Helen, of 234 fame, is keen to emphasize that the point she was making about refugees was that THEIR mental and physical health would greatly benefit from gainful employment, which puts a slightly different emphasis on my earlier comments. Regardless, I still think she has a point. If that keeps them off the street corners and away from terrorising pedestrians and drivers alike with their free electric scooters I am all in favour!
Whilst pedalling along the Prom a little earlier I happened upon an unusual sight. A short, dumpy, middle-aged man in a high visibility vest was jogging at gentle pace whilst pushing a small pram. With the eagle eyes of a trained detective (I’m not), I observed that said four-wheeler was in fact empty. That got my journalist’s brain whirring. Had he just dropped off his tiny infant at a friend’s birthday party, to consume unhealthy quantities of sticky cake and stickier juice? Unlikely. Perhaps he was on his way to pick up the ankle-biter from the FBP? Also unlikely. Maybe he was on his way to collect the little mite from the day nursery where he/she had been deposited earlier in the day. Doesn’t quite ring true. Could it be it was for an altogether more nefarious reason? What better mode of transport for a surreptitious escape with someone else’s baby than a pram! However the promenade was almost deserted, with not a baby in sight so it wouldn’t have been the most productive of hunting grounds. With so few witnesses around however, it would have been the perfect low-profile getaway vehicle for a mugging. Clock the innocent walker over the head, stuff the expensive Rolex and Chanel handbag under the baby blanket and exit at high speed….although the jogger looked as though he was probably already at full speed, without risking a coronary. If one is brutally honest, I fear none of those bears any relation to the truth. It may just be that the perambulator was a convenient prop for someone whose balance no longer guaranteed remaining vertical. We shall probably never know……
I have always prided myself on being an honest, well-mannered, upright citizen who hopefully qualifies as a gentleman. Something happened a couple of weeks ago though about which I am still embarassed. There was a 1st XV Cup match taking place on College Field, opposite our house. I enjoy propping up the wall and observing proceedings, with the benefit of a cunning electronic scoreboard behind the pavilion balcony on the far side of the field. Unfortunately, three or four spectators were watching from the balcony, totally obscuring the score. I waited for quite a few minutes in the vain hope that they would realise the error of their ways and move. Sadly they didn’t. I had no choice but to wander round, with a mounting sense of righteous indignation. It had only been my intention to go far enough to see the score but in the end I went all the way to beneath the balcony where the following words somehow came out of my mouth; “Excuse me”, “yes” came the disinterested reply. “You are doing a very good job of obscuring the scoreboard”. They immediately apologised and moved away, but one rather well-to-do lady then turned back and gave me a very old-fashioned and rather shocked look. I instantly realised that what had intended to be a jocular request had come out in a rather rude way, but before I could apologise she had flounced off and I beat a hasty, if somewhat low-profile retreat with flushing cheeks. In the highly unlikely event that the poor lady ever reads this, please Madame accept my humble apologies.
My dearly beloved has fallen in love with high quality, organic, grass fed meat. She now orders a monthly supply of Field and Flower’s finest products, at no small expense. We go for infrequent meat meals of high quality rather than the reverse, which seems a good idea on all fronts. The latest delivery (£100 worth) was duly stashed in the large deep freeze in the girls’ house upstairs on Friday. As it’s half term the house is empty so no one was on hand to notice that a fuse had somehow tripped and for forty eight hours the freezer was gradually turning into a fridge and all our expensive frozen meat that would last for weeks was rapidly defrosting. We are going to have a week of delicious meals…..!
ADayInTheStrifeOf 