SALLY....PART 275....Now with a PS (Ear piercing scream) YOU BASTARD, WHY'DYOU WAKE ME UP ? I THOUGHT AN ANNACONDA HAD GOT IN THE BED, OR A HEDGEHOG !""

 

It was somewhere around a quarter to eight this morning when I woke up and became aware that Shirley's eight month long cough had turned into a deeply worrying rasp that didn't let her sleep for more than ten minutes a night and being a kind, caring, compassionate man, always putting her comfort before my own, I reached out a hand to place gently on her hip to let her know that I understood her distress !

Unfortunately on its journey across the six foot void of our very wide bed my hand got caught up in the soft folds of the quilt and sort of shot forward and punched her on her bum whereupon she instantly leapt like a scalded cat and from four feet above the mattress screamed down at me hurling plenty of other quite unkind phrases from her surprisingly wide knowledge of foul expressions before she landed still screaming and waking up the couple in the next room who lay quaking, not daring to come and see if they could help !

Trying to shush and calm her didn't work and frankly never has so instead I reenacted her reaction to her until she had actually properly woken up and started laughing !

Making her laugh has always been the way to dispel her naturally violent and totally unreasonable reaction to any 'emergency' and I dread the day I lose my touch as she WILL kill me !

We eventually laughed about things as we drove with our friends across the private grounds at Balmoral Castle and whilst she regaled them with tales of many other diabolical reactions to me I hatched a plan to visit the stables and see if they have a severed horses head for a real laugh tonight !

SINCE PUBLICATION:

It has been brought to my attention that my hand did NOT punch Shirley on the bum but crept creepily up her leg in the manner of a pervert, or indeed a wild snake or highly bristled hedge dwelling creature whilst she was deeply asleep for the first time in forty years experiencing highly realistic visions of men sitting on her chest preventing her from breathing and being assailed by fears that she was late for school and that no-one had woken our youngest son for his tour of duty in Iraq which he actually managed to report in for in 2006 ! 

SALLY...PART 274.....THE LONELINESS OF THE LOST STOOL SAMPLE ! "DAD, STOP NOW, NOBODY WANTS TO HEAR THIS !" (Without photographs)

 It's not like I hadn't mentioned it to whichever doctor or practice nurse I eventually managed to see after three hours on hold; for years before my gall bladder tried to explode and I was told it was too far gone to operate, before they pumped me full of stuff and operated !

It's right there and I'd point at about the right hand side of my stomach !

So three weeks ago I pointed again and got asked for a 'stool sample' by the TWO doctors who examined me, to see if the problem was bacterial and three weeks later after being repeatedly told the result wasn't back yet I started phoning the three laboratories that it might have been sent to only to be told they'd nothing with my name on it !

"I'll mention it to the doctor in four days when she's back", the receptionist said when I phoned yesterday for the fifth time, "and you'll probably have to provide another sample."

"But do you have some sort of record on your computer that my stool sample was collected from your surgery after your receptionist took it from me and placed it in a sample receptacle ?" I asked agitatedly !

"Yes", she said peering at her screen, there it is and yes it was collected and delivered !

"So where IS my stool sample !" I wasn't whimpering as such but I felt quite emotionally attached to it by then !

I dealt with all this frankly embarrassing search for my stool sample as if I wasn't at all humiliated and should have been pleased when I got phoned back in very short order and informed that my stool sample was negative and that I should make an appointment with the doctor to start a new line of enquiry !

But I wonder if they REALLY found my stool sample or did they decide to simply fob me off ?

Anyway, I was trying to tell my son and daughter-in-law about it when my wife and I visited this afternoon and for some reason they all found it very funny, as did my grandsons and we all dissolved into uncontrollable heaps of tears and hysterical laughter at my plight !

Good for the soul really !

SALLY PART 273...."FOUR BITS ? AND YOU DON'T NEED THAT MUCH BUTTER IF YOU'RE HAVING PEANUT BUTTER !"

 I drove home starving after five hours with grandchildren, having actually NOT eaten the dinner made for me ! It was all vegetables, something men just don't see the need for, roasted in oil with ends burnt into little jaw-breaking boulders that I would have spat out if I didn't love eating charcoal so much.

I have only not eaten my lunch on three occasions in fifty years and I think on one of those I was the cook !

I had driven home the shortest route according to my mansense, getting caught caught at every traffic light going and Shirley, determined to prove me wrong commanded my attention whilst she demonstrated on Google Maps the various options and in fact she was right, I had driven an extra and unnecessary 0.4 of a mile !

Her Ipad was in one hand and a spatula was in the other reheating a mountain of lunchtime's leftover vegetables which I dreaded getting offered again and said so !

"Well you'll just have to find yourself something !" she hissed at my downturned mouth as I stood looking at her food preparations, "It's OK, I'll have peanut butter sandwiches once you're out of the way." I said as genially as possible, knowing that if I wasn't genial in tone (the only one of the two of us too scared not to be) then she'd go mealy mouthed about the amount of toothpaste I'd used or the noise I'd made turning the bathroom light on with the window open letting in the moths that make her life a nightmare !

She stood staring in disbelief as I buttered my snack and gasped,"FOUR bits and you won't need butter if you're having peanut butter !" (she'd forgotten after a lifetime of calling slices of bread 'slices' that they weren't called 'bits') and tutting loudly as I reached for the salt which I like to smother my peanut butter with she took her disgusting vegetables thankfully out of my sight !

As you can see, there's barely a crumb left !

SALLY PART 272....."THE DOOR DAVID ! HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO TELL YOU ?"

 

The answer is 'Every day and every time I go through one' !

Nothing matters to me, none of the minutiae of life that so bothers my wife and I presume all wives !

My breathing doesn't bother me, my snoring doesn't bother me, my pulling the quilt off her doesn't bother me, cleaning my teeth with the door open doesn't bother me, how much water I put in the kettle to make a cup of coffee doesn't bother me and leaving the kettle under the cupboard whilst it boils doesn't bother me !

Not carrying my dinner plate to the sink doesn't bother me and leaving dregs in my coffee mug doesn't bother me, or the slurp marks around the rim !

Running the cold water in the kitchen too fast and too early in the day doesn't bother me and shutting myself away in my room for fifteen hours a day doesn't bother me !

But they all seem to bother if not downright irritate Shirley though I don't know why, oh and she doesn't like my talking too loudly on the few occasions that I do talk !

And then there's the doors !

I have sort of listened to how each one should be left during he day or during the night, according to the temperature, the airflow and whether or not the sun is shining.

This is a particularly troublesome feature in our static caravan with the additional problem that the main bathroom has what's called a 'Jack and Jill' set of TWO doors opening into it, one from the hall and one from her bedroom !

I'm supposed to leave the one from her bedroom open on a sunny morning though I forget what I'm supposed to do with the main door into her bedroom from the hall or the one from the hall into my little prison cell !

You see, they all bang into one another all the time and I have to have a 'fitting' on mine to stop it closing completely during the day, I think, or is it to stop me dying from heat exhaustion at night.

Her main door has to be closed at night for privacy and her bathroom door pulled tight to to keep out the light from the street light half a mile away !

At night I have to use 'her' bathroom down the corridor and not flush the chain in case a neighbour twelve caravans along should be a light sleeper and get woken by it !

Now back at home her bedroom door has to be not quite closed and the bathroom door pulled not quite closed so that light from passing ships doesn't disturb her !

I'm not actually allowed to use the bathroom at night in case I wake someone in Marbella and I fear going in there even during the day in case I forget to put the soap back on the upturned rusting coiled metal egg cup that stops it turning to mush on the sink and which a new bar is impossible to balance on without being 'screwed' onto it !

Downstairs is another minefield of door positions both during the day and night and I'm now too worn out to even think about what I'm supposed to do with them...I think it's three quarters open at night if the temperature is over 9*C for the kitchen one and fully open for the hall one or is it the other way round ?

SALLY...PART 271..."WELL, AT LEAST YOU WON'T BE HERE TO SEE IT!"

 We were walking past a mess of a garden that a woman had made out of lines of old wellies, worn out crates, bits of tables, rusted bikes, broken doors and unmatched pots filled with anaemic weeds when Shirley said in a doom-filled voice embellished by a recent glimpse into heart failure, "That's what you'll turn our garden into when I'm gone !" and not wishing to cheer her up in any way I replied, "Well, at least you won't be here to see it !" and we walked on in companionable silence, each thinking dark thoughts about the other...well I think she was about me as I was immediately thinking of writing this !

SALLY...PART 270. EVEN NOAH COULDN'T HAVE HELPED ME !

 I was just about to do something really lovely in a dream when Shirley destroyed everything !

"David, David, OI DAVID ! Erkser ipinder tp !"

"Yerk erkn twer, what ?" I finally managed to answer !

"I said, there's a drip in the kitchen tap and it's going to cost HUNDREDS of pounds in wasted metered water if you don't get up IMMEDIATELY and do something about it !"

I instantly became fully conscious and manly, leapt out of bed and stood legs and arms akimbo, ready to dash off and fix whatever was wrong, however difficult the task !

"Show me the tap my lovely and stand back !" I commanded, twirling my whiskers whilst raising my left eyebrow in a high arch displaying my competence in all DIY matters !

"Oh for God's sake put something on first !" she responded through clenched teeth whilst trying not to retch !

I saw, I thought and I responded, leapt for my car keys and shouting, "SCREWFIX AND BEYOND !" disappeared in a flash of masculinity !

"GOOD GOD !" she gasped when I returned within the hour, "find no-one to talk to ?"

So I turned off the water, shut off the valve next to the immersion heater in the airing cupboard though I didn't know why I was doing that, knelt down to remove the old tap and was stopped in my tracks because I didn't have a set of box spanners to get up into the almost impossible place to undo the nut that I had forgotten holds it in place !

"Well why HAVEN'T you got a set of box spanners ?" every neighbour heard Shirley shout, "You've got every other tool in the universe !"

Keeping my voice down to just above screaming pitch I answered, "Because I've never needed one !"

The job ground to an instant halt and I turned the stop cock and upstairs valve thing back on only to find that there was now no water pressure in the house as I'd obviously broken something !

The next short period in our lives is best not reported as neither of us was very nice to each other, with a man who had no idea what he was talking about trying to convince a woman who had no interest or understanding and never had had in anything remotely technical that he knew what he was doing, and ended with my phoning our local plumber in a blind panic !

Then Shirley discovered on Facebook that TOTALLY COINCIDENTALLY there had been a burst watermain in town and NOBODY had water pressure so I rephoned the plumber, cancelled his visit but asked him to come and replace the tap anyway because I could find NO way to stop the warm water coming through which would have caused a flood and a few more words of disapproval !

Shirley said, "Why don't you speak in plain English when you're on the phone ?"

"What's that mean ?" I replied brusquely.

"Well you phrase things like you're in a Shakesperean play with 'methinks' and 'heretofores' and other words that you'd never use when talking face to face !"

"I have no idea what you're on about !" I said, knowing that she was perfectly right...she always is !

SALLY....PART 269. NEARLY THE PERFECT CRIME !

 

"David ! My phone isn't charging properly !" I was informed, "The old wire's cracked and this one's got a different slot which doesn't fit into my old plug so what have you done with my proper one as it's taken eight hours to charge 2% ?"

Actually I'd stopped listening after "David !" so she might not have said that lot !

The thing is my wife and I don't have a clue about modern communications and trying to explain the 'technicals' to us is pointless as we simply don't remember what we're supposed to find 'instinctive' !

Now I hate wires, all wires, whether for a phone or a vacuum cleaner or a radio or the one to recharge my almost useful hand-held hoover that sucks up very little.

I especially hate the uselessly short phone charger one that makes me have to lean over the edge of my bed when checking stuff I don't need to check when I should be asleep and I really hate the tyre inflator one I have to plug into the cigar lighter !

SO....for an extra Birthday/Anniversary gift when I spotted a three metre long gold one and  bought it stupidly thinking it would win me a compliment and  a slice of her cake !

"What's this ?" she demanded at 3:30am, her normal waking up time after sleeping for about her usual forty five minutes !

"Er grp perd gable!" I slurped from my normal deep sleep and went instantly back into the depths.

Her phone still failed to charge quickly and my suggestion that the battery might need replacing as the phone was a well used hand-me-down from a child didn't get well received !

She did in fact use my gift despite complaining that the electricity took much longer to get along it and last Sunday I phoned at the end of market to tell her it hadn't rained at all despite the forecasts only to hear her shaken voice explain that she'd leapt up to take her cake plate back into the kitchen to get some more cake when she found herself suddenly face down on the carpet having narrowly missed splitting her skull on the low cupboard that the radio sits on, landing on her right arm and the second toe of her left foot (????) !

The new charging cable had somehow crept between her foot and her sandal and acted as a perfect tripwire once it had reached it's full length and Shirley was in full flight.....and you have to see her on her bike to really appreciate her in full flight ! She rides faster than any man in lycra and a stupid helmet !

The visible result of her fall are an armful of multicoloured bruises along the whole length that would make a good crime scene exhibit and the police would definitely think I'd beaten her up had she ended up in hospital after I returned home and found her dead !

Mind you, I'm now using that wire and it works perfectly for me...perhaps it just needed a good yank ?

SALLY....PART 268....ALMONDS,NUTS FOR YOU !

 

I'll send you a list once you've dropped off Toby and got to Aldi as I don't know what I want yet, have you got your phone and is it charged, let me have a look, there's 58% so that should do if you don't use it between now and then, right get going as it's already five minutes since Julian left and he'll be there well before you, have you got 'Jumper' and don't forget Bear's in the shopping trolley we bought for my mother twenty years ago and which she never got to use and even if Julian doesn't want it in his house he's getting it because Toby likes to take Bear for a walk in it, have you got bags ?"

I had already forgotten everything in the above conversation as my front wheels bumped down the kerb !

Anyway, the traffic was hideous but I still I arrived a good ten minutes early, needing a wee although I'd only just had one and decided to wait until I got to Aldi as I thought they would be bound to have a toilet and I can't bear the one that Greggs' customers share with Burger King's and all the people on the A1 who only stop for the toilet !

I got to Aldi really really needing a wee, smirking at the memory of my son's face as he reluctantly loaded the shopping trolley into his boot and was relieved to see that the text message about the shopping only read, 'ALMONDS,NUTS FOR YOU' and shot in, immediately spying NO toilet so grabbed the nuts and headed to the only cashier working and saw to my horror that the woman in front of me was bent double, easing the weight off her top half by resting it on the child's seat over a trolley overfilled with biscuits and at least twenty two litre bottles of cheap Coke !

The sight of all that liquid didn't help my condition but by luck I heard 'We are opening till four for you" come over the speaker system and charged through several pegs to get to the front, paid, shot out and headed for the nearest hedge to relieve myself but there was too much light and too many people around to avoid arrest so I drove home like a demented idiot and threw myself through the door and ran upstairs, dumping the nuts in my wife's hands on the way !

"Where's everything else on the list ?" she called up.

"It only said, 'ALMONDS,NUTS FOR YOU' twice as it happens !" I replied in pain !

"Don't be STUPID !" she shouted back, "I sent a whole list and just once !"

"Hang on, give us a break, I'll be down in a minute !"

"What do you mean it only said 'ALMONDS, NUTS FOR YOU twice ? Give me your phone ! Show me where !"

Whatever I clicked on now read, 'And salad cream'...TWICE !

"It said,'ALMONDS,NUTS FOR YOU' twice when I saw it !"

"Why didn't you press on that message you idiot and the list would have appeared ?"

"I didn't know you had to do that !" I whimpered !

"WHAT ? You didn't know you have to click on a message to see it ? You're PATHETIC ! Now I've got no chocolate cake for tonight's World Cup match !"

"No I didn't know but I'll go back if you want ! I couldn't think AND anyway I didn't have a pound coin for the trolley and if I had had one I wouldn't have managed to get everything without bursting !"

"Don't bother, I'll have a packet of your cheap crisps as you didn't get my posh ones and get yourself sorted out...a text message has to be clicked on !"

"What's a text message ?" I thought as I went through to my room to finish sewing another fifty purses !

SALLY....PART 267. "DAVID ! WHAT'S HAPPENED TO THE END OF THE CUCUMBER ?"

 

Nothing's quite right in my house at the moment since Shirley got invaded by a grandchild's virus and I have to make my own food !

Yesterday I made a sausage, bacon and onion sandwich without the bread because I can no longer stand the super seeded loaf I demanded be bought exclusively for me !

The day before that I made a sausage and onion sandwich WITH bread and it was so large I quartered it and everything fell out of each giant quarter when I lifted it towards my mouth and ended up having to use a knife and fork, adding to the washing up that my invalid wife can still manage whilst coughing her guts up because she hates the way I do the washing up

My lunch today was two slices of corned beef, horseradish sauce and sliced with a blunt knife cucumber between nearly the last two slices of that horrible bread !

Six hours later my door crashed open and my wife who had spent the afternoon in a near coma swept in brandishing the two parts of the cucumber pictured above !

"What's THIS David ?" she spat out almost apopleptic, "What has happened to the end of the cucumber ?"

I had to think quickly, "Erm, I cut it off."

"WHY ?"

"Because I wanted some slices of it for my sandwich."

"So why didn't you slice it from the end ?"

I had no answer and fell silent as she turned, shaking her head in bewilderment and left my room.

"Now the end's going to dry up and get wasted and cucumbers aren't cheap !" I think she said except she probably didn't as she never wastes a scrap of food and that end, I'm certain, however dried up will end up down my gullet tomorrow !

'I should have just eaten the end as a self-contained snack !', I thought as I turned back to my work feeling hungry because a single corned beef sandwich is no meal for any man let alone a hard working one !

SALLY...PART 266. "GO EASY ON THE BUTTER !"......WHOOPS !

 

I had just gone heavy on the butter when I heard, called through from my wife's Ipad viewing couch, "Go easy on the butter !" because she can just sense when I'm doing wrong !

If she'd really wanted that she'd have made my Marmite on toast elevenses herself, when she would have scraped an invisible amount of my favourite lubricant on to what Hovis sells as white bread without printing 'TASTELESS WITH A HORRIBLE TEXTURE AND LIKE TRYING TO CHEW THIN CARDBOARD' prominently on its wrapper, thereby saving about half a p !

 But she didn't and I had to crawl through from my sewing machine starved half to death to prepare my own food !

So having failed to unbutter two slices of burnt toast because you can't unbutter melted butter, especially heavily spread butter, I heaped on extra thick Marmite to disguise my crime in case it were to be inspected, which it thankfully wasn't as the amount of topping I'd used was ridiculous and would have been noticed and commented upon !

I quickly scoffed the lot, choking as quietly as I could on the product bought from Asda under its own name and which tastes exactly like Marmite because I'd put on FAR too much ! 

SALLY....PART 265....HUGO'S FIRST TELEVISION ROLE....IN 'THE DUMPING GROUND' !

 

Well Saturday was an adventure for Hugo, his Dad and me when we went to Bafta in Piccadilly to watch the screening of the first episode of series 10 of The Dumping Ground and to join in the celebration of ten years of the programme which started out as 'Tracey Beaker' about the adventures of children in a care home !

We hadn't been in London for an hour when Hugo said, "London is a hell hole and I never want to come back here !"

Maybe they'll keep him on for the next series and even for the next ten years or maybe this'll be his only acting job...only time will tell !

SALLY....PART 264.....WHAT'S THAT DISGUSTING STENCH DAVID ?

 

We were sitting on our Scottish veranda playing Scrabble in tremendous mid-September heat two days ago when Shirley 'hissed' me whilst holding her hand over her nose, "Oi ! What's that stench ? Someone's cooking something diabolical and I can't believe they'd force us to smell it too !"

I couldn't smell anything because I can't smell anything at all anymore but I could see she was in some distress !

Shirley started out her married life with only the minimal amount of patience for me, anybody else or, in fact, the entire world and that minimal amount finally ground down to zero because of what was happening up her nose !

"It's DISGUSTING ! You're going to have to say something once you've had a sniff around the verandas on either side and worked out which one this horrible smell is coming from ! It's making me feel SICK !"

I got her point though still couldn't smell anything but relished a break from yet another defeat in which she builds up a large score by using no more than high scoring two letter words placed on triple scoring squares !

"The STENCH !" she continued, holding her skirt to her face, "I'm going to have to go in and shut all the windows until whoever it is has finished producing the foulest food I've ever had the misfortune to smell !"

"How can they do it ? Don't they realise that NO-one should have to suffer THAT ? What COULD it possibly be ?"

She got up and after a couple of seconds with her head next to our open window quietly said, "Oh, it's our dinner ! I forgot that I didn't have any tomato puree and put a jar of black olive tapinard in the casserole !"

It tasted of pure salty bitterness when I ate it with gratitude a little later, clearing my plate and belching affectionately....and I can't taste anything either !

SALLY....PART 263....THANK YOU TIM CONWAY FOR NEARLY MAKING ME DIE WITH LAUGHTER !

This clip is possibly 50 years old and these two comic geniuses featured in the American 'Carol Burnett Show' for years!

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9IUSM4EKcRI 

I hope you find it as unbearably unwatchably hilarious as I do !  

SALLY...PART 262..."YOU WERE UNMANICURED IN LANZAROTE AND YOU SHOULD HAVE BEEN SHOT !" And she wasn't joking !

 It's suddenly so hot in England I'm running with sweat after an hour sunbathing in my back garden so I've come back inside to seek the shade and some breeze !

"I could do with diving into the Mediterranean !" I groaned at Shirley who had taken my place on the punctured plastic lilo that hasn't held air for more than thirty years but is useful as a first layer before a thin and narrow scrap of faded striped sunchair foam is placed on it followed by cushions and a towel if I use it to carch my drool !

"Well we have a beach five minutes away so why not nip down there ?" she urged, obviously not remembering what happened to me the last time I went for a dip there on a very hot day in 1981 !

I dived in and came up with a not very attractive necklace of untreated human waste !

"Rather not ! I meant somewhere hotter and with transparently turquoise water !"

"Oh God, you mean like Lanzarote where you should have been shot for going in naked !"

"But it was a nudist beach and you said I looked pathetic in shorts !"

"Yes but you were 'unmanicured' and the image is too awful to conjure back up !"

"I'm a MAN and proper men DON'T 'manicure' !"

"You're not a proper man and you SHOULD !"

And with that she fell back to sleep and I reached for my grooming kit !

I wonder what she'll think of THIS !

(No, NO PHOTOS !) 

SALLY...PART 261...I WAS MY OWN WORST ENEMY AND HAVE TO ACCEPT THE BLAME !

 

SOMEONE should have seen what was going on and stopped me dead in my tracks on my way to my totally unnecessary academic failure but who exactly was to blame ?

Actually I think it was me !

I evidently thought....well no, I didn't think; the future was in the future and I must have thought that I had plenty of time but then again I'm pretty sure I never thought that as all I ever did was not think !

Of course I now blame PIRITON, the anti hayfever drug that turned me into a zombie in class and sent me straight to sleep when I tried to read in the library !

If I could get another chance NOW I'd get straight As or probably not !

I wasn't the only one who though !

So here's some advice for all my grandsons....study and pass your exams with the highest marks possible and DON'T say I didn't warn you !

SALLY...PART 260..."WIPE YOUR LIPS AND DON'T SLOBBER INTO IT !"

Shirley wasn't talking to a five year old but to ME !

We had arrived at the harbour beach together, that is to say, she had arrived and I had staggered along about five minutes later, clutching my chest, frozen to the bone with icicles hanging off both nostrils and the end of my nose, desperate for food, having left home full to bursting ten minutes before !

I dropped onto the carrier bag she had positioned for me so I wouldn't get wet from the sand and reached into my coat pocket to retrieve the packet of Belvita biscuits that she'd had me carry !

"I suppose you're starving despite only just having stuffed your face with oversalted peanut butter on toast ?"

"Yes !" I gasped, "I'm dying of hunger...give us one !"

Belvita biscuits, for those of you who don't know, are a disgustingly cloying alternative breakfast food designed for busy people on the run...which is not us !

They are so horrible that we have been known to carry the same packet, unopened, for months, until in fact they have disintegrated into dust because neither of us can stand them !

I gobbled my two greedily and didn't refuse when she offered me a half of one of hers !

They are that disgusting that they'd clogged up my throat and I stared wild eyed at her tiny half full (to save weight) water bottle silently pleading for help !

Eventually and with the sort of reluctance only a wife can display and a mouth turned downwards in loathing said, "Wipe your lips and don't slobber into it !"

So I did what I was told because I'm clever like that and wanted some dinner when we got home !

SALLY....PART 259....I AM NOW FULL OF SELF LOATHING !

 

Jonathan phoned me last week to ask if I still loved Mon Cheri Liquer Chocolates as he knew that I had sadly let myself down by buying EIGHT boxes of Thorntons chocolates for my birthday treat which I THOUGHT had hard ones in them but which ALL turned out to be absolutely YUK....like the ones nobody eats from the tin of Christmas Quality Street until two weeks later when they become desperate !

"How can anyone NOT love them ?" I replied !

"Well I haven't got you any but I have found something very close at M&S and I've bought you six boxes !"

"Lovely ! They'll do !"

Let me tell you this...they are GORGEOUS and I can eat all twenty one in a box in two sessions and now, not one week later I've just started my fifth box !

And that's after experimenting this afternoon with a number of  Chocolate Bourbons to see how long I could dunk one in hot coffee before it fell to pieces and I was left holding a soggy tip ! The answer was six seconds !

I am disgusted with myself but not as disgusted as my wife who is even more enraged because I never put on an ounce and my annual blood tests all come back with 'EXCELLENT' marks, despite my having been just one decimal point short of type two diabetes for the last ten years !

And the Thorntons ?

Shirley's had the lot !

SALLY...PART 258...TODAY I ATE A SUCKED CRUMPET !

 

Above is a shot of Toby's father at the same sort of horrible stage his son now is !

Sometimes hunger just gets the better of me and waiting for more than two hours for my daughter in law to get home with a Chinese takeaway was too much for a man who had only had a dish of Rice Krispies half a day before !

Toby, two, had demanded a buttered crumpet when he got home from nursery and I watched in disgust as he drooled whilst sucking the hot butter out of pieces of the thing whilst chewing and then spitting out the solid leftovers !

I would have made myself one but his was the last in the packet and for some reason Shirley seemed to forget that I would be starving and had offered me nothing, assuring me that a meal was on its way !

Then Toby got given a Yum Yum which he also chewed and spat out the plain dough remains after ingesting all the tasty sweet bits !

By then my legs had gone weak and shaky and I couldn't stand the hunger pangs any more so I grabbed the young child's leftovers and stuffed them greedily down my throat before anyone could stop me and I felt much better for it !

Now no-one's talking to me because they were SO disgusted by my behaviour....and frankly...so am I !

SALLY....PART 257....I AM SICK AND TIRED OF LOSING AT SCRABBLE...D'YOU HEAR ME ? SICK OF IT !

 

I dread hearing the words, "Come and get your daily drubbing !" which today came earlier than expected so I hadn't even mentally prepared myself for my ritual humiliation !

And I'M the one who reads and writes whilst all SHE ever does is listen endlessly all night and then to the repeats all day of Steven Nolan and his phone-in wingeing losers !

She tries to soften me up with, "The tide's going to turn, I can feel it and as I only had twelve seconds sleep and fifteen wees last night whilst you snored your way through nine solid hours, my brain is completely done in and I can't think any more !"

Needless to say, the tide DIDN'T turn today and I'm not expecting it ever to again !

So anyway, here's my real face at the top and then the one the public see, below, when I masterfully give the impression that life's just fine ! And note who's cooking my tea because she feels guilty for being superior ! Here she had demanded 3 minutes 45 seconds on my stopwatch and was saying, "Did you here me you deaf idiot, three minutes forty five or your curry will be ruined ?"

Of course I'd heard her but I carry on my deaf act so I don't get asked to do stuff because I'm a LOT cleverer than she thinks I am !

And here is one side of the score sheet showing 18 circled wins for HER and one boxed one for me !

I'm surprised she hasn't steamed off that franked stamp for me to use on a parcel !

SALLY...PART 256...JUST TRY OPENING YOUR DRIVER'S DOOR WITH YOUR LEFT HAND !

 

The new Highway Code laws came into force today and here's the first cyclist I knocked off his bike as he road down the centre of the road at 3mph on his way to the shops...thankfully without a child sat behind him !

These include advice to cyclists to ride in the middle of the lane they would have ridden to the left of !

This will lead to millions of them being screamed at, hooted at and mown down !

Drivers now have to open their doors with their left hands in order that they will be facing backwards and be more able to see approaching cyclists !

I'M NOT MAKING THIS UP !

Try it !

I can't do it because I have a STEERING WHEEL in the way and when I did try it I had to squash the right hand side of my face up against my window before the door flew open and I fell out of the car into the path of an oncoming cyclist !

As I said, try it !

Then there's having to give way to pedestrians crossing the road when you're turning left !

Drivers now have to stop to let them cross which will result in vehiocles piling into the back of them !

Mark my words, this arrant nonsense is going to lead to mayhem, drivers going barmy being forced by law to sit at 3mph behind self-righteous cyclists hogging the centre of the car lanes, fines and judges forced to waste their time imprisoning perfectly decent drivers who will have infringed yet more nonsenical laws !

See you in prison soon chaps !