“I’ll be about an hour,” I promise.
Four hours later, I am sat hammering out ‘Piano Man’ by Billy Joel, whilst Short Tony yells out the words very slightly out of time with the rhythm. The Toddler looks on bemused. My inbox bings with a confirmation from Ebay – a bid of twelve pounds for a ‘Caution – Power Wires’ sign that you affix to the bottom of telegraph poles.
The LTLP is unimpressed.
“You’re not leaving. You’re not leaving,” Short Tony and Eddie had insisted to me as I had attempted to put my coat on at the bar. Fortunately I have always been fairly unsusceptible to peer pressure. Unfortunately, however, I am pathetically weak when it comes to beer pressure, and had stayed for one more pint, a couple of large whisky macs and a test drive of the new barrel of Oyster Stout.
I think Sunday lunchtimes might be the new Friday nights. Or, if I am honest, the Sunday lunchtime Omnibus repeat of Friday nights. There is a nice atmosphere in the Village Pub, and a civilised feeling, and free sausages. I have always resisted lunchtime drinking, in that it tends to eat up the entire day; however when the highlight of the rest of your day entails giving a small child a bath and then watching ‘Lewis’ on ITV there seems to be an argument for screaming and hammering on the pub doors at five minutes to noon.
I do not win my Ebay auction. This is a relief the next morning. Somewhere, somebody out there with a worse hangover than me is clutching their head, looking out upon a telegraph pole and moaning ‘why…?’ Mrs Short Tony arrives at the front door to see if I still have her husband’s shoe.
Ah, free sausages. You can’t go wrong with free snorkers, old boy. I’m hungry just thinking about them. I would go to the pub a lot more (i.e. I might actually go) if they gave out free sausages. Maybe they do and I just don’t know. When I used to play football and we used to drag the opposition back to our equivalent of the Village Pub, they always did free snorkers and chips. Occasionally, when they were feeling particularly benevolent, they did pizza for us, too. It was the best hour of the week.
Is it lunchtime yet?
P.S. Why do you have Short Tony’s shoe? Did you use it to teach someone a lesson? Was Mrs B. giving you too much grief? Or was it for sniffing purposes? Or has one of your feet fallen off and now you only need one? So many questions.
I am not sure. Actually I had no idea that he had lost it. But there was still a sock in his front garden yesterday. Something must have happened on the way home.
Oh, that’s where it is.
Retrieves sock.
Hang about, didn’t Short Tony lose his trousers not long ago? Is he perhaps a closet naturist?
He’s either a closest naturist or the victim of a very specific clothing theif.
I bet Short Tony never had a moments worry, lost clothes, or submitted to peer presure to be bad before he met Jonny…..poor Short Tony and poor poor Mrs Short Tony!!!
I have a friend who leaves bits of himself everywhere when out on the pop. His evenings during the week is spent re-tracing his steps from the weekend in an attempt to get his stuff back.
So that’s how you spend your Sundays, is it? God forbid you should darken the doors of your (no doubt twee and historic) village church, assuming of course that Christianity has reached Norfolk yet. A quick dose of scripture might open your eyes to the spiritual perils of your parasitic position.
I recommend 2 Thessalonians 3:10. “He who does not work shall not eat. Yea, not even of the free sausages…”
Hm. When I went to New Zealand I took all my old pairs of pants with me, and just abandoned them as I went so that I didn’t have to carry them home.
We have a very popular country song over here titled, “Tequila Makes Her Clothes Fall Off.”
Over-imbibing more often affects women here on this side of the pond. It seems a better alternative than seeing Short Tony trouser-less.
Free sausages.
Where is this pub again?
Damian – it’s in Norfolk. Keep up, man!!!
I say, free sausages. I’ll have to leave this blog lying around where John at the Queens can see it. He just gives cheese and peanuts.
I used to spend a cheerful hour or two between church and lunch in the pub every Sunday. I love lunchtime drinking.
Are you sure you didn’t eBay his shoe whilst under the influence?!
Hmm. I have a recipe for margaritas called, Naked in the Jaccuzi Margaritas, which I thought of sending on to you but I don’t think it would be a good idea. You and Short Tony might arrive at home with no clothes at all. It does make for interesting parties though.
Why did you wait until Friday to write about Sunday lunchtime? Too busy purloining articles of clothing from underheight neighbours?
Ivan the Terrible–I can’t stop laughing at the Christianity reference. You are (for the moment) funnier than Jonny (sorry Jonny). Then there was that other time you referred to his Potemkin village. Do you live in a dull suburb and resent the twee historicity of his locale? I live in countryside by the ocean, so I only resent his free kebab delivery.
Oh, and the staggering distance from the pub.
Sausages for sunday lunch!
What happened to the traditional roast or have you given that up now the kebab shop delivers?
What was the original one called – the one before Lewis. It bored the back teeth off me but I quite like Lewis now it’s got that lanky relation of Edward Fox. And the woman who plays the pathologist can always be relied upon for really attractive hair styles. She’s done it for years.
I, too, like Lewis better than Morse and have a strange fascination with Laurence Fox. (He’s married to Billie Piper, you know.) We watched the pilot episode of Morse last night and I thought it was dull and slow-moving and made no sense at all.
We went on holiday to Norfolk a couple of weeks ago. Lovely weather and very peaceful. My husband enjoyed the beers. If we saw you in a pub, Jonny, we wouldn’t know it was you because of your secret identity. Spooky!
I do not agree that the Laurence Fox bloke is better than Dennis Waterman. But it is quite a good show. Everybody likes a good murder on Sunday night.
Hullo Andria and welcome. I’m glad your husband enjoyed the beers. You had a smashing blouse on.
And could people stop rubbing it in about Billie…?!?
Our local does Sunday roasts until 3 p.m. Then any left over roast totties (there are always some left over) are put on the bar for all to enjoy. Needless to say our Sunday constitutional always ends, almost with military precision, at said pub at 3:02 p.m.
looking forward to the end of tomorrow’s walk already.
Dennis Waterman? Poor mixed-up Jonny- I fear the fame has gone to his head. Oooooh sorry –
didn’t mean to mensh your Achilles heel.
Yes I knew about Billie Andrea. Tee Hee!
Sunday dinner-time drinking, you can’t beat it.
I’m cooking bacon and egg, then off up the allotment for an hour or two, and from there to The Woolpack for a sociable pint or three.
It’s tradishnul.
Alcoholism is a curse.
Hello Lisa – best keep mum on the subject of being unnier-fay than onny-jay, as he gets all sulky and unreasonable, poor dear.
I hold no grudge against the aesthetics of Jonny’s locale, as in my part of North Carolina there are plenty of pleasant spots to enjoy. Jonny could say, as do many of my stump-toothed redneck neighbours, that his would be a fine piece of land if he didn’t live there. I do however miss the kind of quality architecture that most stay-at-home Brits take sadly for granted. The only state-designated historic building around here is the petrol station down the road in Apex, which dates (according to its little plaque) from that dim recess of antiquity known as 1972. I know people with hairstyles older than that. I dare say Jonny is one of them.
Bowel cancer is funnier than me at the moment.