Not writing on a Saturday gets me very confused as to the correct numbering of the day. But, then did anybody count the days in Star Trek either? And at least I don’t do split infinitives. Mind you, there is nowhere to boldly go at the moment. Speaking of science fiction in tv, is anybody else watching ‘ Avenue 5’? It’s set in the future on a space cruise with Hugh Laurie as the Captain of the ship, ‘ Avenue 5 ‘ He’s been designated a hero after allegedly saving Avenue 3 from a disaster ( he didn’t ). It has Rebecca Front as a passenger from hell, who leads the complaints when the ship is knocked off course and the 5 weeks cruise is extended to three years. Can you imagine, locked in a confined space with no fresh air for all that time ? Sounds familiar?
But, who am I to complain? Last night a Big Event happened. Bigger than anything Trump can come up with ( I’ll get back to The Donald later… now, he really is the gift that keeps on giving ) So, this Big Event was bigger than my first ride on a London bus with my Freedom Pass, bigger than getting my first hand written letter since I had a French pen pal ( new readers catch up on previous blog…. I know it’s confusing but try reading the latest Hilary Mantel book… you read a page and then turn back to the list of characters set out on the first ten pages … then another page in you have to repeat the process… too I many Boleyns and Howards, but I am confident I will still be reading this at the end of The Big V ) I will keep you in suspense no longer to reveal the Big Event ( and no, we’re not expecting another child… that wouldn’t be an event, that would be a miracle even though Sarah was over a hundred when she had Isaac and my wife isn’t even yet seventy )… roll of drums…. The Big Event is….. another roll of drums…. we are getting a Sainsbury’s order.
Yes, at 11.36 pm last night, having made a massive effort to stay up and in the process watching the final episode of ‘ Curb Your Enthusiasm ‘ ( brilliant ) an episode of ‘ Hit Men ‘ ( terrific when our heroines get mixed up with a Brownie pack in the woods whilst trying to eliminate a gangster who’s made the mistake of having it off with his Boss’s girlfriend ) an episode of ‘ Friday Night Dinner’ ( the sons in it have to be based on my two and it’s just wonderful… running out of superlatives now and trust me, not all I watch on tv is good ) a University Challenge (where the two teams tied and had a sudden death question ) and a chunk of the 2006 T20 cricket World Cup highlights ( South Africa choking yet again and England losing yet again ) we went on line. I’d forgotten I had a Tesco Club card, registered with them as well and finding they had no slots…. even though unlike Sainsburys they seemed to know how old I was, I thought, oh great, now I have two supermarket chains not delivering to me. But,then,miraculously, more miraculously than my wife giving birth, we found almost immediately after logging into the Sainsbury’s website. a precious delivery slot . Not sure if that was connected to my writing to the CEO ( I know he’s nothing else to do but secure me a delivery ) or not. But, that’s the Good and Big News
The not so good news is that the delivery is a week away. If you think of the delivery as an equivalent to the arrival of the cavalry or reinforcements and remember what happened to General Custer at the Battle of the Little Big Horn or Colonel Travis at The Alamo whilst they waited for help to arrive, then this could yet manage not to have a happy ending. I mean if you read Starvation for the Mexicans and the Red Indians (whoops Native Americans ) then Starvation may well end up the winner. I can just see the substitutions now. Bacon for Benecol , prawns for pak-choi ( didn’t order pak-choi but it’s more alliterative than grapefruits ) . And it’s going to be left outside so no chance of returning the substitutes to the driver.
Hopefully, we can disband our merry band of volunteer shoppers at that stage and on that subject it seems I forgot to include Sophie next door in the honours list on Friday. Very sorry about that, particularly as I’ve known her since birth. And I mean that quite literally. On the day she was born I was off work ( well I’d been off for over a year so she had quite a wide window to choose from ). Her dad knocked on the door ( our bell is always broken although perversely now we get no visitors it’s working at the moment ) and told me that Emma, his wife, had gone into labour, that their car was in for a service ( or was it an MOT… doubtless, Steve, the dad, and blog-reader will remember and tell me ) and could I drive him and Emma to the hospital.
Those of you who know me well will also know I don’t do babies. I mean I love my grand-daughter. I love my grandson. I love my kids ( well, most of the time ) but I’ve always subscribed to the theory that birth is a very personal matter between mother and child. And so is nappy changing. And so is getting up in the night to a screaming child and that a relationship only blossoms when they are old enough to be taken to a football or cricket match or a Dylan or Springsteen gig. That last throw away is a bit of an exaggeration as I have taken Sam to ‘ In the Night Garden ‘ live and The Sooty Xmas Show when he was still technically a baby. I mean when my wife was in labour I had in ear phones listening to a football match as she was making so much noise and it was only when a nurse asked her how long I had been deaf and warned that worse was to come that I adjourned to the hospital car park to do The Times crossword. Interestingly enough the only day I have ever finished the main crossword was on the day of the birth of one of my son’s birth.
Back to Emma and Steve and the yet to be born Sophie. I drove like a lunatic to the North Middlesex Hospital ( pretty near to where I live. Not far from the old White Hart Lane and I walked there a few times when Newcastle were playing Spurs on a Saturday and I couldn’t drive …. Never a good experience with either the walk or the result. I screamed into the drive way to the main entrance… I didn’t care that the maternity entrance was around the corner.. virtually threw poor Emma out of the car and then drove back more sedately, breathing several sighs of relief that I’d not had to help in a delivery at the back of the car.
There now follows one of my smoothest links since I started blogging. Deliveries. We are hopefully getting one from Sainsburys. The paper continues to be delivered every day, though I remove the compostable cover with gloves ( and then wash my hands anyway ) and I got the best joke of all that I’ve received in The Big V ear from my friend Michael Brandon It said, “ Today there will be a clapping session to honour all the couriers and delivery persons The event will be sometime between 8am and pm “
That’s brilliant, terrific and wonderful. I am holding off on the etiquette for forwarding jokes during The Big V if it can produce gems like that Looking for another link, I am reading parts of the paper now there is no sport ( though I loved the Virtual Grand National and picked the winner as it had won the Welsh Grand National ) .I did promise a Trump revisit and the paper helped me. Having called The Big V fake news and a hoax to start, then calling it a Chinese plot to bring down America ( and this is a man millions of Americans voted into power…. Hang your heads in shame… mind you we voted in Blair so we’ve nothing to be proud of … well, actually we have as we stopped short of Corbyn … getting seriously political now so promise not to do that again ) he actually out did himself yesterday. He’s talking about face masks here and I quote,
“ With the masks it’s going to be a voluntary thing. You can do it. You don’t have to do it. I am choosing not to do it. It may be good. It’s only a recommendation. Voluntary. “ I doubt you are reading my blog, Donald, or will ever read my blog, I doubt you can actually read, because you certainly can’t string two words, let alone a cohesive sentence together, but make your mind up, please. Is wearing a mask a good thing or not? Are you not choosing to wear it because you may mess up your hair or make-up putting it on? Do you even know what happened to poor Bojo? Or what is happening in New York? There you are . Political. Never trust a lawyer to keep his word.
Keep safe and well and enjoy the sunshine through your window unlike those idiots who populated Richmond Park yesterday. Obviously all related to Trump. See you all tomorrow if we are spared.