I thought I would try an alcohol free Christmas pudding this year. Today, I began to have my doubts, and these doubts made themselves felt, as if by magic, as I approached the display of Christmas puddings in the supermarket. Then I noticed that a pudding (matured for six months! laced with cognac!) which had been top of the range had been reduced by about thirty percent, and before you could say whoosh, it was in my basket.
So I got the alcohol-free one out and tried it. It was awful. Dry, dusty, tasteless and appeared to be set in some sort of glue.
If you’ve got one of those things, dump it now.
Most of this week has been rainy, if mild; yesterday we both went for our hair cuts and for once it was a perfect, beautiful early to mid autumn day. The leaves are falling all around now, many of the trees are types we are still unfamiliar with. The traffic is terrible especially if you try to walk up the West side of the road. The barbers is on the same road we are, just the opposite end. Quite a character along with most of his regulars but you get a good and relaxed hair cut. In Bas, we used to get back by 9.30 but here it is more like 10.15 due to the generally slower pace of life here by the sea. The barber has Radio 2 on, and we have worked out where the noise comes from – his secret radio is a DAB radio. I don’t like the sound on digital radio. Johnnie Walker played ‘Dreaming’ by Johnny Burnette. It doesn’t sound like Johnny Burnette on DAB, it sounds like a cheap copy. There’s something wrong with DAB if it sounds as bad as that.
The trees out the back are dropping leaves everywhere. The trees outside the front, aren’t. Any ideas?
Three years ago this week we were looking at properties. The agent arrived to show us round a flat. He led us in, opened the door for us and flounced around switching on lights and opening the doors to the rooms while delivering his patter, which ended with his face just inches from mine to deliver his key sales punch line: ‘And best of all, it’s only two years old!’
‘No,’ said your Mouse, quietly.
‘Yes it is,’ he said, looking worried.
‘Its pre-1999. I Googled it,’ I explained.
Lesson: don’t tell lies. Now more than ever it is very easy to be found out.
Waiting for the chip shop to open; some of the Friday regulars arrived. There was a man of about my age, perhaps a little less, holding the hand of an elderly, and rather small, lady. She started chatting, as older people often do. This was her son, he called her his ‘little Mum’ and she had shrunk ten inches in the last few years. You’re very lucky to still have your Mum, I told him; I miss mine dearly. They asked how long ago she had died. Just over seven years, I replied. Then the boys unlocked the doors to let us in.
Leaves crunching under your feet. All the locals started wearing their warm jackets three weeks ago (they are still wearing shorts though). I have gone from wearing thin madras shirts to thicker polo shirts. The lightweight jacket is back on its hanger and the leather jacket is back in use. There’s talk of a postmen’s strike and people being urged to post their Christmas cards today if they want them to arrive before Christmas, without specifying exactly which Christmas. I have already bought the Christmas Pudding. It is autumn. Can’t you feel it in your bones?
The day a week ago when we went to Little Clacton turned out to be the last beautiful sunny and warm day we have had. Its now unrelentingly grey and dull and windy and decidedly chilly.
I’m having a tooth out on Tuesday and dreading it.
Your Mouse and his partner are sole survivors – our families are all dead now, and twice a year we have been going to a church and leaving flowers in the garden of remembrance. Having moved, we had to find a new church where we could have our little remembrance ceremony, and the church which seemed to fit the bill is the little medieval church at Little Clacton.
So we went yesterday afternoon in beautiful Indian Summer weather and found some ladies inside the church setting up the decorations for the Harvest Festival (the decorations are magnificent by the way). They showed us where we could leave our flowers and showed us round the historic church with its box pews and uneven brick floor.
Later while we were sitting on the village square bench waiting for our taxi, the vicar appeared so we got the full works.
Later we realised we must have looked like a couple of the old codgers in Last of the Summer Wine.
Friday: I was just leaving to go for the chips for lunch when I noticed the local chemist’s prescription delivery van was parked in the car park outside. As I descended the stairs another floor to go out of the building, I noticed the reversing light on the delivery van was on. As I was watching the van suddenly reversed at speed and crashed with George’s parked car in the next parking space. The driver of the chemist’s van just sped off. She did not get out of the van to see if she had done any damage; she just fled in a panic. I wonder if she knew what she had hit. Leaving the scene of an accident in such a manner is an offence. George is on holiday so I left a note of what had happened in his letter box. His car didn’t look damaged but he had a right to know.
Just another couple of minutes and she might have hit me.
