Another quiet
September day. Humid, cloudy, overcast,
it stretches away into infinity. That’s
what retirement is like. Trying to fill
in time. Take this morning, for instance.
I was up, bright-eyed and ready for action, at seven-thirty. I had to choose between three cereals for
breakfast and decide which of two types of marmalade to spread on my toast. I
drank the third of my three mugs of tea reading for the umpteenth time some of
Patrick Campbell’s witty essays. I noted
that, some reason, there was no digital radio signal, so I couldn’t listen to
‘Today In Parliament,’ which is usually faintly amusing.
‘May I remind my Right Honourable Friend that, when his party was in power, it made such a complete mess of the economy, it’s fortunate that we didn’t end up in a worse state than Paraguay or Tierra Del Fuego.’
‘If my Right Honourable Friend remembers, it was in fact his party, in power previously, that ruined the finances of this country by wilfully overspending on aircraft carriers with no aircraft to land on them and in persisting with the procurement of a nuclear deterrent so obsolete that it ranks alongside the two-stroke engine and the Triumph Herald.” And so on, ad nauseam.
After breakfast, I grubbed out some tufts of grass that were growing out of place in the border. I have discovered that grass grows everywhere it’s not wanted, except on your lawn.
I took the little black spaniel for a walk. I met Stuart on the way out of the street.
‘How’s your new hip?’ I asked. ‘It’s fine,’ he replied. ‘Why are you still limping?’ I enquired. ‘I’m trying to protect the other one.’
The nice part-time lady chemistry teacher jogged past. ‘Taken up running?’ I asked. ‘Beats talking to bored young hoodlums about potassium permanganate and copper sulphate,’ she answered cheerily.
The dog and I wandered down towards the river. On the way is the new primary school. It has a playing field adjacent to it. I normally kick a tennis ball for the dog to catch and to bring back to me, whence I toe-poke it again for her, until we reach the road that runs past the old maltings. I duly kicked the ball, but this time with more than my usual vigour. The dog, taken by surprise, let it bounce off her nose and it spiralled, high in the air, back to me. I had the rare opportunity of kicking the ball when it was off the ground. I could thence gain more distance. I swung my left foot at the ball, but it sliced off the outside of my rope-soled espadrille and looped over the fence into the school playground. As the school is more secure than Fort Knox, that was the end of the football session.
We wandered on, past the tennis courts. My friend Colin was there, painting the white lines. ‘You’re doing the Council’s work,’ I said. ‘Someone has to,’ he responded. The problem is, he paints them twice a season and the lines are now so proud of the actual courts, which are more worn than Tesco’s car park, that every time the ball hits a line, it veers off at an angle of 45 degrees and you can’t lay a racquet on it.
We walked over the footbridge spanning the river, across the farmer’s field, and back into town. I spotted the litter-picker on her bike making a sweep along the grass verge on the opposite side of the road. She’s blonde and in her fifties and goes around the town on a beaten-up old bicycle, collecting the detritus that careless litter-louts leave behind them. She’s a sort of grown-up Borrower from the characters of the eponymous books and TV series. She never smiles, never speaks to anyone, and didn’t return my hearty greeting of 'Good Morning.'
Heading back into town, I spotted the mad scarecrow. He is an exceedingly thin man of about sixty. His garb is always the same – brown corduroy trousers and a buff-coloured sports jacket. He wears a permanently haunted expression, wanders around the town all day, and mumbles audibly and persistently to himself. Occasionally, he yells out in anguish, and passers by, if they don’t know him, get the fright of their lives.
I looked at my watch. It was past eleven o’clock. I had been walking for almost two hours. I took the long way round to get home, rather than the short-cut through Opera Close. When I eventually opened the gate into the back garden, there were only fifty minutes left before lunch. I could then profitably put my mind to how I might spend the afternoon. There was the delightful prospect of my taking the wheels off my ancient caravan to have new tyres fitted, that is if the garage had received them from the distributors in time, or watching 1980s situation comedies on UK Gold. Alternatively, I could read my book on arts and crafts architecture that I had been saving for a rainy day. On reflection, my range of activities is in fact so broad, and I am so spoiled for choice, that I react with asperity whenever people have the temerity to ask of me: ‘But what do you find to do around here all day?’
‘May I remind my Right Honourable Friend that, when his party was in power, it made such a complete mess of the economy, it’s fortunate that we didn’t end up in a worse state than Paraguay or Tierra Del Fuego.’
‘If my Right Honourable Friend remembers, it was in fact his party, in power previously, that ruined the finances of this country by wilfully overspending on aircraft carriers with no aircraft to land on them and in persisting with the procurement of a nuclear deterrent so obsolete that it ranks alongside the two-stroke engine and the Triumph Herald.” And so on, ad nauseam.
After breakfast, I grubbed out some tufts of grass that were growing out of place in the border. I have discovered that grass grows everywhere it’s not wanted, except on your lawn.
I took the little black spaniel for a walk. I met Stuart on the way out of the street.
‘How’s your new hip?’ I asked. ‘It’s fine,’ he replied. ‘Why are you still limping?’ I enquired. ‘I’m trying to protect the other one.’
The nice part-time lady chemistry teacher jogged past. ‘Taken up running?’ I asked. ‘Beats talking to bored young hoodlums about potassium permanganate and copper sulphate,’ she answered cheerily.
The dog and I wandered down towards the river. On the way is the new primary school. It has a playing field adjacent to it. I normally kick a tennis ball for the dog to catch and to bring back to me, whence I toe-poke it again for her, until we reach the road that runs past the old maltings. I duly kicked the ball, but this time with more than my usual vigour. The dog, taken by surprise, let it bounce off her nose and it spiralled, high in the air, back to me. I had the rare opportunity of kicking the ball when it was off the ground. I could thence gain more distance. I swung my left foot at the ball, but it sliced off the outside of my rope-soled espadrille and looped over the fence into the school playground. As the school is more secure than Fort Knox, that was the end of the football session.
We wandered on, past the tennis courts. My friend Colin was there, painting the white lines. ‘You’re doing the Council’s work,’ I said. ‘Someone has to,’ he responded. The problem is, he paints them twice a season and the lines are now so proud of the actual courts, which are more worn than Tesco’s car park, that every time the ball hits a line, it veers off at an angle of 45 degrees and you can’t lay a racquet on it.
We walked over the footbridge spanning the river, across the farmer’s field, and back into town. I spotted the litter-picker on her bike making a sweep along the grass verge on the opposite side of the road. She’s blonde and in her fifties and goes around the town on a beaten-up old bicycle, collecting the detritus that careless litter-louts leave behind them. She’s a sort of grown-up Borrower from the characters of the eponymous books and TV series. She never smiles, never speaks to anyone, and didn’t return my hearty greeting of 'Good Morning.'
Heading back into town, I spotted the mad scarecrow. He is an exceedingly thin man of about sixty. His garb is always the same – brown corduroy trousers and a buff-coloured sports jacket. He wears a permanently haunted expression, wanders around the town all day, and mumbles audibly and persistently to himself. Occasionally, he yells out in anguish, and passers by, if they don’t know him, get the fright of their lives.
I looked at my watch. It was past eleven o’clock. I had been walking for almost two hours. I took the long way round to get home, rather than the short-cut through Opera Close. When I eventually opened the gate into the back garden, there were only fifty minutes left before lunch. I could then profitably put my mind to how I might spend the afternoon. There was the delightful prospect of my taking the wheels off my ancient caravan to have new tyres fitted, that is if the garage had received them from the distributors in time, or watching 1980s situation comedies on UK Gold. Alternatively, I could read my book on arts and crafts architecture that I had been saving for a rainy day. On reflection, my range of activities is in fact so broad, and I am so spoiled for choice, that I react with asperity whenever people have the temerity to ask of me: ‘But what do you find to do around here all day?’
