do with the all consuming nature of parenthood and, even though no-one else cares that little Johnny can pick his own nose now, for those of us held in the gravitational pull of an infant black hole these things take on enormous significance.  For us, there’s an element of competitive pride about it, and a large dollop of wonderment.  And frankly anything that breaks the suck-sick-sleep-shit cycle is right up there with major world events such as the Moon Landings.

S has been pretty vocal from the start.  In the beginning, it was the pretty standard on-off I-Need-Something-Now scream: blunt but effective.  More recently she’s been producing a more than passable imitation of a guinea pig and confusing the hell out of our cat.  Last night she made her first syllable - “buh.”  We watched the concentration in her face, and after determining that she wasn’t having a poo, out it popped. “Buh.  Buh.”  It’s amazing, she’s discovering the miracle of language and her first word looks like it’s going to be “bugger.”

Left

S loves her trees.  Her favourite is the cherry tree out front.  Trees make her happy.  But not today.  Someone has taken all the leaves away and left it naked.  She didn’t like it.  She cried.

Neighbourhood Watch

We’re going to have new neighbours.  The grumpy old man from next door has gone.  He’d didn’t say goodbye.  But then, being grumpy, he wouldn’t, would he?  Don’t get me wrong, we weren’t hostile or anything like that, we amiably alternated mowing our adjoining front lawns, I fixed his broken fence, he gave us his broken fireguard ‘for the baby.’  He liked to talk to me about cars and thankfully, him being old, he forgot from one time to the next that I know virtually nothing about them.  However over the course of a dozen or so repeated conversations, I became quite an expert on his Renault Clio.  So much so that the last time we talked, I impressed him with my statistical knowledge of its m.p.g. and resale value.  ‘I thought I was the only one who knew details like that’ he said. 

In my own gently senile way, I never knew if his name was Harry or Frank.  I switched each conversation, sometimes mid-sentence, hoping to pick up some subtle signal of recognition or rebuff.  It never came.  Still, he liked to call me “Andrew” so I suppose that’s fair.

He didn’t speak to T at all.  Didn’t even acknowledge her.  That got right up her nose I can tell you.

Now he’s gone.  Moved to sheltered accommodation.  Cleared out by his Eastern European daughter-in-law, her mother, sister and a clutch of small children.  I never saw his sons.  Come to think of it - I hope he wasn’t being robbed.

Metro

It was an intriguingly named establishment, curiously incongruous for this good solid northern town - the Met Café.  I couldn’t see inside because of the steamed up windows but it promised a lively cosmopolitan atmosphere full of sparkling conversation from out-of-work actors and other arty-farty folk with too much time on their hands.  It lied.  I wasn’t really surprised: it’s proximity to the ‘bus station was a bit of a giveaway.  The place was full of chatter though.  Right up to the point when I put my foot through the door.  Then silence.  Thirty-or-so old ladies turned in unison and reached for their handbags - not for security but as a weapon - for a moment I thought there’d be a lynching.  Every one of them in their Shopping uniform of bluish-grey hair, lavender-coloured coats and those peculiar plastic tartan bags.  Women who can only walk with a stick normally but carry a hundred weight of potatoes and three hundred toilet rolls in carrier bags without batting an eyelid.  They relaxed when they saw the fear in my eyes and returned to complaining about Young People and reminiscing about The War. Two truants, trapped by the arrival of the 378 from Wilmslow, sat petrified in the corner, not daring to move for fear of drawing attention to themselves.

In spite of the fuming coffee-making machine, it didn’t feel especially metropolitan.  The staff did try though. 

‘Yes?’ asked the bored girl with a stud in her nose.
“A cup of tea and a nice piece of carrot cake, please” 
‘Is that a tall or grand Cappuccino?’
“Erm, just tea, please” 
‘Oh, really?’ she said in a tone that suggested I’d just spoilt her chances of winning Coffee Salesperson of the Week with its celebrity trappings.  ‘Pfff.  Do you want Tall or Grand?’ 
“What does that mean?” 
‘Eh?’  The hairs on my neck started to bristle with foreboding.
“What does Tall and Grand mean?”
‘Eh?’ she said as if I’d asked her directions to Matmata.
“Tall or Grand.  What size are they?” 
‘What?’
“Tall and Grand.”
‘Eh?  What?  Tall and Grand?  Big and small.’ I began to suspect I wasn’t making a friend here.
‘Which is which?’
‘Eh?’ out loud, and inwardly ‘Fucking twat.’  She started to reach for the cake slice.
“Can I just have a small cup of tea, please.”
‘Right.’ she seethed with more loathing than I’ve experienced since the my brief time with the Order of the Holy Sisters.  ‘And a chocolate muffin.’ she hissed, sounding disturbingly full of phlegm.

As I looked for a seat, the Grannies formed an impenetrable barricade of shopping trolleys and I saw the last hope of escape extinguished from the eyes of the two trapped truants.  I huddled over my tepid grey liquid and soggy bun at a table the size of an upturned wastepaper bin by the open door until the Wrinkled Hordes left en mass to catch the 309 to Cheadle.  Each one of them coshed me with a large bag of potatoes as they went.

Mates

It’s ridiculously predictable: off go the parents, in comes the Boyfriend.  Grinning from ear-to-ear.  Like the Cat that’s got the Cream.  I swear he’s developed a swagger.  Today he brought some mates with him.   God only knows what they were all going to do together.  I turned my music up extra loud just to remind them that we were there.  But then I couldn’t hear anything through the wall.  Damn it.

Socks Appeal

I’ve never listed ‘sharp feet’ among my physical characteristics but sometimes I wonder if I grow razorblades instead of toenails, the ease by which I shred socks.  I’m pretty much reliant on distant relatives buying me replacements for Christmas.  It’s easy for them, what with them not knowing me and all: they always plump on the blandest, least offensive, garment possible.  And that suits me just fine.  In the past, when I’ve been let out on my own, I have recklessly tried to buy my own.  Unfortunately by the time I’ve returned home, my brave Stop-Being-So-Stuffy-Let’s-Try-Something-Different idea has metamorphosized into some hideous lime green stocking that would only fit a child pygmy.  And I don’t want to talk about the terrible terrible time I tried to buy some underwear for T.  All I’ll say is that it looked very nice on the model and how else was I supposed to determine her size?

While most socks only seem to survive a few hours on my feet, there is one notable exception.  I’m not entirely sure what alien fabric they’re made from but my rugby socks are still pristine.  Now, remember, I was at school not long after sulky Webb Ellis tried to take his ball home, so these socks have been around a while.  It’s incredible but there’s no sign of wear and tear.  Even though they should be in a museum or being analysed by scientists, I still use them every time I embark on any slightly masochistic athletic adventure.  Like this afternoon’s biking expedition.  However, with my stripey black and white socks pulled up to my knees and jersey covering my cycling shorts, I ended up looking more like a St Trinian’s-themed drag act than a hardcore mountain-biker.  And I’m sure that the distance my friend kept from me was purely for reasons of safe cycling.

Phone Home

The wretched transport system has conspired to keep me away from my little girl a great deal this week.  I’m ashamed to say that for three of the last five days, I’ve only seen her asleep.  That breaks my heart.  I have this picture on my phone.  I look at it so often I’m surprised the pixels haven’t worn out.  It makes me so happy, I can’t describe it.  It reminds me how lucky I am and in a moment takes me home.

Waiting Rum

I travel so many miles on the railways I might as well be an engine driver.  Most of the time it’s pretty good; this week it’s been horrendous.  At least once each day in the last three days, I’ve found myself stranded at stations having missed connections because of faulty trains.  Never mine.  Always the one in front. Never the one behind, damn it.  If it was mine, I could dismiss it as Just Typical and feel ever-so-slightly guilty for jinxing my fellow passengers.  But with my carriage faultless, this is a particularly sadistic form of inconvenience - the poor souls on the broken loco don’t even know that the person to blame is sitting a few miles behind them.  And so it is that I miss the Once in a Blue Moon connection.

Now I’m not sure which rules apply to British railway stations but I’m pretty sure that they defy most the of the laws of physics.  Light cannot penetrate them and time slows to an imperceptible crawl.  They induce a heaviness that is only equalled by the gravitational pull of a collapsing star and they are among the most depressing places known to man, second only to my Great Aunt Mary’s Front Room.  The waiting rooms are the final refuge of the desperate, the destitute and the deranged.  Usually there’s one of each.  Including me.

In traditional English social gatherings, it is customary to keep as much distance as possible between you and the fellow guests.  While the man talking to his coffee cup and rocking gently seemed to understand these conventions, the drunkard smelling of urine didn’t.  He was very keen to strike up a conversation.  I’m not entirely sure but he seemed to want to chat about ya-bloot-sen-a-ticket-fer-noboo-n-neebee.  We chatter amiably enough, albeit one-sidedly and punctuated with growling, for a little over half an hour before he fell asleep on my shoulder.  Thankfully, it was only a further twenty minutes before I had an excuse to move and leave him dribbling contently on the ripped seat.

I eventually fell through my front door only a little later than if I had walked the hundred or so miles.