In a hole

Conversations with my mother are never boring.

We’re sitting outside finishing lunch on a beautiful, sunny Girona day. The plane doesn’t leave until 18.15 so we have time for a leisurely lunch.

I flew to Leeds on Sunday to pick her up, escort her on the journey to Italy and generally ensure that she reduces the weight in her luggage from 30 Kilos to 15. She’s Italian and considers the rules about weight allowance as advisory rather than compulsory. A bit like Italian drivers at red traffic lights.

Anyway, I’m sipping my coffee when mum said, “Don’t do that, it looks horrible.”

I have to look around because she can’t possibly be talking to me.

Wrong. She is looking at me.

“What are you talking about?” I said.

“That thing with your hand,” she said.

My offence? I’m in the habit of holding my hand level, palm down, under my chin to avoid spills when I drink coffee.

“What wrong with that?” I said, “in fact what’s it got to do with you?”

“I’m your mother (as if that's the answer to everything), and it makes you look like that man,” she said.

Intrigued, I said “Which man?”

“You know, him. The American.”

That’s narrowed it down a bit I think to myself. One in 125 million are much better odds.

“Er mum, which American?”

“You know, that one in the ground.”

“Mum, please, what are you talking about?”

Mum, talking to me as if I’m stupid, “That one, the one they found in a hole in the ground.”

Jan and I looked at each other, looking for inspiration.

“He had a beard,” she said.

The clues don’t really help. I started to get exasperated, I’ve got better things to do with my life and stupid conversations is definitely not one of them.

“They found him hiding, you know. I know you know,” she said.

Jan and I look at each other, looking for some help.

It finally dawns on me. Do you mean Saddam?

“Yes that’s him. Hussein, Saddam Hussein.”

Jan fell about laughing.

I said, “Mum, he’s not American.”

“You’re just being awkward,” she said.

“Let me get this right mum,” I said, “because I hold my hand under my chin when I’m drinking coffee I look like Saddam Hussein?”

My mother looked at me as if I’m an imbecile.

“Yes, you must have seen him do it? It looks horrible.”

“Mum, I’ve seen quite a bit of him on television, mostly strutting about and dispensing goodwill, but frankly I’ve never seen him do that.
What's worse, I find myself apologising.

Jan can hardly contain herself, she’s screaming with laughter. Saddam is one of the few things she’s never called me.

Bloody cold

Grief it's cold. We left mum's house in Harrogate just before 07.00 this morning and blow me but the ice warning light came on in the car. It was 3C. Being an idiot I'd only packed Hawaiian shirts and flip flops. I don't think I looked stupid? (No more than usual sunshine - Ed)
At least when we get to Girona it will be all toasty warm. It's only October and it's bloody freezing in England, so stop moaning back there at home!

Hello big boy

I hate to be late. I’m lying there dozing, watching the hours tick by and finally I give in and decide to get up and get going. Better to spend time on the motorway making progress than lying, stewing in my pit. OK, so it’s not yet 04.00 but I want to be away at 05.00 so it’s onwards and upwards.



As you would expect, the trip to Girona is very easy. Turn on cruise control, point, and go. It’s pitch black, it’s Sunday, so no lorries, and hardly any cars. A really boring journey and I struggle to stay awake. Still, the CD choice is good and I manage to stay on the road by listening to such uplifting lyrics as ‘doo wah diddy diddy dum diddy doo.’ Those guys must be laughing their heads off as they count their money.


Normally Jan would chat and keep me awake, but she’s not driving down to meet us until tomorrow, so my mind wanders through my early life as Nina Simone, Roberta Flack, Stevie Wonder and even Manfred Mann remind me of times when men were men and life was good.


Security at the airport was easy, no queues and bored but friendly staff. After passing through the metal detector, a guard, thinking that I must be pleased to see him, pointed at a big lump in my pocket and, with a knowing smile, asked me what it was. It was nothing more than my plastic spectacle case. He looked a little disappointed but it’s good to know that they're alert and check you over thoroughly.

Pain!

Panic stations this morning because I had all the pain associated with kidney stones, which I get from time to time, and I thought that with it being Saturday I'd have to go to the hospital to get some pain relief. As it happened, our doctor was still at her morning surgery so she gave me a morphine shot in the ass, which always works. Lovely stuff that morphine!

The panic was because I didn't want to be hospitalised. I leave the house at 05.00 tomorrow to catch an early flight from Girona to Leeds, to pick up my mother. I then get her back to Girona on Monday to catch a flight to Pescara in Italy on Tuesday. I hope you're paying attention to all this?

A kind thought

After being together for many years, I took a careful look at Jan one day and said, "Darling, 20 years ago we had a cheap apartment, a cheap car, slept on a sofa bed, watched a 10-inch black and white TV and I got to sleep every night with a hot 25-year-old.

Now I have an expensive house and car, a nice big bed and plasma screen TV, but I'm sleeping with an elderly woman. It seems to me that you're not holding up your side of things."

Jan, who's very reasonable person, told me not to worry. She told me to go out and find a hot 25-year-old girl, and she would make sure that I would once again be living in a cheap apartment, driving a cheap car, sleeping on a sofa bed and watching a 10-inch black and white TV.

Isn't that thoughtful?

A nice surprise

A knock on the door on Saturday night, heralded the arrival of Alain our artist friend from the village. Would you like some tomatoes for chutney he said. Of course we said.

Above is a sample of what he brought. They were yellow, green, red and black in colour. A selection of old varieties, a selection that was so sweet and delicious. Bugger the chutney, I said, let's have tomato salad instead. And so it came to pass.

Time to reflect

China has been celebrating 60 years of communist rule. That's fine. Good for them. Their parades look very impressive. All these men and women marching in perfect time and in a perfect line. Good effort I say.

But something has been puzzling and worrying me for a long time. How the hell do they get all the soldiers in their parades, the same height? Thousands of the the buggers, all 5 foot 6 tall (or whatever). I think it's kinda spooky. Is there a hospital somewhere shaving bits off. We need to be told. The world needs to know.

Roman Polanski

Frankly I'm amazed at the public outpouring of grief at Roman Polanski's arrest. If I was the parent of a 13 year old child that he'd had sex with I'd follow him to the ends of the earth and happily cut off his balls. Talk about twisted values. This guy's been on the run for 30 years, living a pretty normal life, so arguably he's has had a pretty good time of it. All this sycophantic, luvey rubbish makes me sick. And, if you read the first article, who exactly is Fanny Ardent, in fact who gives a shit who she is? The world has turned upside down.

I wish this rain would stop

Look, I'm not a cruel person and I feel extremely sorry for the people who have suffered as a result of the floods in the Phillipines but when I saw pictures of people wading, waste deep, through filthy flood water, and carrying an umbrella, it did make me laugh.

Opuntia

When I was young my mother took me many times to Italy. These were trips home to see her mother, my grandmother, who lived in Foggia and we spent many weeks at the nearby seaside resort of Siponto.

I only mention this because I bought some cactus fruit yesterday, and it reminded me of these trips. I'm talking about the early fifties, when there were two types of beach vendor, one sold fresh coconut and the other fichi d'India. This guy would walk along the beach shouting in the local dialect what sounded like 'figidindi'. He carried a bucket of these cactus fruits and would peel them for you so that you didn't get near the lethal thorns that cover the outside of the fruit. In France they're called figues de barbarie.

They have a light, fragrant flavour but be careful not to bite on the seeds which get stuck in your teeth.

A little trip down memory lane.

BMW F800S Garage Door Opener

It was the dry delivery that fooled me. I just didn't expect the outcome and it made me laugh out loud.

Chicken cacciatore

Don't get me wrong, I could probably survive happily on a non meat diet. Jan has lots of interesting and tasty veggie dishes which she has developed over the years, mainly because my son James doesn't eat meat. Well now James and Pauline have returned home, after a few days R&R with us, and I begged my beloved for something a bit meatier. I've had enough bloody tofu. What a waste of time it is. Why eat something as a meat substitute, something that neither feels or tastes like meat? Just eat bloody meat? But what do I know?

Anyway, I saw this recipe for chicken cacciatore in a mag the other day and politely suggested (it sounded more like begging to me - Ed) that it would be a welcome change from that tofu shit.

Well, what does my beloved do? She cooked it tonight. And very nice it was too.

And, just in case you feel like something a little more substantial, you might want to take a look at McDonalds latest offering.

Fancy a laugh?

Thanks to Peter you have the chance to see the next French winner of X Factor. Take a look at this, it's so funny.

French parking

The French are, in my opinion, the worst drivers that I have ever come across. A large number of them are dangerous and very self centred. And that's just their behaviour on the road.

Whilst waiting for Jan in the car park at Carremeau today I took the following pictures. Each car has been parked without any consideration for other users, tales up a minimum of two bays and all the cars were parked within 10 meters of where I parked. A pox on all their houses.