Twice in a century

Norman shakes himself and rouses me from that comfortable state that lies somewhere between dreaming and waking. I open my eyes and in the dim early morning daylight that penetrates my bedroom curtains, make eye contact with him, he wags his tail vigorously and hops towards the bedroom door, whilst uttering small encouraging little dachshund barks. Faced by such canine blandishments, I find myself utterly incapable of resisting his wishes and swing my legs to the floor, slide my feet into my slippers and reach for my dressing gown, which lies conveniently on the chair at the foot of the bed. Outside it is a cloudy, rainswept morning, but my garden is sheltered from the worst of it, and Normy fairly sprints towards the lawn for his early morning ablutions. I make sure he can see me, because he has been known, in the past, to pretend to pee, before dashing back for breakfast. This morning he stays honest and then stations himself strategically next to the hall radiator where he can bask in its heat while simultaneously ensuring that I am making a decent fist of cooking breakfast. We eat simultaneously, I have cooked two sausages, two rashers of bacon, two slices of black pudding, two halves of tomato and one egg, Norman's share is half a sausage, the fatty bits from the bacon, a slice of black pudding and some egg white. He is not keen on fried tomato. He beats me hands down again and then watches me with big, brown, soulful eyes, while I carefully masticate and listen to the radio four news. The tactic works, and he manages to blag another half a sausage, that my appetite suddenly decides it doesn't really need. After breakfast, I retire to the garden room, carrying my coffee and intending to read the Saturday Guardian at leisure, fat chance, the BT, weekend broadband curse has struck again, and I have to download the edition manually. After fifteen minutes of patience, I abandon the attempt, my coffee drained and bored with the repetition of the same depressing news. The Palestinians have fired eight rockets overnight into Israel and Israel has responded with one hundred and eighty air strikes. It is just as if some one kicked you out of your family home and then you throw rocks against their windows and they respond by napalming the shanty in which you have been forced to live. Impotent in the face of this injustice, I put last weeks underwear into the washing machine. Still enraged, I hack an onion to pieces and fry it up with some garlic and mince, and then add some oxo, chopped tomatoes and oregano, before transferring it to the slow cooker, where it will morph into an approximation of Bolognese sauce. After showering and dressing, we leave the house around ten, bound for Beverley and the Poppy Seed cafe, where we are due to meet Felicity and friends for coffee. This is our usual Saturday morning routine and we park down Norwood, just before the Girl's High School, and walk into town. Fortunately the rain has reduced to the odd spot, and Norman is in no great hurry, stopping to sniff each lamppost and railing, to see if anyone he knows has passed this way recently. As we approach the Poppy Seed, we encounter Felicity, withdrawing cash from the Barclay's bank, hole in the wall. I offer to help her negotiate her way back across the road, as she is blind in one eye and rather unsteady on her feet, but she spurns my help and launches herself in front of the market day traffic, declaring, "they don't knock old ladies down!" A motorist in a four by four mouths something at her, which I don't think is, "after you my dear". Norman and I follow via the adjacent pedestrian crossing. Felicity says she feels her blood sugars are low, the perennial excuse for sweet foods used by many type two diabetics and orders a toasted teacake and a cappuccino, the waitress brings me a tea unbidden. Within minutes the rest of the Saturday morning crowd arrives, Annie, followed by Hahne, then Rosemary and Barbara, who we haven't seen since her operation, then Jill and finally Felicity's sister, Joy. Norman sits on my knee, enjoying the succession of pats and waiting for someone to order a bacon or sausage sandwich, but today he is out of luck. We sit back and enjoy the craic, as at least four conversations, intersect around our heads. By half past eleven Felicity has run out of steam and we walk her back to Albert Terrace, before making our way back to Norwood via Saturday market, pausing only to busy fresh bread and some olives. When we arrive home, the Bolognese sauce is fermenting nicely, and though it should, ideally, wait until this evening, we decide to cook pasta for lunch. Fifteen minutes later we are eating and despite it being Bolognese nouveau, it tastes OK. After lunch I hang my underwear on lines in the garage, where it will dry, eventually, and then set this weeks, shirts, socks and pyjamas to wash. The broadband is still jammed up, so I meditate for a while and then iron shirts whilst listening to the football on radio Humberside. Hull City are playing away at Birmingham, who we haven't beaten since 1971 and we have only won once at Saint Andrews, the Birmingham ground, in the last hundred years. I know this because the commentator, David Burns, aka Burnsy, tells me so. His expert summariser, Peter Swan, aka, Swanny, an ex Hull City and Leeds United footballer, forms the other half of this comedy double act. In Yorkshire we show affection to our friends by taking the mickey, the closer the friendship the more extreme this becomes. These two are great friends and it is amazing how much Yorkshire affection they are able to absorb. As I have no doubt said before, they are pure comedy gold and most of the fans tune in, as much for their banter as for the match, and a great match it is. The tigers are three goals up in half an hour, Birmingham score two goals either side of half time, but we hang on for the win. So now we have won twice in the last hundred years. After the match, Norman has a tin and then we walk round the village. It is a cold, clear, evening, a crescent moon is rising in the West and the sky is bright with stars. If it stays clear we could well have a frost tonight, the daily Mail, the organ for lobotomised Tory wives, has declared an Arctic blast will plunge Britain into a deep freeze next week. The chances of this are about a thousand to one, but if you like to be kept in a state of permanent fear or outrage, the Mail is the paper for you. During and after the war, we used to cut newspapers into squares and use them for toilet paper, no publication is better suited for this, except perhaps the Sun, but that's not really a newspaper. Once Normy is safely home I phone Leslie, I have promised to make him pasta with white asparagus for lunch tomorrow, and check that this is still OK, before driving to Morrison's, where they have white asparagus on their fresh vegetable counter. While I am there, I pick up a bottle of Riesling to accompany the meal and top up my stock of oak smoked Wiltshire bacon. Back home again I make a salad with shavings of Parmesan, which I eat with a baguette while listening to Front Row on radio four, they are reviewing Michael Hanneke's new film, "Amour", an unrelenting observation of old age, sickness and death. I enjoyed, if that's the right word, his last film, "The White Ribbon", an acute observation of the class tensions in rural Germany immediately before the First World War. Later, I read the introduction to Simone Weil's, " The need for roots", on kindle. She discusses the necessity for obligations, which she claims are universal, to come before rights, which cannot exist without them. Profound and interesting, I shall buy the book, but perhaps in paperback. To bed at ten.