SALLY...PART 227 ! SHIRLEY CALLED OUT, "DON'T FORGET, NO UNSOCIAL DISTANCING !"

"AND HE'S ON HOW MANY TABLETS ?" A FRIEND AND MY WIFE HAVING A GOOD LAUGH AT MY EXPENSE !

Although I'm still working flattish out there's no question that I have put on weight just under my chest and above my hips !

I don't yet have what even polite people call a 'gunt', a term not too hard to work out and Joe Wicks has been of no use whatsoever in preventing its appearance so I have taken matters into my own hands by cycling at least a mile a day and doing so slowly so as not to tire myself out !

Today I went to the chemist to get my stuff and I'm pretty sure it's that stuff given to me to keep me alive that is killing me...statins being the latest...even the former head of heart surgery and a pioneer in transplants with whom I played golf refused to take them !

As I set off I heard the familiar sound of the front patio doors squawking open and knew that more instructions were about to be given !

"NO unsocial distancing and don't go in if anyone else is in as I need you to carry on earning !" is what I might have heard if I had listened but as I didn't I'm only guessing !

I cycled along my road which had no cars in it or people on the pavement, cut through to the tarmac paths that lead across the playing fields, seeing no-one, cut through to the next main road which was deserted, shot up to the shop which had no-one outside or in it, padlocked my old unattractive, relunctantly donated small man's bike to the same fence from which Shirley had had her beautiful gold unpadlocked ladies bicycle stolen from on the morning of 9/11 and carefully looked around me, noting that there wasn't a soul to be seen !

I entered the shop where a terrified looking assistant came forward with my bag and demanded my postcode from behind several clear plastic face shields, and several yards behind a huge plastic shield fitted around the counter and which oddly finished halfway across the shop thereby negating any protective purpose it might have served !

She dropped my order onto the counter and ran back to her solitary work station, a tiny cramped place where SIX assistants normally stand shoulder to shoulder ALL day long and shouted, "NOW GET OUT ! SHOO ! QUICKLY !"

I sauntered to the door wearing a casual sneer, exited, saw no-one, mounted my steed, rode the entire way home without seeing another human and found my wife, startled by my speedy return, wiping the remains of her daily red onion and cheese on toast off her almost non existent lips which both she and I have found to be THE perfect foodstuff for guaranteeing social distancing betwen us !

"GOOD GOD you were quick ! Did you stay socially undistanced ?"

"It's socially DIStanced and yes I did and there wasn't even a dog walker out !"

"Get the Scrabble out then...it's time for your thrashing !"

And she won for the seventh out of the last eight times !