Sally-Part 70. EVEN BUYING FISH AND CHIPS CAN LEAD TO A CONFRONTATION !

DYLAN AND HIS GRANDPA ON HIS FIRST DAY HELPING ME AT MARKET. AUGUST2012.HE HATES MY FACE WITH MY GLASSES OFF ! HE SAYS IT MAKES MY EYES GO LOWER !

I TOOK MY RESPONSIBILITY FOR MY GRANDSON'S EARLY DIET SERIOUSLY !

I don't set out to insult every single living being when I write but when I find myself treated as an ageing idiot I can't help responding as if I AM a miserable old git!

When I was driving to our Scottish escape yesterday, I mentioned to Shirley what had happened the previous day at the local chip shop and her response, far from a shared exasperation, was to say that she would have kicked me out and barred me forever as well, something that has happened elsewhere in the past!

What actually occured was this. My seven year old first-born grandson, Dylan, was due to sleep at mine after I met him from school, having already had my second-born grandson, Daniel, two and a half, for the previous eight hours that day and the preceding two days as well, as well as helping my third-born child Julian, thirty one, get his new shop in Newcastle's city centre ready for opening next week by converting the ground floor and  three damp basement rooms into a Thai massage emporium for the over-stressed!

Shirley has invested our entire dwindling life-savings into packets of pre-cooked dinners from a company she discovered on the internet and delicious as they are I thought it would be a great treat to take Dylan to the beach for fish and chips and to collect those lovely little sea-washed jewel-like rounded white quartz stones to varnish and mount before they were put away, never to be looked at again.

We decided to go on our bikes, so firstly I walked back to his school to collect his bike which we had both forgotten was there!

Not really my fault as no-one told me it WAS there!

I don't actually own a bike as the bike I did once own I bought second hand from a very small man without considering just how silly I would look on what was virtually a model made for a midget!

I eventually abandoned it during a holiday in Cornwall when riding out one sunny afternoon and passing through a rough village a cruel gang of four year olds who actually on another day called out 'Cow' as Shirley walked past, shouted out " Nice bike mister! Love your bicycle clips! Are you gay?" And wolf-whistled me the whole way down their main street!

Once out of their sight I bravely gave them a two-fingered salute before bursting into tears, jumping off and recklessly throwing it over a hedge before catching a bus back to our holiday Yurt with a tale of highway robbery by illegal immigrant Romanians who also forced me off my bike because one of the gang members, an actual midget, fancied it !

"You dumped it didn't you?" Shirley sneered. " I knew you hated it from the moment I said you looked like an idiot on it and that you would one day come back with some ridiculous story! Just tell me the truth ! Did some kids shout at you?"

" No! Honestly I WAS robbed! Bound up and left to die at the side of a deserted country road by Romanian villains who swore that they would find me wherever I lived and kill me if I reported them to the police!" I  wheedled with my face turned away from my inquisitor to hide the struggle I was having to look and sound believable! A skill no man has!

" But you must go to the police. That bike cost twelve pounds! Here's the phone! I've already dialled 999, so tell them what's happened and demand an immediate response!"

My blood froze, my mouth became as dry as a desert and my legs buckled when the operator answered, requesting to know which service I required!

I held on for as long as possible, I think it was at least ten " Emergency, which service do you require caller? " before pressing the disconnect button and saying in exasperation, " Kuh ! I can't believe it, engaged! And anyway the thieves said they'll find me and kill me, so I'll just buy another bike! Now I want to rest and forget all about the experience! No! No more!"

So the bike I actually rode to the beach was Shirley's; identical to the model that I had dumped but painted pink with a lady's cross bar, a collapsed saddle that hurt  my unpadded buttocks after one minute, gears that didn't work but didn't bother Shirley and the saddle set for a very small person which I forgot to raise after blowing up the tyres which had gone flat as Shirley never rides it ! ( so that was another waste of fifteen pounds at the police ' recovered bike sale' but which I daren't mention! )

Shirley had her first rusty excuse for a bike stolen, unpadlocked, from outside the Co-op on 9:11, the very day that the Twin Towers were destroyed by the Muslim fundamentalists!

We should have informed the police but I thought that there was an obvious link with terrorism and to save Blyth from attack we kept quiet!

And with a warning to padlock the bikes and not let them out of my sight for one second ( Dylan's is also second hand and worth a fiver! ) we set out on our high speed chase to the coast, three hundred yards away which I lost easily! "

We were both starving by the time we got to the beach chip shop some four minutes later and decided to eat straight away.

The owners obviously recognised a tremendous opportunity to provide for the hordes who visit our beach and built a huge chip and ice-cream venue which is packed at weekends and during the school holidays.

Usually the smell of old fish-frying oil turns my stomach but when I'm really hungry nothing puts me off !

So, four o'clock on a  Wednesday afternoon and not in school holidays and in fact virtually deserted I asked for one portion of 'fish-bites' ( actually bits of fish fallen off but unwasted by being batterd and fried ) and chips, a paper cup of coffee with the plastic teaspoon slid handle-first through the drinking slot ready to drip onto my trousers and a tin of Coke.

I stood holding my three quid ready to pay and receive my change!

But I was asked for an amount that I thought should have bought the shop and whilst reaching for my wallet told Dylan to choose a table to eat at.

I was handed a couple of coppers change for my proffered ten pound note by a surly, ill-mannered female youth and then told loudly and contemptuously that we couldn't eat inside or rather, " You can't eat there! You've bought a takeaway! "

" And WHY can't I eat it here Miss ? "

" You can't eat takeaways inside! It says so there! " she replied pointing up at a sign on the ceiling which I wouldn't have bothered reading as when I want fish and chips I generally find it unnecessary to read signs wherever they are put and because now that I wear bifocals I would have had to tip my head right back to a point where I could look unnaturally along my nose  before losing my balance and crashing to the ground!

" If you want to eat inside you'll have to pay extra! " she continued in a manner reserved for the stupid and probably learned from months of dealing with other men just like me, out to give their grandsons a treat!

" You can eat on our outside tables if you want and that's included in the price ! "

'Marvellous!', I thought. Dylan had already chosen an uncleared table to sit at amongst several other uncleared tables and now I'd have to make him move outside to another uncleared table amongst yet more uncleared tables but with the new one covered in old and fresh bird poo and surrounded by stood-in dropped fish, chips, mushy peas, bird poo and ice cream, set right beside all the passing traffic where we would be able to breathe in their exhaust fumes! Lovely ! And me with my asthma !

Before moving outside I looked around for the tomato sauce dispenser to swamp our food in because you really need to do that with fish and chips but couldn't see it anywhere !

" Excuse me Miss, I can't see the tomato sauce dispenser anywhere . Could you show me where it is ?" I asked politely.

" Tomato sauce is extra ! " she replied in absolute boredom ! " twenty five pence a sachet ."

And that's when I shook my head in absolute exasperation and asked the question that Shirley wanted to kick me up my backside and bar me for , " Do many men shake their heads at you in disbelief at this point ? "

" Yer wot? " she said in total ignorance !

Well it was worth moving outside because Dylan got really excited when a starling landed on our table and pooed.

" Wow ! Grandpa ! Do you know that I've never actually seen a bird ACTUALLY poo before ? And there was a feather in it ! "

Oh and for the purposes of impressing my wife with my toughness, I did NOT buy a sachet of tomato sauce for twenty five pence or buy Dylan a one scoop ice cream cone after he had eaten very little fish and chips for one pound ninety!

( I bought two sachets ! .....I'm dead ! )