“Have you been in all day?” he demands.

I know what is coming. He has been waiting for his sausage machine to be delivered for days now, each time the parcel people cunningly thwarting him with ‘we called’ leaflets and/or phantom door-knocks. I give a weak shrug. “They haven’t left it here.”

He has an explosive look on his face; a combination of frustration and dangerously low blood-sausage levels. I take a quick peek at his cottage, which he has plastered in ‘If I am Out…’ instruction posters stuck up on every possible piece of house that a delivery man might conceive as being a front door.

I share his crossness. I was looking forward to some home made bangers, and Len the Fish has promised to give the ladies a formal sausage-making seminar session one evening. Even his dogg looks forlorn. Curse evil Parcelforce!!! I shall put them in my small black book of things to not look fondly on when the revolution comes.

Big A rings to see if I will replace his bin when the men empty it. I am becoming quite a pillar of the community, what with my parcel-takingdeliveryof and bin-replacing commitments. Later, somebody asks me if I would ‘take on’ the Church Fete. I think that they are probably joking, but I tell them that I have quite enough on my plate at present.

Run! Run! Run! Across the road and up the hill towards the Village Shop, the frosty air kept at bay by two layers of Matalan. I have dug out my old “I go for a run” playlist, and the motivational music spurs me on at the correct pace.

“Oooohyeah it’s just the Eighties Coming Back ooohyeah…”

My body’s response seems to be okay; it is not until I pass Eddie’s house that I find myself gaspingly short of breath, and by this point I can see the Cottage with its warm and armchair-beckoning front door. Unfortunately Eddie lives pretty well opposite me, and I am looking over my shoulder on the way out, rather than jogging triumphantly in on the home straight.

I shrug my shoulders, or at least I do in my mind, as moving a shoulder muscle would use up half my available energy reserve. A few minutes later I have run the length of his bungalow and am on my way up towards the Village Sign.

Run! Run! Run! It is important that I maintain a sensible pace, as I do not want to be foolish and cause a pulled or strained Thing. I turn down the hill on the green lane, gracefully evading some dog shit. “’stheeightiescoming eightiescoming eightiescoming…”

I am quite impressed with my legs so far. I’d had an inkling that they might drop off, but they are still very much trotting away, albeit somewhat independently from the rest of my body. Kate Bush introduces herself to my ears. I cannot fully interact with her under current circumstances, and it occurs to me that I am the only person in the world ever to listen to this particular song and not do the arm movements. The duckpond passes, like a speeding glacier.

Ten minutes later and I am clenching my fists with the heat of achievement, standing in my kitchen, not dead. In fact I feel better than I’ve felt for a long time. In some respects.

Happily, I run myself a bath and get myself a cold refreshing full-fat Pepsi Cola from the fridge.

The tracksuit top is warm and nyloney. My breaths come out rhythmically – puff, puff, puff. My legs feel rusty and underused. But I have reached the top of the stairs, and can now collect my MP3 player from the bedroom.

I turn to retrace my steps. Going down is easier; I reach the bottom with no major physical problems.

There is a knock on the door!!!

It is Mrs Short Tony, with a message that they are going away for a couple of days.

“Well, I am going for a run,” I tell her, proudly.

“You what?” she asks.

I repeat myself. She looks doubtful, explains that Short Tony can hardly walk and asks if I know whether we fell over on the way back from the pub on Saturday. But I am not listening. Her doubtful look is hurtful and unnecessary. I am starting to feel that nobody believes in me. This is what happened to David Bowie, Sting etc when they switched media and went into motion pictures. I think that some people find it hard to believe that somebody who is a great writer can also be a great runner. It is not an either/or situation.

She takes her leave. I decide to wait for a bit until there is slightly less traffic outside.

I stare at it for a long time. Nobody rings me at this time of day, except the LTLP who is in America with fleas. Perhaps the person on the other end of the line will give me an excuse not to do something which I have been putting off and putting off and putting off. It is worth a shot.

“Hullo?” I ask the telephone.

“Hello!” replies Big A (on the telephone).

It is Big A, who is telephoning me out of idleness as he lives across the road.

“I was wondering if you fancied a game of snooker this morning?” he asks.

I pause, and examine my conscience. It takes me about three seconds, and I reel back in horror from what I discover. But I resolve to be firm, despite his siren telephonic entreaties.

“I’m sorry,” I say firmly. “But I’m going for a run.”

There is an odd noise at the other end. “Hello? Hello?” asks Big A. “There must have been some problem with the line. I thought you said you were going for a run.”

Yes, because sarcasm is, like, the highest form of wit, isn’t it? I crossly tell him to go away. I have no idea why my running plans have caused such scepticism amongst the general public. But I will not be diverted from the path of righteousness.

“I just generally feel constantly terrible,” I complain to Short Tony, as he cooks dinner for his dogg. “I’ve got fat, I’m out of breath all the time, I’ve got no… get-up-and-go.”

He gives the wok a stir. My suggestion that we start playing tennis again is accepted as something that we might do some time in the future at some point sometime.

I am very down. It is not the Toddler’s fault, but since she has been around with her subversive and sabotaging influence, my own quality of self-care has been put to one side. I have stopped cooking nice healthy meals and am grabbing whatever is to hand, and I am drinking too much (although this is genetics as our genes have yet to catch up with the fact that there are pubs now). On the sporting front I only really play bowls and snooker these days, and you cannot really count snooker as exercise.

The LTLP has taken her fleas to Los Angeles for a bit, and I feel that now is the time.

“I’m going to start running again,” I announce.

Short Tony turns the heat down to a simmer, to reduce the sauce.

“Is that wise?” he asks.

She arrives back from the Village Pub late on the Friday night. I am already a bit cross with her, as I had been playing snooker on the Thursday and had planned to watch the rugby at the Village Pub on the Saturday. You would think that she would not go out on the Friday so that we could spend some time together. She is selfish.

Mrs Short Tony and Mrs Big A follow her into the kitchen and start rootling through her hair with the hands that don’t hold freshly-poured glasses of wine.

“What’s going on?” I enquire.

“Headlice,” I am told.

I don’t know about other people, but I had always thought that it was normal to go for a kebab or whatever on a Friday night after the Village Pub, rather than holding some sort of headlice clinic. Feminine hilarity ensues as they start scratching away at her scalp. I am annoyingly sober.

“Er – did you have a good time?”

“There’sonethereitisyes!!!!!!!!!”

“Ugh.”

“If she has them, the likelihood is that you do as well.”

“Getoff!!! Getoff!!!”

I am assaulted by a drunk woman with a comb and latex gloves. Given that I have an average-sized head and short hair the inspection is over very quickly.

“You’ve not got them. Just her.”

The LTLP has fleas!!! She looks really pissed off at this. But I haven’t, so it is all right.

This time we have an away match. Luckily, Short Tony is ill so we are able to persuade him to drive. Still slightly intimidated by the competition, we stand around self-consciously as the table is set up.

The format of this night’s game is pairs. I am not sure how I feel about this. On one hand it means that I have somebody playing with me who might pot some balls; on the other hand, snooker, like sex, is sometimes better on your own – fewer shamefaced apologies are needed, especially after you accidentally leave something unmissable on the table.

Annoyingly, I am drawn first. I send Short Tony coughing and sneezing to the bar to get me some emergency Abbot Ale.

My dad said to me once that a ‘proper’ sport must involve some potential element of self-sacrifice. Running yourself out to save the other batsman, for example. He is wise, and I have always agreed with my dad on everything, apart from the BBC comedy ‘The Thin Blue Line’ which, whatever he says, is shit. The senile old fool. However I have decided that I have a better definition of sport now: a proper sport must contain some potential element of making you look like a knobend in front of a crowd of people. For example the spectacular sliced own-goal. The graceful late-cut that hits your own wicket. In bowls you might send the wood down with the wrong bias on, and everybody will point and laugh and say ‘he’s got the wrong bias!!! Haha!!!’ Etc.

I am quite new to snooker, but the potential knobend factor appears to be very high, which is what makes it such a popular sport. As it is, Big A, with whom I am paired, tries a swerve shot which sends the white away at a ninety degree angle to that intended, and then later hits the pack of reds with the end of the rest. On my part, I specialise in missing the object ball completely and bringing the white back down the table into the pocket. We lose the game.

The current table reads:
Team, Matches played, Points
Other teams, Some, Some
Our team, Some, None

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