Posted on by JonnyB

I arrived out of breath from hurrying up the hill.

“The LTLP’s not well,” I explained. “She was fine, then had a really funny turn and felt all faint and had to lie down in the dark. You couldn’t pop in on her, could you?”

“I suppose so,” replied Mrs Short Tony, who had her coat on to walk back home.

“That’s great. She could probably do with a bit of company.” I turned to the Well-Spoken Barman and ordered a pint. The bar was packed on Saturday night but I found a slot between Eddie and Short Tony and we discussed the bowls situation.

This year my loyalties are being shared between two clubs which, given my bowls ability, is a bit like two underground cocaine and S&M parlours competing to secure the services of Sister Wendy Beckett.

The ‘I’ll only play if you’re really really really really short’ conversation that I’d had with Nigel from the Friday night league had turned into a request for ten pounds for my subscription by the time that particular match had ended. And on Sunday morning we were due a try-out for the Village team itself – a club with the twin advantages of a) being just a very very short walk away and b) having a bar.

There are a few people who I don’t know in the Village team, and whilst they all seem extremely nice and pleasant people, we agreed that it was very important to give a good first impression, and perhaps not arrive with a stinking hangover, bleary-eyed and reeking of stale beer.

I always try not to be too predictable when I write this thing, so I think I’ll probably just tail off there. It was terribly nice weather at the weekend, wasn’t it?

Posted on by JonnyB

Screams echo around the room.

It is incredibly exciting. A horse that may or may not be the one on my betting slip is almost being caught up by another horse that may or may not be the one on my betting slip. Unfortunately it is so exciting that our yells of excitement drown out the commentary, and the jockeys will not keep their arms still for long enough to compare their outfits with the diagrams in the Daily Mail.

My horse wins!!!

We goggle at the television pictures. I am normally rubbish at the Grand National, but this time I have nailed it with my cunning bet. I wave my slip around my head in thrilldom.

“That’s my horse!” says Big A.

The fact that he has very flukily also picked the winner does not diminish my euphoric mood. I scoot back to the cottage with an equine spring in my step.

On the way I take a small diversion through Short Tony’s front garden. I wave the betting slip at them and jump up and down making ‘champions!!!’ gestures.

“We had that as well,” calls out Mrs Short Tony.

I am a bit annoyed by her smug tone, rubbing her good fortune in my face. I pretend to be pleased for them.

Later, I am sitting in the front garden. There is a shout from across the road. Martin the IT Consultant and his wife are on their way to the Village Pub to spend their winnings from the Grand National. I am barely civil at their unkind attempt to render my achievement less unique, and stomp off inside to piss around on the internet.

On the internet, it transpires that this was the most popular rank outsider in the world. In fact, this horse turns out to have been had by more people than the one in Animal Farm (the straight-to-video one, not the film of the book about the pigs that invade Iraq or whatever (I have not read it for ages)).

At the bookies, I join a queue of people who are picking up their winnings. There is probably a bloody Facebook community for people who chose ‘Silver Birch’. But there are a couple of old men in there who clearly go in every day, who don’t bet on the National and who look very resentful of having their gambling retreat invaded by idiots once a year. I conjure up my smuggest look as I hand over the slip.

Posted on by JonnyB

“I’ve got really bad wind tonight,” I complain.

There is a cold silence from the bed beside me, followed by the whooshing of an approaching tirade.

“Will you just STOP IT???” she demands.

I am taken aback. “What?” I ask.

“It’s all you talk about! I don’t want to know! Why, why on Earth, do you think that I might be possibly interested?”

“But…”

“The very first thing that you said to me this morning,” she states, “was ‘I’m just going to try to squeeze one out.’ The very first thing! ‘I’m just going to try to squeeze one out.’ It’s your entire conversation!”

“I didn’t mean…”

“Bodily functions! I’m sick of it! It’s just a bloody running commentary all the time on your bodily functions! You can’t just go to the toilet like anybody else; you have to announce the fact beforehand and then do an in-depth run down of what you’ve left in the bowl. You can’t just say that you want a drink because you’re thirsty; you have to have a drink because you’re dehydrated and your wee is ‘looking a bit cloudy.’ The very first words I heard this morning! ‘I’m just going to try to squeeze one out.’”

“I…”

“Since we first met,” she concludes, “your conversation has gone downhill.”

I say nothing, a little crestfallen.

Posted on by JonnyB

A shadow darkens the window.

I look up from our game of ‘trying to put one brick on top of another’. The Baby frowns at me in irritation. There is something big parked in the road outside.

It is a removal van!!!

Somebody seems to have abandoned a massive removal van outside my house. There is nobody at the wheel, and no sign of any removal people with flat caps and long arms. I study the scene carefully from my vantage point at the nursery window.

The van does not seem to belong to the people over the road who have suddenly decided to move house. Or the other people over the road who have been trying to move house for ages. The LTLP is at work, and it is unlikely that she would move out without telling me or, indeed, getting me to do all the heavy lifting etc., and perhaps dictating a note.

I give the matter some thought. The Short Tonies are away at present. Perhaps some burglars are stealing all their possessions under the guise of being legitimate removal men. I would be a bit embarrassed if this was the case and I did nothing, so I gather up the Baby and sneak next door, through the secret gate that joins the front gardens. If there are burglars then I will hit them with an angry Baby and get her to wee in their eye. Then DNA evidence will be able to track them down.

There are no burglars next door, just a hungry rabbit who I have forgotten to feed. I wander back to the front of the house and look up and down the road.

The people next-door-but-one are moving house!!!

I am now extremely paranoid about this. Of all the houses within a 200-yard radius of mine, approximately 66 per cent of them are either for sale or currently in the actual process of moving out. I resolve to be extra-nice to my remaining neighbours in future, otherwise I will end up in a deserted urban wasteland, just like in the song by the Specials.

Concerned, I retreat indoors to continue the brick game.