Belated News about Bert and a Box of Fufu

Monday 03 December 2012 – Okay, so I’ve been away for a while due to work commitments and the need to concentrate on my novel ‘52’, but today, so far has been so eventful I can’t help but share it with you all.

The first event occurred whilst I was walking past the local church. I was nipping into town to post some Christmas cards to friends in Italy and buy some of the incredible tasty naan breads that Abdul sells. As I walked past the church, which is on a main thoroughfare, I spotted an elderly gentleman, he sort of popped up from nowhere, and proceeded to undo his flies and pee up a tree. He was in full view of the passing traffic and myself, and suffice to say nothing was left hidden. A passing car horn honked, he waved then turned to me and said, “I was bostin’ for a pee.”

So I stood in a queue that wouldn’t have looked out of place in an Italian post office, endless elderly people had flocked with cards to withdraw their pension, and all I wanted was an airmail sticker, postage to Abruzzo and five second class stamps. This wait however gave me the perfect opportunity to do some people watching. A woman not far away spotted someone she knew and waved and said hello. Her friend asked how she was, she told her she was well, apart from some problems with her feet -  she didn’t go into detail. The friend then said, “I haven’t seen your Bert for a while.” her friend replied, “You wouldn’t, he’s been dead twelve years.”

“Oh,” was the reply, “Pointless asking how he is then?”

After purchasing my stamps and paying overseas postage costs, I’m walking back when I see a board outside the pub advertising something, on closer inspection I noticed that they do midweek bingo at a reasonable price, sadly I cannot find this day on my calendar – or does Wednesday now have a new spelling?

 

I decided that today would be a good day to use up yesterdays roast chicken left-overs and so popped into get some ingredients for a curry from Abduls. His supermarket is an olfactory spectacle, the aroma of spice permeates the air, and there’s always some funky smell around the section where strange looking vegetables lurk. I’m wandering around, when I spot a product that makes me smile, it’s the name… and I’m aware it’s a tad immature but this product brought a smile to my face today… When I was growing up, I know what I was told a Fufu was, and it wasn’t flour.

So I’ll sign off from this, my first blog post in many months, and tell you that the tune that’s just shuffled to the fore is a Radio Shack Hi-Energy classic by Barbara Pennington called, ‘On a Crowded Street’… If you close your eyes, you can almost smell the mix of leather, poppers and Breaker.