55% of Men

The Coronavirus pandemic has a lot to answer for, boredom being one of them. I was glued to the television last night and watched a re-run of a programme first shown ten years ago. I missed it then. It’s a panel game between two teams of three people. I was called 8 out of 10 Cats. The teams have to answer strange or plain silly questions. Very entertaining.

The question master asked for comments on the following statement. “A recent survey in the USA says that 55% of men have done something stupid to try and attract a woman.”

One of the panellists said that as a schoolboy in a biology lesson he laid a bet with the other members of his class that he would eat a pigs eyeball. He won the bet.

My own effort at stupidity occurred about the same age as the panellist, about 14 years old. I was on a school hiking holiday in North Wales. The mixed group of us were away for about five days staying in Youth Hostels and doing some of the mountains in the area. From memory I think it rained all the time, though that is normal in Wales at most times of the year. A very wet place, almost as bad as Lancashire. They do say that you can tell if someone was born in Lancashire. They have webbed feet.

Anyway. We stayed one night at Llanberis Youth Hostel which is at the foot of Wales’s highest mountain, Mount Snowden. The following day we started off up the mountain and soon enough the mist came down. We carried on walking along a very rocky muddy path until eventually we were walking in cloud. Not very pleasant.

One of the girls in the group who was also from my class at school was called Stephanie Sykes. She was tall, slim and had shoulder length black hair and a tanned complexion. And she was beautiful. I had been smitten by her some weeks before and drooled over her in class, as you do at that age.

Part way up the mountain I came up behind her and could see she was really struggling with the rucksack she had on her back. I think we all were, particularly those who had not done any hiking before. I had done a lot, being a Boy Scout at the time, but she hadn’t. I seized my chance and offered to carry her rucksack as well as my own. She smiled, I was hit. I took her sack from her shoulders and placed it on top of my own and started to walk on up the mountain. As I started to walk she said she was going to wait for a few moments to “catch her breath”. I carried on and the cloud became thicker and thicker. In fact it was not until we were almost at the summit that the cloud cleared and we could see in the valley below us a small aircraft flying along the valley, so we threw stones at it. We missed, fortunately.

About a hundred yards from the summit the sun was shining and a crowd of walkers were heading toward the cafe at the summit. I stopped and turned around to see where the rest of the group were. First in line was Stephanie, hand in hand with one of my classmates. They stopped and grinned up at me. I reached around to the pack on top of my rucksack and lifted it off. In one smooth movement I threw it down the hill at the bitch. “You can manage it the rest of the way yourself” I shouted, and carried on to the top. The teacher in charge of us and some of my class mates saw what happened. Nobody said a word, and Stephanie never spoke to me then or ever again.

Living in a Timewarp

It’s the first day of April today, 2020. Since the 14^th March my wife and I have been living in self isolation due to our age and health conditions. We have to live like this for the next three months. Like most people we are not finding it too easy.

We do have some advantages over a lot of other people in the UK. We have a small back garden and an even smaller front one, so that if we need fresh air we don’t have to only stick our heads out of the window. We can wander around the garden and mutter to ourselves, something I’ve taken to over the past week. It’s never a very interesting conversation though.

In addition we have two dogs. One is a 16 month old Irish Wolfhound cross with a Labradoodle. He is BIG. The other recently acquired dog is a first cross with a Standard Poodle and a Golden Retriever. He is as black as the ace of spades and a ‘wick’ little monkey as they say in this part of England. I have provisionally nicknamed him Son of Satan. He is a quick, inquisitive little sod.

Ted and Reggie

For the past week or so we have had no rain, always something to brag about in this part of Lancashire. The result is that both dogs can spend a lot of time in the garden, which they do, running around like loons and generally creating havoc where they can. We have had to buy new fencing to keep the pair of them out of the spring flowers we planted (now long gone thanks to S of S). My wife was hoping to grow some vegetables at the bottom of the garden, that has been put on hold for a few days until the last lot of fencing arrived. Soon I hope.

The local Police have been going a bit over the top in the social isolation stakes. We are not supposed to go out in the car other than to shop or work (if you are still working) and only exercise once a day from your home.

For the past eight years I have been walking the dog (whichever one we have had) by taking them to the local country park one mile from our home. I take them in the car and then walk them around a small lake. The walk takes me between 20 and 40 minutes depending on how good my breathing is. I suffer from COPD. On a good day I am away from home for 26 minutes. Three minutes drive each way.

Yesterday there were two other cars in the car park. ON a normal day there are up to 60-70 cars. A good indication of how people are taking heed to the new rules of life.

As I got back to the car a police car rolled up. Drivers window came down and a rather large part time officer poked her head out. She didn’t bother to get out. We had a short conversation which ended with her threatening me with a fine of £60.00 if I didn’t move. I moved. She did suggest I walked the mile from my home to the car park. I told her about COPD and the fact that a walk around the lake was all I could manage.

It turns out that Lancashire police have issued 132 fines in the past few days since the rules were introduced. The neighbouring force of Cheshire has issued 6. The Metropolitan police covering the whole of Greater London have issued 0.

Over zealous perhaps. Whatever, They are losing a lot of support in this area.