Other people

A woman on a mobility scooter is asked by a man standing at a cat charity display if she'd like to donate, she shouts out "I don't like cats, I'm a dog person" - I like her honesty, bellowing across the shopping precinct. 

As I walk out of an entry near to work I pass three people talking, I don't notice what one of the men looks like but it strikes me that the man and woman standing next to each other are dressed like Wayne & Waynetta Slob. The only words I catch, during a quiet part of the podcast I'm listening to, come from Wayne "...stopped speaking to me because I've fucked off to go and get some sex, I mean we've all done it in the past..." 

A quarter of a century

Today is my brother's birthday, he is 25, a frankly horrifying thought, since in my head is eternally 8. It is also no panty day (who the fuck says panty? I feel sick typing that), or at least according to Twitter it is and this has amused me no end. You see, one of my lasting memories of my brother is of him at a youngish age, skipping round the garden while my friend and I sat in the sun drinking wine that we'd bought solely because it was called Fat Bastard. He was topless, it was hot, soon his shorts were off and then before we knew it his pants were off and he was whirling them round his head shouting "full monty" at the top of his voice. We were in part hysterical and in part shocked. I'll admit this is weird behaviour for anyone but the blame for this incident lays squarely at the feet of our Dad. 

I have a feeling I'm repeating myself here but I can't be sure so I'll tell the story anyway and you can skip it if you're still reading... 

Anyway, in his part time Dad was the concert secretary at a local social club, a role he would take very seriously, because he liked to perform for people. One year they organised a Mother's Day show where as a treat for the women, the men all performed various skits, songs and the like. One of the pieces they did, which may or may not be a treat depending on your definition of the word, was a Full Monty routine, yep, like the film of the same name, him and a bunch of other older men danced to You Can Leave Your Hat On, removed their jackets and shirts, ripped off their velcroed trousers and finally, throwing a pair of spare pants they cunningly hidden in their hats into the crowd they pretended to have done the full monty. Someone filmed the whole show, there's a copy of it somewhere and that is where my brother got his inspiration for his impromptu garden performance from. It's a wonder social services didn't call round. 

And this is why it seems fitting that his birthday should coincide with such an auspicious day.

(Incidentally, it's also made it so that I can't appreciate Magic Mike like a fair proportion of the population can) 

Albert Stanley Fletcher

Today the dog turns 1. We've had him for just under 9 months now and the time seems to have flown by but at the same time it seems an awfully long time since I was in the weeping on the kitchen floor wondering what the fuck I'd done stage of dog ownership. He was given a fitting middle name and surname in the early days. I thought he was a horror but from talking to other dog owners, he was just a puppy and I wasn't prepared for it, as you'll know if you heard my woes back in March. Don't get me wrong, he's still an absolute horror when he wants to be. He has a personality and in a way that's nice, but in another way it's not, because he has a similar personality to me. He's a stubborn little fuck. He's aloof, he pretends he can't hear you, he has to have the last word when he's told off for barking at nothing in the garden and if you don't comply with his demand to play with him he'll bark in your face. But he's also a good dog and he's very patient considering he's often being swept up in mine or Mr T's arms for an enforced cuddle. Now, if we can just train his obsession with wool out of him - he cannot bear the idea that I might want to crochet or do some knitting - and stop him chasing us down the hall when we're leaving the house, biting on our sleeves, snapping over the baby gate, then he'll be a pretty awesome dog. 

Here's a blurred picture of him modelling a short snood while Mr T is playing with his feet, he was surprisingly sedate when I put this on him, he lasted a few minutes before he realised it was wool and then went absolutely loopy over it, because that's what he does. 

Is he going to report us to Paul O'Grady for not buying him a birthday present? Or for putting a snood on him?

Overheard in the waiting room

Remember in the last post I said I had a day off in the middle of the week? Well, I did. Mr T was off to an MRI appointment and I went with him. I sat in the waiting room while he went off to a truck in the car park to have his bones looked at.

I took a seat near the door, the second seat in the row, the first was too close to the phlebotomy room and I felt awkward, what with me not being an actual patient. A woman in her 20s walked in and stood near the door, a nurse poked her head round and told her that she should take a seat and wait till someone was free. The woman said "there's no seats, I'll just stand". I looked up from my kindle, a cursory glance around the room told me 14 seats were free.

At the far end of the room was a help desk, there was a lady sitting behind it, sorting books into boxes.

A tall man lolloped in, head down, walking towards the help desk, the laces on one of his Doc Marten shoes were undone. The lady at the desk informs him of this. He shows her a letter and she tells him which corridor to go down, ending with "when you've done that" gesturing towards his laces. She's not going to let him go until he's crouched down and tied his laces, this place doesn't have an A&E department.

Earwigging

There's a man and a woman walking along the prom, at about the same speed as us so they stick around just long enough to hear the best bits of their conversation. He says something about "the Italian stallion in JD" naturally my ears prick up at this, a) because I can't help but earwig on something that starts with a phrase like that and b) because I finally might have something to say here. The man goes on to describe how he got the impression that "he's looked after himself all his life" - this Italian man sounds quite the catch. "I almost chased after him and asked what his aftershave was". He sounds utterly smitten. His companion didn't have much to say in about it. I'm not sure she was even listening to him, if she was she'd have probably asked more about it, instead she said that the night before she'd answered the door to someone, who hadn't recognised her. The woman had been all dressed up, so she said, the man responded to this story with "well, you looked gorgeous", then they passed us and I never got to hear the rest of the conversation. The way he said it, of course she was unrecognisable, she never normally looks passable let alone gorgeous. I can only imagine she asked what he meant by that, didn't she always look gorgeous? I bet she didn't talk to him for the rest of the day, I wouldn't. Then again, I take compliments meant for my dog and pretend they were aimed at me, I am nobody to judge.

Another pairing, a man and a woman cycling towards us, I caught a snippet of their conversation I half wish I knew the context of and half wish I didn't because I think I'm happier not knowing where it stems from, it's funnier that way. 

Man to woman:...look like you're having an orgasm

Builder's lad

A white van pulls up outside a greasy spoon, it's not yet 9am, they're going for their pre-work artery toughening and tea. 

He gets out of the passenger side, he's wearing jogging bottoms and a tshirt. He shuts the door behind him and makes his way to the pavement round the back of the van. He wedges a tabloid under his arm. Every day he goes out for a full English before he sets to work, every day he downs gallons of strong tea, not much milk, plenty of sugar but he doesn't do that every day, not really. He looks awkward, he's too slight and too clean for this line of work.  Later on someone will contemplate sending him out for a long stand, just to see if he'll fall for it. His dad gets out of the other side of the van and leads him into the cafe so he can learn at least one important lesson during his unofficial work experience over the summer holidays.

Bump

Over the weekend someone forgot that he lived on a hill. Someone forgot that he needed to apply his handbrake. Someone's car rolled down the road into the back of my car. Our next door neighbours rang to let us know, we were on our first day out in absolutely ages. Days out used to be the thing we did the most but they've been few and far between lately. We rushed home to see what had gone on. The car that had rolled into mine had gone and it would be 4 hours before it (and the driver) returned.  It's not a new car by any means, but it's newish to me, I've only had it since February. It's not that bad, it's driveable but it's got a sizeable dent in the back wing and the bumper. I'm still disappointed, not just over the car but having to cut short a day out. We'd just arrived, it was a steam fair (boring, yes), we did a lap of the field taking cursory glances at steam engines but making a beeline for the toilets, then we looked at some cars and that's when the call came. We effectively paid £16 to piss in a portaloo.