Sally-Part 137. STRUTH !

FORTY YEARS AGO NO ONE WOULD HAVE BET A PENNY ON US STILL BEING TOGETHER AND BEST FRIENDS !

STRUTH !

it was about 10am and I was trying to think hard about what the nub of my problem is, which is why nobody likes me when my thoughts were broken into by quite an impatient,"D'you prefer your egg whole or 'omeletted' ?" shouted through with just a touch of irritation !

"Omeletted please ! Or whatever's easiest and puts least pressure on your aching hip seeing as you won't let me cook breakfast for you because of the mess you say I'll leave !" replied to with just the right amount of humility to really annoy her !

"Well you wanted it whole the other day !", returned with slightly more irritation !

"Then whole'll be fine thanks !", replied with just a touch of hope of a friendly acceptance !

"Plain bread or toasted !", even MORE irritated !

"Plain please!" sung rather than said in the hope of dispelling any residual tension !

Then quicker than any top chef could make a cup of tea I was shouted at, "Move your thing ! Move your thing ! Your bloody laptop ! MOVE IT !" as the plate was thrust under my face before I'd finished writing my first word !

I started eating absent-mindedly but still managed to think that I ought to express some gratitude so I mumbled, "Delicious thanks!"

"You WHAT?"

"I said 'DELICIOUS! THANKS!"

"And I didn't use a DROP of oil, unlike the pint of my best Virgin Olive Oil that you would have wasted and I suppose you'll want a drink or have you got one?" she snorted, impatient to get back to yet more of the daily thousands of Josh Groban reports !

"Got one thanks!" noting my mug was all but empty but not wanting to annoy her further and deciding that I'd wait and quietly go in and make one for myself once she was out of the kitchen !

"I can smell pepper!" she suddenly called!

"Smell WHAT ?" I replied trying to show interest !

"Pepper, PEPPER ! You deaf idiot !"

"Uhm!" I thought."I remember once reading that smelling rubber can signify an impending heart attack but pepper?"

Could smelling pepper also actually signify an impending heart attack I wondered with not a little hope quickening my heartbeat !

Sally-part 136. NAKED HERO RESCUES TERRIFIED WILD CAT !

I was finally off Facebook and in bed reading Jack Dee's miserable account of his life and trying not to die laughing with Shirley's nightie stuffed up my T-shirt and lying on her side of the bed to get it to the right temperature for her as we are away from home looking after Dalai and Lama who are two cats born to hate each other with passion and there are no hot water bottles in this place !

DALAI THE OBESE CAT ON THE LEFT WHO EATS ALL HER OWN 'OBESITY MANAGEMENT' FOOD AND THEN LICKS THE TASTY JELLY OFF LAMA'S MUCH NICER TREATS ! This is not 'THE'window !

Dalai is ridiculously fat and has to have a glass of water placed on the floor by the bed so she can have a drink during the night ! The glass used to be placed under the bed so that she could drink in private but the company who moved my son's belongings to this new house broke the bed frame and Jonathan and I, well me really, further broke it when trying to reassemble it and now the mattress is on the floor until I get Jay's permission to drill a few holes through the outside of the otherwise flush-fitted timbers and use attractive bolts to put it together again. That's not a hard decision for a man to make BUT the lady of the house is a bit distraught about my despoiling the 'lines' !

GOD ! It's only a bed but Jay's a theatrical costumiere and insists on perfection and she's a bit wary of me as some shelves I previously put up for her fell off the wall and fixing her shower switch I reconnected the wires which also operated the bathroom fan the wrong way round which left them showering in freezing water in an Arctic blast !

Oh ! And then there was the incident when I connected their washing machine and dishwasher together and misunderstood which hose went where so their dishes got washed with water that had just washed their clothes !

Anyway, there I was drifting off to sleep having read the same sentence eight times when Shirley let out a scream and rushed in to get me, " David ! Come quickly ! There's a strange cat on the windowsill in the other bedroom ! This came out as 'DAVID!COMEQUICKLYTHERE'SASTRANGECATONTHEWINDOWSILLINTHEOTHERBEDROOM!

I tore out of bed pulling her nightie out of my T-shirt and without waiting to gather my thoughts ran through to the room where standing in full view of anyone wanting to see a todger from the street I peeped around the half drawn curtain to see little more than a half grown young cat sitting on the towel kindly positioned on the window sill for Dalai or Lama to sit comfortably on to view the world !

With Shirley half-hysterical with fear and firing a continual barrage of questions at me as to how it got there and her terror transferring immediately to me via the cat I held out a friendly hand to calm the beast down !

It YOWLED and climbed vertically up the rectangularly timbered  window, spitting and growling from just under the ceiling loudly enough to make the hair stand up on the head of a brave man, let alone me !

Still, I continued with, "There now, Puss Puss Puss after grabbing a blanket and climbing onto the windowsill to effect a rescue!"

It probably didn't help that Shirley was still going on a bit which unnerved me even a little more !

So standing with my old man pressed hard against the glass and reaching up for a hissing, spitting terrified creature I threw the blanket over it and in a dramatic leap grabbed it behind it's front legs, landing on the floor and running to the stairs in one gracefully athletic move !

The cat's four sets of claws were flailing at my nakedness and how I managed to drop it as it fought for it's life to escape the cover without it tearing my old man off I'll never know !

It flew through the house and out of the cat flap in the blink of an eye leaving the other two cats staring wild eyed after it !

I climbed back, well fell down into bed where I wasn't told that I'd once again been a hero !

I suppose I could have just 'Shooed' it out !

Last time it was a bat and you can read about that in Part 29 !

Sally-Part 135. I'VE SEEN YOUR OFFTAKES AND I WEEP FOR ALL OF YOU ON A SALARY ?

IN THE DAYS BEFORE I DISCOVERED THAT I WAS ONE DAY GOING TO GROW OLD !

I've spent my entire working life as a self-employed man, earning just about enough to pay a mortgage for twenty five years and bring up three kids. Life was a bottomless pit into which I poured all my earnings and had I chosen to pay for Designer clothes for my brats I would have ended up in enormous debt !

In fact, had I not had a clever wife who explained Mr. McCawber's Law to me I would have ended up in debtor's jail with my Range Rover repossessed ! I have not done so primarily because it was put to me that eight miles to a gallon was not a very clever idea and so I drive a sensible diesel car that even gets pointed at and laughed at by children and looks like it was designed for a hunchback !

I have put a sign in the back window which says ' THIS IS NOT A MOTABILITY VEHICLE AND I DID NOT GET GIVEN IT UNDER A THOROUGHLY ABUSED GOVERNMENT SCHEME ! I OWN IT !' but it hasn't helped matters much !

Of course my Peugeot Partner Tepee is a perfectly good car though I'm sure that when I come to part-ex it for a new one in six months I'll have some thug of a salesman sucking his teeth and telling me that had it not been for my original colour choice of dark puke the car would have been worth considerably more !

Anyway, when my time for retirement came a couple of months ago I was informed that after forty five years of paying my 'stamp' I'd receive £110 per week and HOW, I would like to know, am I supposed to live on THAT ?

Of course Shirley gets some more on top for having worked two full years sometime in pre-history for which we are grateful and we could just about manage on that if we stopped eating and wasting fuel on heating, I mean ANY heating !

"SO what about a private pension? " I hear you shout !

Well, a brother of mine who worked in the industry offered me a commission-free one when I was forty which promised me £80 per week if I paid £50 a month for twenty five years .That monthly figure was three quarters of my mortgage then so if you could imagine yourselves paying out an additional monthly lump for twenty five years on top of your horrendous mortgage or rent payments now then you'll understand the pain !

But it was MUCH worse than that. His company's documents suggested that as it's predicted value of my £80 would have the buying power of the equivalent of £12 by the then day's standards I might like to consider upping my payments by a multiple of ten !

Well it was quite out of the question and I'm only glad that I'm able to carry on working full time and have actually never been busier !

But I genuinely weep for all of you in well paid jobs for I have seen your offtakes ! Quite dispiritingly scandalous !

Sally-part 134. THREE AND A HALF WEEKS FUSSING OVER TWO SPOILT CATS !

THEIR MAJESTIES DALAI...........

AND LAMA ! FUNNY THAT AS THEIR OWNERS HAVE GONE TO NEPAL !

Shirley has come in for a lot of stick throughout my entire Blog and she loves it !

No stick and I don't hear her laughing !

She is of course NOT the nightmare I make her out to be but a kind, long-suffering wife who will do anything for her children like give them my money or send me round to babysit or insist that I  go on holiday with them and without her !

Other men might suspect that she's playing away or at least up to something but I've caught no-one on the secret CCTV cameras I've installed, listened in to no suspicious calls on her bugged mobile, seen nothing on her laptop history which I check when she's asleep and found zilch in her diary, bag or pockets which I search every couple of days so I think she's just sick of me and wants time on her own to catch up on missed omnibuses of Coronation Street, Emmerdale and that Scandinavian Thriller that scares her witless and leads to her terrifying episodes of 'sleep paralysis' when she wakes in the early hours unable to breathe because a large Black man wearing a clown's suit is sitting on her chest ! ( See Part 115...Threatened With Death In Oban ! )

When my oldest son Jonathan and his new wife Jay asked Shirley months ago if she was available to pop into their house some six miles from us to feed their cats whilst they went on Honeymoon for nearly a month Shirley baulked and said she would do it occasionally if we weren't in Scotland at our place once the weather warmed up but that they would have to pay someone else to come in .

THE SUNSET FROM OUR SCOTTISH VERANDA !

I knew my wife well enough to expect her to do EXACTLY what she has done and that's to move into their house for the entire duration so that she could fuss over the two things even more than Jay does !

They are fed like Kings, watched over if they want to go outside and have their twin toilets cleaned out as soon as they've used them !

I go home to work after having a walk on the sea front and return at seven to buy another gorgeous Indian takeaway for supper ! 

ONE MINUTE FROM OUR TEMPORARY QUARTERS ! THAT'S ST.MARY'S LIGHTHOUSE, WHITLEY BAY .

In fact it's like a holiday for us too but with me being able to attend to my business at the same time !

THIS IS THE VIEW FROM MY STALL AT NEWCASTLE'S QUAYSIDE SUNDAY MARKET !

Now this IS a great way to live !