WORD travels fast when you accidentally demolish the greenhouse. Not surprising, really: the noise of shattering panes as I plunged backwards through the glass was enough to wake the dead.
I’d been doing really well until it happened. “Close the greenhouse vent, water the lettuce, sweet peas, beans and broccoli seedlings and be sure to cover them with a fleece against overnight frost,” ‘Er Outdoors had commanded before heading off to Morocco to trek the Atlas Mountains with fellow Berwick Ramblers.
We’re enthusiastic gardeners of the organic variety, you see. Now that the threat of wind farms has receded the local agriculturals are planning to turn to the next best cash crop: biofuels.
As well as starving the already deprived Third World and providing an abundance of biodiesel with which Chelsea Tractor drivers can pollute even more of the planet, it stands to reason that more fields of waving oilseed means fewer fields of anything remotely nutritious in the way of food.
So we’re growing our own…at least, we were until I tripped over the greenhouse doorstep and – quite literally – brought the house down. And, as I said, news travels fast.
“Any injuries?” my domino partner Robbie phoned to ask. “Bad enough to keep you away from the doms on Sunday?”
I swear his wishful world clouded over when I assured him that not a single major artery had been severed and that I would be at his side, luckless as ever, this weekend.
WHY, I heard some young sprig ask on radio the other day, should local buses be made free across the nation to sixty-year-olds?
I’ll tell you why, mate. It’s ‘cos we baby boomers are becoming the majority age group, that’s why.
The Yuppies (young, upwardly mobile) and the Dinks (dual income, no kids) have had their day. Now we over-60s have a group name that at least sounds like an acronym, even if it isn’t: we are Twirlies.
Twirlies? Sure. You get on a bus five minutes before the rush hour is over, show your pensioner pass and the driver says: “Too early…”
TALKING of buses, the Coastliner bus service in North Yorkshire has just issued a free pamphlet to passengers with such helpful advice as “When can I travel? The choice is totally yours!” and “When the bus approaches give a clear signal to avoid confusion.” Talk about teaching your granny to suck eggs…
Reminds me of a bottle of posh mineral water I once bought, on the label of which was printed “Serving suggestion: just add ice.”
Truly, a cocktail is born…
I BROKE another duck last weekend. I had never addressed a curling club in my life until I was invited to be guest speaker at the Coldstream Curlers’ annual dinner.
Toon definitely lost out to country THAT night: all the ladies were busy pointing out one of their star players, “…Mrs Nevin, she’s Doctor Harvey’s daughter…” while I was sure her husband’s face was familiar.
“Oh aye,” said a curler, “that’s Pat. He’s a nice guy, too.”
That would be Pat ‘the ex-Chelsea, Hibs, Motherwell and Scottish international footballer’ Nevin then, would it?
Anyway, the only previous contact I had with the curling world was in News York where I worked with a Canadian who was always sneaking off to play despite his rather domineering wife.
“So how do you persuade her to let you out so often?” I once asked. “There’s a limit to the number of times you can promise to paper the kitchen.”
“Simple,” he said. “I turn down the lights, open a bottle of wine and ask if she fancies an early night, or should I just go curling?”
“And it works?” I asked.
“Sure,” said my curling pal. “She turns on the TV and says ‘Don’t forget to take a warm sweater!’ ”