So, in case you were under the impression my blogs were just a tissue of lies, check out these bad boys. Pork loin, marinated in teriyaki and chilli for seven hours, served with fresh Algarvian salad and a cheeky bottle of Alentejo. Wish you could have been there 😋
I’m the first one to admit that my housekeeping skills are about as impressive as my DIY skills – fairly non-existent. I barely know one end of a screwdriver from the other, and I’ve got more chance of flying to the moon than putting up a set of shelves.
I’m not entirely useless around the house though. I have managed to work out the mechanics of an ironing board, have successfully pressed the odd shirt in my time, and I’m not a complete stranger to the hoover either, although I do sometimes miss out the corners.
I’ve also been known to do a bit of cooking back in the day and managed to successfully fend for myself during my bachelor years. I had to really as this was before the internet and Deliveroo etc and our local chippy was all that was on offer as far as takeaways were concerned. But as we have a pristine white kitchen at our apartment in Brighton I’m persona non grata when there’s meals to be prepared nowadays, as I’d manage to use every pot, pan and utensil even if preparing something as mundane as cheese on toast, and guaranteed to leave a hell of a mess over the cooker, walls and floor.
We are at our place in Portugal at the moment though, where it is a slightly different story, as unlike our flat in Brighton, here we have a BBQ, so I am in my element. I’m using it virtually every day while I can as it’s our penultimate trip; we have found a buyer for the house, exchanged contracts and the sale will be completed in the middle of June.
So it’s almost the end of an era. Like most blokes I consider myself to be a brilliant driver and outdoor cook, and in my case of course it’s all true…. although I’m not allowed to drive anymore since Bastard Cancer showed up in my brain again and you can’t BBQ in a 4th floor flat with no balcony, so I’m currently BBQing as much as I can.
Naturally the two usual ground rules are being vigorously observed.
Firstly, no bloke, whether he be Jamie Oliver, Heston Blumenthal or whoever can ever interfere with another blokes’s barbie. That includes, touching, turning, seasoning, even advising or commenting on the job in hand. In fact any man encroaching within 3 metres of my range is liable to get stabbed with a fork. A distanced positive remark like “smells good” is welcome, but never, ever, offer help in any manner, shape or form.
Secondly, it’s my domain. Man’s work. It brings out the hunter gatherer caveman in me; women are also not welcome. Saying that, I will concede that the Blonde does go out to the shop to buy the meat. She does lay out all the appropriate utensils, keep me supplied with cold beers during the cooking, prepare the salad, provide nibbles, lay the table, entertain our guests, bring the plates out, set out the sauces and condiments, chill and serve the wine, heap praise on me for providing such a lavish feast, offer and provide dessert, clear up afterwards, do the washing up and put everything away.
Yes, she does all that, but it’s me that puts the meat on the grill, turns it, and puts it on the plates that she’s provided. Makes me proud that I can give her a night off…
On Wednesday afternoon this week (17th) I was sitting back in my big chair, staring out of the window, in quiet contemplation and reflection. My mind drifted back to last Saturday morning, and my participation in a golf tournament at my home club, East Brighton GC. It had been a perfect morning, weatherwise, none of the driving rain or gale-force winds that had been battering the south coast for weeks on end. It was dry, sunny, with a fairly gentle southerly breeze, hardly tee-shirt weather but ideal for golf. I’d been drawn to play with three very nice chaps, one of whom was a former club champion and a good friend, and I was feeling fit and well.
I took up golf too late in life, my late forties, to ever be any good, so I know my limitations, but just like when I played football as a younger man, I try to make up for lack of talent with effort and enthusiasm. Of late my game has been pretty good by my standards, I’d found a bit of form, and as I stood on the first tee I was feeling uncharacteristically optimistic about my chances, especially when I nailed my first drive and it flew up the middle of the fairway.
That, as it turned out, proved to be my first and last good shot of the day. My next was a shank that flew wildly to the right, and so did the next. The next four hours was a succession of more shanks, hooks, slices, duffs, thins, tops, three-putts – the only thing missing was an air shot, which to the uninitiated is an attempt to hit the ball and you fail to connect with it at all. To use a football parlance, I had a total mare. I ended up coming third last in the competition – how bad must the other two blokes have been? – and as I walked home from the course I was feeling rather disappointed and pretty despondent.
Saying that, by the time I got home, it’s a fifteen-minute walk, downhill all the way, I’d got over myself and was already looking forward to my next game.
So why did my mind drift back to Saturday morning’s debacle some four days later, on Wednesday afternoon, sitting in my big chair?
Well, to explain, this was no ordinary big chair. This one was purple, one of twenty or more in the room, with a comfy footrest and a bleeping machine set up beside it and a translucent tube running from a little pouch of clear liquid suspended above my shoulder through a cannula into the back of my left hand.
I was of course in the Chemo Suite of the Cancer Ward of the Royal Sussex County Hospital receiving my ninetieth (yes, 90th) cycle of JJ, aka Jungle Juice, aka Pembrolizumab. It was now over eight and a half years since I’d received a Stage IV terminal diagnosis, as mentioned above I am feeling as well as I have in years, my last scan results were good, and I reflected, with a wry smile, how lucky I am that currently all I have to worry about is my golfswing….
As a rule I don’t watch daytime TV. However if we are at home at around 5pm on a weekday I’m no stranger to sitting down with a nice cuppa or something stronger and enjoying an episode of The Chase, the very popular quiz show hosted by the chirpy cheeky Cockney chappy by the name of Bradley Walsh. I’m a big fan. I was formerly a bigger fan of Bradley himself as when he starred in a TV cops and robbers series a few years ago he regularly had a coffee mug on his desk that suggested he was a Hammer, but I subsequently discovered he was in fact a supporter of the Arsenal. Shame about that.
Anyway, I’m sure you’re all familiar with the format of the programme. Four members of the public try to “outrun” the chaser by correctly answering various general knowledge questions, including a multichoice round where the contestants have a two-to-one chance of guessing the right answer.
I caught an episode earlier this week, and it followed the familiar format. The four competitors couldn’t have been more diverse. There’s generally one really brainy person, who is a secret pub-quizer with an encyclopaedic knowledge of a plethora of subjects, plus an old boy who is clever but very slow and thinks the world stopped in 1950, and two random others.
The first of the “others” this time was a sixty-five-year-old retired teaching assistant and grandmother from Shrewsbury. That instantly rang alarm bells. She’d spent around forty years in employment and the best she could do was find a job that involved nothing more stimulating than tidying up pencils. It was no shock that she was quickly caught and eliminated.
Then there was the fourth and final contestant. I’m sure Bradley picks them personally just for the giggles. Revelling in the non-binary name of River and sporting bright red hair, that he/she/it cuts themself, and charity shop clobber, was our student from Wolverhampton. He/she/they was most tetchy about his/her/their preferred pronouns and proudly announced that if he/she/they won any money he/she/they would spend it on a trip to India to seek spiritual enlightenment.
Some bleedin’ chance. Being a typical student, our River was as thick as a Boxing Day turd. He/she/it hadn’t the faintest idea about anything in particular, whether it be literature, geography, current affairs, sport, especially sport, or anything else for that matter. “They” managed to win one thousand pounds in the “cashbuilder” round, predictably took the minus offer in the chase itself and got eliminated very quickly.
Bradley offered some words of consolation, with all the sincerity he could muster, but as River sloped off the stage you couldn’t help but feel a little sorry for him/her/it.
After all, he/she/they were about halfway through a life that was mapped out and had till then consisted of the following:
Achieve moderate “A” Level results
Gain entry to a second rate Yunee
Pick a daft course like Eskimo folk dance
Accumulate vast debt
Graduate with a useless BA and no life skills
Pretend to be a victim
Become vegan
Get a sleeve tattoo
Live in pokey bedsit
Blame it all on climate change / Covid / Brexit
Vote Labour
Block the M25
Support Queers for Palestine
Get a crap job in the Snivel Service
Hate the job
Go back to Yunee to get a Masters
And so on….
All that, and still thought that Venice was the capital of Austria.
I hope it pours down on Sunday. I know that sounds a bit selfish, or a line from a famous hit by the Temptations, but you see I’ll be going nowhere, as basically I can’t, so it might as well rain.
Just to explain, Easter in Brighton was bad enough, but this Sunday sees the arrival of the annual Brighton Marathon, which is worse. That brings with it traffic chaos, multiple road closures and massive congestion. So we won’t be able to drive anywhere, or walk very far for that matter either as the walkways along the seafront will be largely off-limits.
We can’t even have a long lie-in, as the marathon route follows its way along Marine Parade and there is always a group of spectators that gather under our bedroom window, encouraging the participants by whooping loudly and shouting things like “Way to go” or ‘Yah, you got this” like a bunch of demented Americans. Get over yourselves girls, you’re from Worthing, not Wisconsin, do shut up, I’m trying to read the paper.
I don’t know, or care, where the marathon starts or finishes, but I know the runners will all be there, at the start line, checking their left wrists every ten seconds, doing that funny little running-on-the-spot warm up exercise and chatting with their rival competitors, trying to look cool and unfazed in their matching vest and bandanna, but really bursting with adrenalin, exchanging awkward pleasantries in their own unintelligible language:
“Oh, Hi Justin, not seen you since the Half.”
“Yah, Rupert, PB’d with a one fifty-five six”
“Doin’ London May?”
“No, Tri in ‘Dam 20th.”
“Awesome.”
Then off they set. Amazing isn’t it, how many marathon runners are ginger. What is it they are running away from, I wonder. They’re unsmiling, miserable looking and all have skinny pale legs too; vegan naturally, you can tell by their pasty complexions. They might survive on a plant-based diet and vote green, but they clearly have no problem littering the streets of Brighton with many thousands of empty plastic water bottles for someone else to pick up…
And when they triumphantly cross the finish line, check their left wrist for the thousandth and last time and pick up their free Jim’ll Fix It badge and a Snickers bar, do they go straight home? Do they bugger, they hang around for ages in their Bacofoil blankets or worse still Dryrobe camouflage coats, strutting around like they have just won a war or something. Tossers.
As you can tell, I’m not a runner; never have been. Even when I played football I didn’t run much, I just kicked anything in range that moved. Also, I’d never pay £300 for a pair of plimsolls, or wear a vest as they really don’t suit me – I look like the sort of bloke who would go to Seaworld Orlando just to inappropriately touch a dolphin.
No, I’m more a “sturry” kind of guy. Just in case you’re not familiar with the term, particularly as I made it up, it’s that weird blend of running, jogging and walking that men of a certain age and demographic learn to perfect over their twilight years, and I certainly meet all the criteria. If you’ve never “sturried” I can highly recommend it. It’s a way to look like you’re hurrying when you physically can’t. I did it several times the other day. Started when a speeding car braked sharply to let me cross at a pedestrian crossing, then when a nice young lady held a shop door open for me, when helping a bunch of lads retrieve an errant football that was bouncing down the prom and finally when the bus home was about to close its doors at the bus stop as I was approaching it. It’s a fine art, is sturrying, especially handy if you’re ever caught in an unexpected rain shower, generally accompanied by a little wave, a self-depreciating smile and an ironic raise of the eyebrows. Try it please, you might enjoy it, a lot more than those miserable marathon runners, that’s for sure.
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