Sunday 18 October 2015

Brief Lives and unbelievable truths


This isn't the sort of Sunday Autumn morning I had planned. I am feeling ill with a head cold, I have a hangover and I have just ruined three LED light fittings by trying to tint them warmer.

The worst thing about ruining the lights is that I have to fiddle about fitting new replacements, which is a nightmare the way I feel today, hands trembling and working blind with screws so small that you could not see what you are doing even with a magnifying glass.

I have a hangover because a couple of friends turned up from Glastonbury (yes, real people do actually live there) and I got a bit carried away with the entertainment. I think I was amusing, but I will have to wait for the next time I go into the pub to be told.

Last night, a barred arsehole turned up who is definitely not entertaining, only to be reminded that he is barred. The really stupid thing about barred people is that they seem to think that if they arrive at the pub in the same state as they were when they were barred, all will be forgiven. It takes an inebriated mind to come up with this sort of logic.

Yesterday I took Green-Eyes for breakfast in town, and we decided to sit outside in the leafy square, despite the fact that it was a bit - a lot - cold. She ordered mine and hers then said she was going to the toilet. She didn't come back for half an hour, by which time I was freezing, as was the coffee.

Two young men and a young woman sat at the table next to us, and the woman put a pint glass full of purple fruit smoothy in front of one of the others. Two seconds later, she knocked the lot over both him and the table, where it lay in a thick pool in front of him.

I would have silently stood up and walked away, inwardly vowing never to speak to her again, but he just sat staring at the lurid mess with a look of disbelief on his face.

After a prolonged period of inaction, she went inside and came out with one paper napkin, then began to smear and rearrange the mess over the table as he maintained his 1000 yard stare. It was as if she was playing a game of battleships on a purple sea, but without the ships.

Two young friends of Green-Eyes turned up and began chatting with her. They all live in London but have parents in Bath, where they were spending the weekend.

After a while, it transpired that they have become good friends with Green-Eyes's mother's best friend ever, though they did not even know of the connection when they met. It really does seem to be a small world, because London is a big place.

Many years ago, whenever I went to London I would run into an old friend who lived in Falmouth, Cornwall. This happened four times in four separate areas of London, and became a little scary the last couple of times.

One Christmas day in a mud-built hotel near the Valley of the Kings, Luxor, I found myself sitting next to a young man who taught English in Cairo. We chatted about previous places we lived in England, and it transpired that we had both lived in Whitstable, Kent.

We asked each other about people who may have been mutual friends and discovered that there were many. It was about two hours before we realised that we had actually shared a house there but just didn't recognise each other.

Nobody believes the next story, but it is true. I was once working in Buckingham, and I tried to telephone someone in a different part of the country.

I must have dialled the wrong number, because it was a few seconds before I realised I was speaking to my brother, who - unbeknown to me - had just moved to the same town from somewhere miles away. The call was the first he had received on his telephone, because it had only been connected that very day, and even he did not know the new number.

5 comments:

  1. All is not lost. I have only ruined one bulb array.

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  2. Sod your brother...i want to know more about purple fruit smoothie x

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    Replies
    1. This time of year, I have to protect the white marble from the robins and pigeons which shit it out all the the Autumn. They must go to the same cafe.

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    2. Do you think she was trying to tell him something?

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    3. I found some bird shit on my back recently... they say it's lucky; but for whom?

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