I have a new hobby. I mean every boy should have one. I’ve dipped into loads of hobbies over the years. Stamp collecting was a real obsession for a while. In fact, I’ve never stopped. I still get every First Day Cover sent to me. When I was working full time in the good old days, when we used to gather around and open the post together I always grabbed the envelopes with exotic stamps. One of my partners would look for British stamps that hadn’t been marked by the Post Office and then steam them off and use them again!
I’ve got boxes and boxes of stamps dotted around my house. My friend Len and I bought several hundred pounds worth of the Concorde stamp when it was issued thinking it would increase in value. For years I kept them at the bank and then the bank told me to remove my deposit box, Concorde stamps and all. I duly brought them home and put them in a safe place. So safe in fact that I can’t find them ( maybe they’ve come to a sticky end …don’t even need to explain that one ) It’s not the disaster it might appear to be because they are now worth less than what we paid for them. Tried to get Sam interested in stamps at one stage but to no avail. Will try again with my grand-daughter when she is old enough not to try to eat them.
Then there were matchboxes, picture post cards, cigarette cards and I think you are beginning to get the sad picture of an only child growing up. My kids collected football stickers as well. Panini was a company that issued pictures every year of every footballer and gave you a free album to stick them in. Not such a generous gesture as might appear as you then spent fortunes trying to fill the album. As if that were not bad enough they repeated the process for every World Cup, every European Championship and indeed every tournament where they could squeeze money out of parents desperate to get the bloody album filled for their kids and be done with it.
There was a nice story the other day about a bloke who had started collecting for his 1979 Panini album when he was 11. He needed 594 of the little stickers at the start. His daughter found his unfinished collection, bought the ones he needed on line and presented him with a complete set when he was 52. It cost her a small fortune to get hold of the badges of Crystal Palace, Newcastle ( well, they would be missing wouldn’t they? The whole team goes missing on the pitch every Saturday afternoon ) and Morton. The dad said plaintively, “ I struggled to find them when I was younger and the kids wouldn’t swop them with me in school. “ Hm , Billy-no-mates then.
My new hobby though, now that I have put all childish pursuits behind me is …. Birdwatching, Or, actually bird spotting. I was sitting in the garden the other day clutching a glass of wine ( told you I was developing a drinking habit ) when I said to me wife, “ There’s a bird in that tree . “
Those who know me well will also know that my observational skills are about zero. I can walk past anything any number of times and still not know it’s there.
“ Do you like that new vase ? “
“ What vase ? “
“ The flowers I bought are nice, aren’t they? “
I always nod and say yes and then desperately try to find them.
Anyway, the bird I spotted turned out to be a pigeon. And then I spotted another bird and managed to identify it myself this time as another pigeon. I am not sure if my new hobby is bird-spotting or pigeon collecting or whether I keep seeing the same pigeon moving from branch to branch or tree to tree. My wife tells me we have a Jay, a wood-pecker and a blackbird in the garden as well, but I haven’t spotted them yet as they seem to harder to find than pigeons and I am a pretty lazy hobbyist.
I do generally feel that if you have seen one bird then you have seen them all which is the line my wife usually uses about football matches. But I am not giving up. I will get my twitching badge if it kills me.
There was a girl aged 9 in the papers the other day who was training pigeons so it seems I’ve a bit of catching up to do. Same with the 7 year old boy ( I think I may have said he was 8 the other day , but he was live on Chris Evans this morning and he is definitely only 7 ) He’s the one who is posting a joke at the front of his house every day. You couldn’t forget the seagull and the baygull could you? He’s going to be on the programme every morning from now on . Chris asked him about the public reaction to the 57 jokes posted so far and he said that a couple of passers-by have bought him chocolates. Come on readers, I use jokes as well. And if you are buying can I have a large slab of Cadbury’s Fruit and Nut please. That’s my favourite. Today’s joke, by the way was . “ Why do you never see a dog driving ? “
The answer is because they can never find a barking space.
I am trying to brighten up the mood here so you don’t need to groan. My son Nicky’s friend from LA was trying to visit her sick father in NYC. She turned up at the airport wearing a head to toe home-made outfit made from plastic garbage bags. She got as far as security and then they made her to take it off! However, she did get fifteen seconds of fame because she made the prime time evening television news.
My days do usually start bright and early as I attend the on-line service with my local Rabbi Daniel. It’s a bit of a social occasion as the hard core have a chat before we start. I’ve not missed one of the 57 yet so I asked this morning if I would get the attendance prize. Made me think of school-days. You were awarded a book you hadn’t chose with a label in it setting out the date, the reason you had received it ( I never got it for attendance because I was always off sick for some reason or other …. Found this book all about the Wooberry Down Estate where I grew up and there is a class photo from my year at Woodberry Down Primary School in, I think 1955 and I managed to be off that day too… ) but I did get prizes for “ Attainment “ They never said what subject you have attained anything in so I reckon they just doled them out to kids who were never going to be top of the class in any one subject. And I never was.
I’ve still got those books today and pretty awful they were, I tried to foist one called “ Good Companions “ with a picture of a boy and his dog on the front cover on to Sam ,but he was having none of it. He won’t read anything with large print or under 350 pages or where there isn’t some science fiction or magic involved or aimed at anybody under 14. I suppose that’s rather pleasing really although it’s getting to the stage where his reading material might need a bit of censorship.
Anyway, lovely day out there, need to look for some more pigeons so I am off. It’s National Sandwich Day Today. Somebody on the breakfast show said their favourite sandwich was a Mashed Potato one… mind you they were Australian. Seems the potato has to be left over from previous night’s dinner and can’t be cooked specially. Mine is either smoked salmon and cucumber sliced thinly… can’t eat smoked salmon without cucumber, or cheese and tomato..can’t eat cheese without tomato or egg and cress… yes, you guessed it. Give me an egg sandwich without cress and I just look cress fallen. Does that earn me a box of chocolates ?
Have a good sunny day with your picnic sandwich in the garden and if we are spared, see you all tomorrow