Tuesday 24 June 2014

Hot sauce and cold meat


I have been feeling a bit old of late, mainly because my neck, shoulders and upper back are painfully seizing-up - there's nothing like stiffness to make you feel old.

It doesn't help that I haven't seen my glamorous assistant for about a year now, and I have to pick up, carry out and lift up a 2 cwt block of marble onto a set of trestles on my own every day at the moment, or that I have spent about 35 years doing similar things on a daily basis. It's not as if this block is going to get any lighter than a few pounds by the time it's finished.

This morning, I unzipped the front of my trousers for the usual reason, and a moth flew out.

This, on top of everything else, has sort of set the tone not only for the day, but for all the foreseeable evenings as well, which is crueller than any woman may be able to understand.

I was a guest at the new Caribbean restaurant - who are our new neighbours - last night, and I opted for an all-female crew to accompany me as my escorts. Green-Eyes, her mother and H.I., her mother.

I will cut a long story short by saying that I just popped into the place during a training exercise (theirs, not mine) a couple of days ago, to make an extremely mild complaint about their hi-tech extractor fan - well, it was more of a question than a complaint, really.

The result of this was that the four of us were treated to as much freshly-cooked and smartly served West Indian food as we asked for, and at the end of the meal, the manager came up and covered out drinks bill as well. Sometimes it pays to mumble a slightly negative comment.

We were seated downstairs beneath a massive, open spiral staircase, and the seating area was bang in the middle of the underground medieval street that ran alongside the old city wall, which I have mentioned here a couple of years ago. You can still see the 17th century exterior windows in the now  interior wall, even though they are partially camouflaged by a giant mural of Bob Marley.

Well, it shames me to say it, but as the girlies were chatting away amongst themselves whilst eating, my attention on the food was constantly being distracted by the servers of it, who were running up and down the stairs all night in extremely short, tight, black mini-skirts.

Now you may have a deeper understanding of why the moth flying out of my trousers this morning has had such a demoralising effect on me.

31 comments:

  1. As long as they don't fly out of your wallet as well....

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  2. I found the moth flying out of your trousers, highly amusing….. maybe, at our age, that's high on the list of excitement !!!! XXXX

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    1. It's when they start flying out of my willy that I'll know the game's really up.

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    1. I laughed out loud when I read this, and I wish I had thought of it!

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  4. Is that a long hundred weight, or short? Could make all difference in your appreciation of its mass.

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    1. I didn't think that Americans knew what cwts were, let alone have definitions for different types which I have never heard of. All I have ever done is pick them up.

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  5. Would it have been easier had it been a butterfly?

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    1. Butterflies? I suppose I can think myself lucky that it isn't just ordinary flies.

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  6. It's amazing how many moths one finds in public toilets and park urinals. I once wrote something on this subject. I was impressed by their ability to choose walls for camouflage but I often wondered how they stood the stench. Your trousers are a luxury hotel to a moth.

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    1. This one checked-out pretty quickly. Maybe I'll get some sort of Trip Advisor review - 'plenty of ball-room', etc.

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  7. I'm still only getting one post at a time from all of you, so I don't know how as many as commented here got this this one without extreme effort. If this is the case, I even am more grateful than usual.

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  8. I was just wondering why you don't scroll down your bloglist under your ' members ' { tee hee !! } … just a thought. That's the way that I always check out my favourite blogs. How's the moth situation ? …… hope it wasn't an infestation !!!! XXXX

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    1. I usually don't need to. If any one of you lot on that list posts something new (which sometimes takes a year) it normally alerts me - simples.

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  9. Sorry to hear your neck, back and shoulders are hurting Tom. Hope they're better soon. Sarah's comment made me laugh. Changing the subject - Google Reader is only bringing one blog up at a time on my computer too. Must be something new, but hard to keep up with everybody's blogs

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    1. Well, if it's not stuck under my nose, I usually don't eat it - and that goes for most of us I thought, until all these comments from you and the above.

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  10. Are you sure they aren't just hurting from craning your neck to peer up waitress's skirts all evening?
    Saw Palmetto, I have been told, is very good for Men over a Certain Age's er "trouser health". Although I think Saw Palmetto sounds like a gangster associate of Al Capone to me...

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    1. I'm not even sure I want to look up 'Saw Palmetto', let alone waitresses skirts - is it like Spanish Fly? Spanish Moth?

      Do you have any in stock right now, MrsC? Does it come with written instructions and in a plain wrapper?

      Whatever, I still don't want any, whether I need it or not.

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    2. Holy Mary, Mother of God - I just looked up your site. Saints preserve us from lampshades, or shades of any description.

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  11. I've been having the same issue as Molly, where only one blog shows up on my blog list. Whoever posted last is shown. Period.

    As for short or long cwt: In North America, we use short cwt where 1 cwt weighs 100 lbs. In Britain a cwt weighs 112 lbs, which would be a long cwt by North American standards. Like the US gallon equalling 4 quarts whilst the Imperial gallon was a bit more.

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    1. Ah, thanks for that. A dry block of Bath stone measuring one cubic foot weighs 1.25 long cwt. This is why I am fucked and will continue to be so.

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    2. Is the stuff heavier when it's wet?
      Please tell us you use winches and pulleys.

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    3. Yes - heavier by a factor of how absorbent it is. I use winches and pulleys as far as I am able, but I used to have access to a 5 ton forklift, before I fell out with the mad owner, who refused to let me go halves on the purchase cost of it.

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  12. Hello Tom:

    Think positive!! To do otherwise is to become a Canute type figure and, as we all know, the waves do not go back.

    Our recent absence, which indeed you may not have noticed or even been joyful about, was on account of a Blogger technical problem whereby nothing appeared in our 'Dasboard'. For a while it was rather a relief!!

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    1. Yes, and now it is fixed. I too (I must admit) found it quite relaxing to have a good excuse not to comment, as I am sure the recipients of my comments did.

      As far as the silly Cnut goes, I am just one of millions of men who - very occasionally - find himself mourning the loss of his youthful strength and all the benefits it seemed to bring. We purposefully forget all the negatives it also brought.

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  13. moth! *snort*

    you can buy that sauce in tescos

    was the food good?

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