The picture taken by Rare Lesser Spotted shows hardy fishermen on Hull's Corporation Pier approaching high tide on the afternoon of 8 February 2009. Mad buggers!
Sundays are not necessarily a family day these days. I have some duties to perform with the local football league; my other half attends her church and evening meal is the only time we really sit down with each other and we don't talk too much because while we eat, we watch Time Team on Channel 4. We normally drink milk or a cuppa with our fairly traditional (for the English) Sunday roast - this week beef, steamed fresh vegetables and roast potatoes (no Yorkshire Puddings - sacrilege!) But this week after a long week at work I had a bottle of 'Badger' world champion beer, brewed, it says, with First Gold single English hop to around 4% alcohol volume. In fact a nice smooth tasty drink considering its 96% HO2.
My acquaintance with real ale started a couple of years ago shopping in Sainsburys where there was a selection of bottles of real ale. Not being a big drinker at all, I thought I would become fashionable and cool like my kids who knew this stuff fairly intimately and for a now-and-then drinker I found it rather nice for a change.
Talking with the other half is not a tradition I enjoy too much when I'm tired after a long day at work, but having read the exceptional book (although you have to get used to the strange prose) Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus, I learned to listen to my other half who seemed to want to spew out her days story albeit there was rarely anything but routine work in her NHS role. See? For a fifty year old guy to buy that book to try to understand women or more accurately relationships is not bad. However, I'm not sure what I got from it other than 'listen harder', she has peaks and troughs in her moods, men like to go into their caves (the shed) and if you are in her bad books, don't buy her flowers from the local garage .
The trouble is most of it goes in one ear and out of the the other - a practise I have honed over the years and am frequently reminded about when I can't remember salient facts about this or dates relating to that. I'm not sure I'll change after 29 years of marriage and what worries me is that when I retire, how will I adapt to convincingly ignore a greater intake of chatter whilst appearing to be interested? Ideas on a postcard...
Alan Ayckbourn in his 1975 play Absent Friends created the line, "You must come to our house next time. Absolute peace. Neither of us says a word to each other. It's the secret of a successful union." Wise man.
Only three spelling mistakes today.
Chat soon... Ta-ra.
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