Run! Run! Run!

Through the gate, across the road to the tiny bus shelter, up the hill towards Eddie’s and Eddie’s house. My MP3 player blasts fashionable and motivational running music in my ears.

Is this another one, I ask myself? Another false start? Another stuttering and short-lived attempt to fend off the lumbering and inevitable onset of middle-aged fatblokeness that forms the horror of my own doom?

Or am I just going for a run.

Truth be told, I have been afraid. That is why I have put this moment off. I am not afraid of many things, apart from big snarling dogs, people who merge with the motorway at forty-five miles per hour, pubs with no real ales and blue lights in the toilets, being given two tickets to see the band ‘The Feeling’ for my main birthday present, forgetting to cancel my free Sky trial subscription, comments (0), a Clegg government, the LTLP, the LTLP deciding that she wishes to become a man, discovering things contain marzipan, other big dogs that look like they might start snarling at some point, social situations, phone calls out of the blue from Tim Smith from the Steve Wright show saying ‘I hear you have a spare ticket for the band ‘The Feeling’, do you fancy going together?’, last orders, putting petrol in the diesel car, being caught re-using jokes, people who like snowboarding and any form of social shame whatsoever. But I am afraid of running.

I am afraid of the pain that I know it will cause. I am afraid the pain will, basically, hurt. I know that I will need to feel the pain before the running becomes easy again. But that does not make the fear go away.

I continue my run. Up the hill, towards the war memorial.

There is a famous bit in the Superman film where he flies so fast, so incredibly fast, that time itself goes backwards and he is able to go and rescue Lois Lane.

My running is not like that. If anything, the opposite is happening.

I put on a spurt as I pass Eddie’s and Eddie’s cottage. I would be embarrassed for them to see the slowness of my running, should they be looking out of the window in case of passing runners. I slow my spurt immediately I am past their gate. I need to reserve my energy, as I will require another spurt when I get to pass Len the Fish’s, and the Village Shop, and the Village Pub.

It has been an odd few weeks. I am working a lot more than I am used to, which is ‘a bit’, and I have been trying to stay away from the PC screen in my spare time so that my eyes do not fall out and I stop getting headaches. I have had to remember what I do when I am not pissing around at the PC screen. It is a depressingly short list.

Run! Run! Run! I stagger on, the Anti-Sportacus. I am so scared, I am hardly moving my legs at all. To call it a ‘trot’ would be pushing it. I abandon my spurts policy. Hopefully nobody will be standing outside the Village Pub smoking, and I wil not be laughed at.

Big futuristic buildings start springing up around me, and the world falls under the rule of giant ants.

When I return home, I am grateful just to be alive. If this is what life is like away from the PC screen then it is harder than I realised. The pain is there but, to be fair, it is not as bad as I’d anticipated, which, to be fair, was very bad indeed.

If I am going to do my triathlon then I will need to do much more of this. It hurts. It hurts. But I cannot just give up again.

The LTLP stands with hands on hips.

“Don’t tell me,” she threatens. “It’s another…”

“It’s a railway sign!” I exclaim delightedly.

“It’s another railway sign,” she agrees. “You really are the saddest, saddest…”

“It’s really nicely made.”

“The place is starting to look like some sort of period signage museum,” she complains, inaccurately.

Later on, we are sitting in the comfortable swinging seats in the garden. My gaze falls on the gable end of the cottage. Despite my resourceful erection of trellis and the picturesque foul drainage downpipe, the wall is mostly a plain slab of bricks that lacks interesting features. I mull this over for some time.

“You know what would look really good on that gable end?” I muse.

“Would it be, perchance, some sort of large painted vintage advertising sign?” she replies sarcastically.

I must have mentioned my good idea previously. I keep quiet for a bit.

“Actually that would be a really good gable end for a rousing mural,” I suggest. “It is a shame that there is not more sectarian violence in the Village.”

I am told that I am not allowed to paint a mural on the gable end, nor even any slogans.

The rain whips horizontally across from the south west, blattering us in its raininess, threatening to sneak its wet fingers inside my anorak like a drunk girl at a bus stop. I grit my teeth and search the horizon for some blue.

My opponent’s wood skids across the green, water spraying up behind it as it goes. She is a very pleasant elderly lady, with whom I have already enjoyed a laugh and a joke. Her wood comes to a halt several yards short of the jack. Again.

Bowls is a very tactical game, and one of the key skills is knowing where to put the jack. Sometimes, you will find your opponent is very good when the jack is a long way away - in which case you will try to roll it short. Conversely, some prefer the shorter game - in which case you will try to bring it to rest right at the end of the green.

“It’s no use,” she turns to me. “I just can’t get it that far. I’m not strong enough.”

I return her a weak, guilty, smile.

It is one of those accepted things that is not exactly gamesmanship or unsporting or cheating, but is just a bit awkward, especially when you are playing a nice old lady who is just a bit weak in the arms. I avoid her for the rest of the end.

“Put in another long one,” hisses Nigel as we cross over for the next go.

I make mumbling noises. I do not want to be unkind. I am not Robert Mugabe. But nor am I Nelson Mandela. I am somebody in the middle, like Kenneth Kaunda.

I throw the jack quite long; long enough to be a bit difficult for somebody with a bad arm, but not as long as I could so that she might think that it was an accident. She gives me a reproachful look. Nigel gives me a reproachful look. I have tried to please everybody and now they all hate me. It is typical.

The rain eases off after a while, and the green speeds up. My dilemma vanishes with the drying grass. This is the thing about bowls. It is a microcosm of life, but with unfashionable shoes.

Eleven chickens. Eleven!!!

Honestly, I do not know how I get in to these things. One minute I have a few chickens trotting around in my garden, the next minute I have become some sort of emergency chicken looker-after and advice service.

I slurp down my morning tea and hare across the road to my first appointment.

I am growing a bit concerned about the Vicarage chickens. They do not seem to eat much. Here I am, dashing to their immediate relief, a chicken knight in shining armour, Egg Adair - but they have not even eaten their dinner from yesterday. Or the day before. I try to encourage them by making hungry chicken noises and flapping my arms and miming eating things, but they are not at all interested. I take their eggs, thoughtfully.

It seems apparent that they have anorexia. I am not sure whether I should feel responsible for this. They are a year or so old, and I have just introduced six healthy fine young pedigree chicken specimens into the Village to compete with them. They definitely have a self-image problem, and I do not know what to do to address this, apart from point out to them that one of ours got shot, so things are not all bad for them. I will speak to the Vicaragers on their return.

Eleven chickens!!! I am like some Norfolk version of Bernard Matthews.

I zip round the corner to Big A’s. His chickens start throwing themselves at the wire as soon as they see me approaching with food. I open their door, checking for post, and they mob me, surrounding, jostling and squawking. I am surprised nobody has made a horror movie about chickens. I tip their food into their tin and they launch themselves in it with ravening beaks. This tin was totally full up yesterday.

They are clearly bullemic. It is fairly obvious what has happened: as rescued battery hens, they are enjoying eating things other than mashed-up pieces of other chickens, but are alarmed that they are putting on weight quickly. If I search hard enough I will find some chicken sick. It is very sad. I take the eggs and stomp home.

My chickens are happy as always. They are the best chickens in the Village, not that I am competitive dad or anything, oh no. I would get some work done, but by the time I have finished chickening it is almost nightfall, and there are emails in my inbox from people who have chicken problems and have discovered my expertise by using the internet.

This is probably how Dr Raj Persaud started. I would start penning a chicken column for the quality Sundays, but I cannot get to my desk for eggs. I am proud to have demystified chickens for the masses, but it is perhaps time to move on a bit.

Big A stands impatiently at the front door. I dump my woods and hurry out to Nigel’s car.

“I’m sorry,” I apologise, leaping breathlessly into the back, “I had to have the usual conversation with the LTLP. ‘Are you going to the Village Pub again then?’ ‘Yes, of course I am going to the Village Pub.’ ‘But you went to the Village Pub two years ago.’”

We go to the Village Pub.

Big A gives a sad nod as we pootle up the road. “Mine said something like ‘why don’t you go a bit later?’”. We tut. It is already almost nine o’clock. This is the trouble with bowls WAGs. They start off by supporting you and being all interested in the game, but the next thing you know they are demanding to be taken to the glitzy venues and then roasted.

There is huge testosterone bouncing around the car, with Nigel turning up Classic FM extra loud. He is the Fernando Torres of drawing in gently on the forehand and under his skippership we have administered a sound beating to a strong local rival. This is likely to send us towards the top of the table!!!

I consider buying some Cristal champagne, but decide to have a pint of Olde Tripp instead, which is a sort of bling London Pride. There is the feeling that for the first time this season or, indeed, any season, we have got our act together as a remorseless and determined bowls unit. I stay for another couple of pints, but leave quietly despite Big A’s entreaties to stay - I need to conserve my energy and am wary of tabloid attention. This season could be it. It could be it.

“It is a magic worm!!!” I cry in delight.

I am not sure what to add to this, so there is a brief pause. “This is the best Father’s Day ever,” I assure everybody, diplomatically. My eyes scan the room - there is a lack of other big manly presents, such as shaving equipment or CDs of driving music.

I open my magic worm. It is a three-inch long strip of cloth, with two printed eyes on sticky paper. There is a very fine thread that you must tie to the nose of the worm, and then apparently you can make the worm appear to crawl along and up and over your hands and body by subtly jerking this invisible lead. The instructions don’t exactly say ‘amaze your family and friends!’ but that is their gist.

The Toddler is enthralled. The LTLP gives me an apologetic glance in an ‘I haven’t had the chance to go to the shops’ sort of way, but I am determined to make the most of my new magic worm.

“Later on this special father’s day, my darling,” I purr, fixing her with my smooth gaze, “I thought I might show you my other magic worm.”

The LTLP withdraws her apologetic glance.

I sit at the table and try to affix the invisible thread to the magic worm’s nose. My fingers are strong and agile, but are built for strumming the banjo and playing bowls rather than affixing invisible thread to magic worms, and I shout and swear as the knot keeps slipping. I try to grasp the thread tightly between fingernails, but it keeps looping away from me and then I have to scrabble on the table for it, what with it being invisible. Fifteen minutes later, thread is finally affixed to worm, but by this point its eyes have fallen off and the Toddler is interested in something else.

“Look! Look! Magic Worm!” I cry, clutching the invisible thread in my left hand and moving my arm rapidly up and down to make the worm jump on the spot. The worm jumps on the spot. Unfortunately, the thread might indeed be invisible, but the correlation between the worm jumping up and down and my arm moving up and down would fool none but the thickest infant. I try to make the worm wriggle on my hand, but it slips and hangs, suspended by invisible-but-obvious-it’s-there thread.

Booooooo - I am a rubbish puppeteer. I will never get a job on the Muppets now.

I never really believed in father’s day until I became a father myself and could suddenly see its full profundity. It is a bit like the way ‘World’s Best Dad’ mugs are barf-inducing until you get one yourself. But I think it is important that men should get at least one day in the year when they are fussed over a bit and don’t have to do everything in the world.

I thank the Toddler for my magic worm. She is only young, and I am grateful to her. But she will have to raise her game in future.

It is as exciting as exciting can be.

“You’re Not the Only One,” edited by Sarah J. Peach and published by Lulu, in aid of the Warchild charity.

I mentioned this one before - and I hope I encouraged at least one of you to send something in, or at the very least to chat about needy orphans at your dinner party that night. Sarah J. picked a post from here that she thought would fit in well - it’s always odd when that sort of thing happens, as you never know what other people will find funny, or profound, or deeply moving - and although I usually write deeply moving and personal stuff apparently people always laugh at it. Bizarrely, she then went and chose the same thing that I’d set aside to send her should her choice be embarrassing and weak.

So hopefully it is a Good and Popular One.

Anyway - it’s got laughter! It’s got tears! It’s got ‘an interesting dipping-into read’ written all over it. Everybody must know SOMEBODY with a birthday coming up - - go on… why not?

Here’s the link to buy it.

There is a crisis in the kitchen!!!

I search the fridge in some agitation. Milk is nowhere to be seen. Without milk I am unable to make tea, and without making tea I will be unable to drink it.

My search is fruitless, and also pointless as I know very well that we have no milk. I used the last of the milk a while back, whilst making tea. And I have forgotten to go to the Village Shop to replace it. Boooooooo - we have no milk!!! Life is not good after all, what with not having any milk. Boooooooo!!!

The nearest milk is a six-mile round trip away. I really do not want to drive six miles for a single pint of milk.

I stomp into the lounge. “Do we need anything else from the shop?” I demand of the LTLP. We rack our brains. Driving six miles for a single item is ludicrous, and would be bad for the environment. But if we needed two items then that would make the trip a bit more worthwhile, and be only half as bad for the environment. We cannot think of a single extra thing we need aside from the milk.

I swallow my pride.

“Iwasjustwondering,” I mumble, as Short Tony answers the door, “ificouldborrowabitofmilk.”

“Again,” I add, a little shamefacedly.

Short Tony gracefully assents to my request. “Good oh!” I exclaim, bringing out a large jug from behind my back.

Milk!!! We have some milk!!! Thanks to the generosity and good-spiritedness of our neighbours, I will be able to make a nice cup of tea!!!

There are no teabags.

I stare, boggle-eyed at the teabag tin. No matter how hard I look, it remains a nothingness void of teabags. I grip the tin in astonishment and fury; astonishment because clearly this is a particularly annoying time to discover a lack of teabags; fury because I now distinctly recall using the last teabag for the same cup of tea for which I used the last of the milk (see above). The LTLP is unimpressed.

“Are you SURE we don’t need anything else from the shop?” I demand. I really do not want to do a six-mile round trip just for one item (teabags). If I required two items (eg, teabags and milk) then it might be worthwhile, but that journey for a single item would be ludicrous.

“Thankyoueversomuch,” I mumble at Mrs Big A, as she hands over teabags. “I would have gone next door again. But I was a bit embarrassed.”

I take my kindly donated teabags. I have to hurry past Short Tony’s house on my way back. I sort of cover my face with my hands so he won’t see me and come out and call me an idiot.

Zigzagging, down the hill from the Village Pub.

A line of Sunday afternoon traffic passes in the opposite direction. They are holidaymakers, who have to go home. But I do not - I can stay here!!! “Yah boo!” I shout, in my head, so that nobody stops their car and gets out and hits me.

I always have mixed feelings about drinking at lunchtime - even on a Sunday. On one hand, I do not like the way that lunchtime drinking uses up the entire day. On the other hand, it involves drinking, and lunchtime, two of my favourite things. I had tucked into the free bar sandwiches with gusto, until they had hardened off beyond reasonable human consumption.

My other problem is that I am always able to haul myself away from the pub after a few drinks in the evening, as they close it. Nowadays, pubs are able to stay open all afternoon, so there is not this safety net available for the lunchtime drunk. Gordon Brown should investigate this and perhaps take action. It will surely make him more popular than he is now.

Eddie left early and morosely, having agreed to attend a local event in the afternoon. Len the Fish remained until his dogg had had his fill of sandwiches; Short Tony stayed for just another half as I lumbered from the double-doors.

I have enjoyed my week of doing nothing in particular except eating and drinking and not looking at the PC screen. I resolve not to go to sleep as I arrive back at the cottage - it would waste the rest of this sunny day. Ten minutes later, Mrs Short Tony pops round. I accept her invitation and head next door with a bottle of wine.

The sun is shining and I am very relaxed and chilled out. It makes for rubbish comedy, but life is good.

The LTLP’s holiday has been planned for ages.

“I’m really busy,” I warn her. “I’ve been so up against it that I’m going to have to work. Sorry.”

She gives me one of her Rosemary West glares, and I change my mind. We do family type things instead.

“Want to wander up there for a game of snooker?” enquires Short Tony, a bit later on the Tuesday afternoon. I tell him that I cannot, as I am busy having a holiday with the LTLP, and that anyway I would not be going up there on a Tuesday afternoon at all, as I am very busy with work under normal circumstances and do not spend my life playing snooker. The LTLP nods vigorously.

It has been nice spending a bit of quality time together - a bit like when we first met but with fewer bad haircuts. We have done some DIY and been to pubs and gone shopping.

“I really can’t,” I tell John Twonil on the telephone later on. The LTLP looks on with a querulous expression. “We are doing nice family things. Plus I don’t know what gave you the impression that I would ever be available to play snooker on a Tuesday afternoon at any point, as I am always busy working.” I replace the receiver hurriedly.

By the time Big A has wandered over on Wednesday morning to see if I fancy a game of snooker, I have got quite defensive. The LTLP says nothing. I can tell what she is thinking.

To be honest, I have very much enjoyed the week. I had forgotten what it was like being away from a PC screen for any length of time, apart from when playing snooker, and I have found that it is refreshing and energising. I will return soon, when the refreshing and energising process is complete.