Posted on by JonnyB

I settle down to get things done.

Despite my recent general state of non-workingness, I still have odd bits and pieces floating around that I absolutely totally really really must get on with and finish. My vantage point at the PC in my new private secret office lair looks out across the garden; the Industrious Builders beaver away before me.

I like the Industrious Builders. Requested to sort out the drainage and build some walls and level some ground and generally Make Things Nice, they have turned up and sorted out the drainage, built some walls, levelled some ground and Made Things Nice.

I am sure there must be a catch somewhere, as in my recent experience builders do not behave like this. But in the meantime things are hunky dory and the LTLP returns home each night and smiles broadly and does not shout at me, unlike when we had the Methodical Builder who will burn in hell with forks in his eyes. Big forks, that I have previously dipped in lemon juice.

Something is amiss.

The elder Industrious Builder is leaping up and down and waving at me in some agitation, like a nuclear Michael Flatley signalling a four. I can’t make out the point of his shouts through the double glazing, so I leave Spider Solitaire and wander outside to ascertain the cause of his distress. I hope that I have not hung the washing in front of his cement mixer again.

“…the fuck at that!!!” he roars.

My eyes follow the direction of his gestures. On the road at the end of the drive, a full fifteen yards from where it had previously been sitting doing nobody any harm, lies the mangled and squashed remains of my car.

Posted on by JonnyB

I go to the big city.

Feeling low, in the later stages of tooth abscess, I decide to do some shopping. I park my car in the heart of Norwich and go hit the boutiques.

I find clothes shopping alternately fun and traumatic. The shops bit I like, the shoppers bit I am less keen on. I flit from store to store like a butterfly with a credit card who needs new trousers.

Many of the stores I leave immediately. I have an absolute hard and fast rule that I will never give my custom to a shop in which one is not quite sure whether one is looking at the men’s or the women’s items. So I tend to stick to large department stores, where the floors are clearly labelled.

It is a beautiful day – hot and sunny. I need to purchase some sunglasses. Every year, I buy a pair of cheap sunglasses, knowing that by about September I will have sat on them/scratched them/broken one of the arms off, etc. I find a pair that I like and pay the assistant. “You’ll need those outside today,” she flirts, as I hand over the money. The whore. I shall report her to Head Office. But she is right. Spring is in the air!!! Outside the shop I take the sunglasses out of their case and don them, increasing my cool factor by about 100000000.

I wander around town for a bit more, doing nothing in particular, enjoying my new sunglasses, strutting my funky stuff. People look at me, impressed.

More people are arriving and I decide to head for home. In the car-park I decide that I will take the roof off the car. It is that nice a day, plus I have new sunglasses. I zoosh out onto the dual carriageway, weaving around in my sunglasses in my open-topped car. I put some music on.

After a while, I realise that I should have cleaned the sunglasses before putting them on – they are slightly blurry. I reach a set of traffic lights and pull up in one of the lanes, smiling at the cars beside me and their non-sunglassed occupants. I take off my sunglasses to give them a wipe.

From the middle of the left-hand lens I remove a big sticker that says ‘protection level: medium’.

The lights turn green. I drive off.

Posted on by JonnyB

There is a knock at the door!!!

Even with my tooth abscess and associated medication I am determined to lead as normal a life as possible, so I hurry downstairs to investigate.

It is Short Tony!!!

“Hello!” he says.

“Hullo,” I say.

The Chipper Barman pokes his head out from around the corner. “Hello!” he says.

“Hullo,” I say.

With all my strong antibiotic treatments it is an effort to hold down a complex conversation like this, but I persevere.

“We’ve been to the pub,” offers Short Tony. His eyes are so glazed that I half expect Ted Moult to turn up with his feather.

The Chipper Barman ducks behind Short Tony, then pokes his head out again. “Hello!” he says.

“And we were just headed next door to play darts.”

I am a bit cross at this tactlessness in the face of my brave struggle. “I…” I begin.

“And wondered if you fancied a game?”

“It would be nice, but because I am on these STRONG ANTIBIOTICS I am not allowed to DRINK ANYTHING,” I explain, as if to a small child but without the hitting.

“Ah. Yes.”

The Chipper Barman grins wildly at me. “Can I use your toilet?” he suddenly begs.

I am a bit nonplussed that in a journey from the Village Pub (distance from my house: 500 yards) to Short Tony’s house (distance from my house: 10 yards) it should be necessary to divert to mine for a toilet break. But it seems simpler to agree. Short Tony stands awkwardly in my kitchen whilst the Chipper Barman performs a noisy toilet.

“Now shoo,” I tell them, when he has re-emerged.

They leave without fuss. I lock the front door and disappear upstairs to resume my suffering.

Diagnosis.

Posted on by JonnyB

I stumble out of the surgery in some dull state of shock, his words ringing in my ears.

The road outside is noisy; traffic passing each way, a brewery lorry unloading. But I hear nothing. I just walk, my eyes fixed to some random point in the far distance, my mind blanker than it has ever been. I wonder how to tell the LTLP.

Granddad was a double amputee; Uncle Ernie had polio. Great Uncle Ray was a prisoner of the Japanese. Now I have been diagnosed with tooth abscess.

I cross the mini roundabout and lurch towards the pharmacy. The Baby will not understand – will she ever understand? I am fortunate in that I have friends, family and virtual internet readers who I know will support me in my brave fight against tooth abscess, but sometimes you can have hundreds of people around you yet still be alone. With shock I realise that I am already sinking into negative thoughts just ten minutes into my battle.

I resolve to write to the Observer. If I can face tooth abscess with wit, good-humour and poignant humanity then they will probably give me a column in their magazine. Being the person who brings the ‘TA’ word out of the dark and into an environment where people are not afraid to talk might be my crowning achievement in life, aside from once starting a conversation with Tony Hadley in a lavatory.

The pharmacist takes ages. It transpires that the antibiotics prescribed are the ones with which you absolutely totally and utterly must not touch alcohol. A new blow. It is too early to let it go and take the inevitable decision that the cure is worse than the disease itself; I will bear the treatment for now and know I can rely on the support of my neighbours to help me through this.