English Village Life

Fruitcake

by Enormous on May 6, 2009

I’m moving to a new host; I’ll be back in a few days. Don’t y’all go wandering off to any other blogs written by tall, handsome frontmen while I’m gone, now, will ya?

By way of marking the relocation, I’m going to prepare a strong cup of Earl Grey and eat a small fruitcake that Mr Mishri from the corner Newsagent’s has just given me – I know, I was rather taken aback, too.

I was transfixed by his double chin that was wobbling away like a pair of muddy-brown, over-stimulated jellyfish when, with his usual dead-tired disposition, he handed me the fruity gift saying, ‘Present for you, Mr Davy.’ Then, by way of an explanation: ‘The wife, bless her pointed little head, makes them for me while I’m in the shop serving you lot but I can’t stand this fruitcake bugger. Too English.’

‘Thanks,’ I said.

Tagged as: , , ,

{ 1 comment }

Spring Break

by Enormous on March 25, 2009

‘But you’re all right, aren’t you, father?’

‘Yes, of course I am, Audrey,’ I told my concerned little dog. ‘I’m just ever so slightly a bit exhausted. The doctor says I have been running myself into the ground and need to have a few days off just doing nothing.’

‘Oh,’ she barked, somewhat relieved, and went on scanning the road ahead for cats.

We passed a new piece of graffiti on the rec’ which read ‘Simo is a homosexal gay’ which made me chuckle to myself – not that Simo is gay; I was aware of that already, but the fact that he is a homosexal gay, which is a damning qualification and singular piece of public information that I’m sure will surprise quite a lot of the local inhabitants.

‘Laughter is the best medicine,’ my doctor had just told me.

‘I know; but what about drugs? Can I have some drugs? Drugs are good medicine.’

‘I can’t prescribe you any drugs, Mr Lawrence – you just need a rest.’

Thus it is I have decided to take myself off to the Kellogg’s Sanatorium in the hills and spend a few days in equable convalescence.

‘But you are incapable of relaxing, father. The experience will cause you to become even more anxious than you are already.’

‘Be quiet, Audrey!’ I told her. ‘Let’s go home and get some work done.’

A young woman in a short skirt was delivering leaflets when we turned into Lansbury Avenue. She was beautiful. I tugged Audrey’s lead and quickened our pace, feeling a sudden and urgent need to return home and prepare for my inevitable eleven o’clock tumescence.

Tagged as: , , , , , , , , , , ,

{ 2 comments }

England People Very Naughty

by Enormous on February 18, 2009

I was in the newsagent’s this morning buying milk and Mrs Mishri was berating me for not paying my bills.

‘You owe us for six months of Daily Mails, Steve. Dearie, dearie me, I’m not a charity you know.’

‘But as I have told you and your husband before,’ – he was looking very sheepish behind the counter, apparently trying not to get involved in the argument – ‘I don’t read the Daily Mail; you deliver to my house by mistake – I think they are number twenty-nine’s newspapers.’

‘Number twenty-nine never gets his papers, Steve.’

‘No, because it gets delivered to my house instead and I bring it back here.’

Mr Mishri looked at his wife and coughed.

She went on: ‘England people very naughty, Steve. You must pay for your newspapers. Daily Mail isn’t cheap.’

‘Well, that’s a matter of opinion,’ I told her. I looked at her husband. ‘And if this carries on, I shall be forced to take my custom elsewhere.’

She looked me straight in the eye and almost spat at me: ‘You know what, Steve, I just don’t care any more.’

I have decided that for whatever depressing reason, Mrs Mishri is a very cynical and bitter individual. I suspect she has reached that stage in a woman’s life where nothing is a surprise and everything is a disappointment.

But, I suppose, she does have a point; customers can be very infuriating – a fact of which I am only too aware. If I had a shop like Mishri’s News and Booze I would be very selective and serve only pretty girls with big smiles.

Tagged as: , , ,

{ 2 comments }

And Far Between

by Enormous on January 9, 2009

‘Alright, lover? Cold, isn’t it? Had a good Christmas, have we? No biscuits this morning, lover?’

The new woman behind the counter in Mr Mishri’s shop was bombarding me with breezy questions at eight o’clock this morning.

‘I don’t eat biscuits.’

She gave me a look that would terrify a cobra. After a beat, she redefined herself, smiled and declared: ‘My sister’s son is gay.’

‘Good for him. How – eh!?’

‘Just the milk is it, lover?’

‘I’m -’

‘Seventy-five pee.’

I fumbled in my pocket and several one-pound coins spilled on to the floor.

‘Oh, dear,’ she tutted. Then, leaning over the counter, she whispered conspiratorially: ‘Make sure you pick ‘em all up, my lover – Arabs come in here, you know.’

On the way home I was musing with Audrey over why Mr Mishri had employed this odd woman, this unfortunate middle-aged female with the apparent deadly power of inconsequent suggestion.

We came to the conclusion that he had perhaps had another one of his brain hemorrhages, or was having an ironic joke at our expense.

Back in the warm kitchen, I boiled the kettle for the first Earl Grey of the day.

‘I don’t know about you, Audrey,’ I told my little dog who was watching me with big brown eyes, hoping she was about to be handed one of her chews made from sheep’s lips, ‘but, as it happens, I quite fancy a biscuit. Custard Cream, actually.’

Tagged as: , , , , , , ,

{ 4 comments }

Male Possessive

by Enormous on December 5, 2008

‘The wife does all that for me, Steve.’

‘What, even when you haven’t washed it for a few weeks?’

‘Especially then.’ He pointed to his jeans and laughed. ‘I made her get out of bed at four o’clock this morning to iron these before I opened the shop.’

‘You don’t iron jeans, surely.’

‘No, she does.’ Mr Mishri pointed to a small woman in a gold and orange sari who was cleaning the sign on the pavement outside his shop. ‘That’s her.’

‘Do you ever tell her you love her?’ I asked him.

He gave me my change and groaned. ‘She wouldn’t believe me if I did.’

Tagged as: , , , , , ,

{ 1 comment }

Sex Addict

by Enormous on November 28, 2008

As Audrey and I were returning from the Co-op this morning, I was worrying whether I was a sex addict – I realised that, on average, I think about sex two or three times a day – when OAP drummer Reg popped his big head out of the newly-refurbished Starlight Café and demanded we join him inside for a refreshing cup of Earl Grey.

He was wearing a white cotton tabard and a matching cap. ‘I’ve got a part-time job here,’ he explained, ‘to help me pay the bills.’

As we were chatting and he was waiting for ‘the eleven o’clock rush’ he couldn’t stop drumming his fingers on the new pine counter. ‘That’s rather annoying, Reg,’ I told him.

‘I know,’ he sighed.

(All drummers do such things constantly. Don’t ever take a drummer to a Chinese Restaurant; as soon as he gets hold of the chopsticks there will be prawn balls everywhere.)

I asked Reg about the odd décor in the quiet little Derbyshire café – log furniture and red embroidered tablecloths featured heavily which gave the place a vague Alpine feel; I half expected a tiny man in leather shorts to appear clutching a bowl of sauerkraut and a glistening pink sausage.

‘Nothing to do with me, Davy,’ he said. ‘I would have gone for black and chrome, like my old Premier kit.’

Tagged as: , , , , , , ,

{ 2 comments }

Misery Guts

by Enormous on November 12, 2008

The miserable old Pakistani man behind the counter in the corner shop was this morning in an even gloomier mood than usual. For some odd reason he always calls me Steve.

‘Mr Mishri, I keep telling you, my name’s not Ste – ‘

‘What’s that, Steve?’

‘Never mind.’

I asked him why he looked so despondent.

‘Business is so bad these days, Steve. The closer we get to Christmas, the fewer people come into the shop. It’s a self-fulfilling vicious spiral.’

I don’t quite know why but I have a vague suspicion that he actually enjoys being miserable. He seems to take great pleasure in constantly reminding his customers about how awful his life is; or perhaps, when he is not expertly mixing his metaphors, he is on some kind of personal quest to redefine despair and hopeless depression. ‘I think I’ll end up having to close the shop, Steve.’

‘I’ll alert the media,’ I told him as I was paying for my milk and frozen peas.

On my way out, the little bell above the door sounded its optimistic ting! and Mr Misery asked me a question: ‘Do you think we’ll ever find what we’re looking for, Steve?’

I was slightly taken aback. ‘I hope not,’ I told him, after a pause.

Just before Audrey and I reached the house, I started to indulge a fantasy in which I contrived to meet Jennifer Aniston in the Navigation Inn in Newark-on-Trent and asked her to marry me. She said yes, of course. My ex-wife came in while we were busy celebrating, and began to cry. She looked old.

Tagged as: , , , , , , ,

{ 0 comments }

← Previous Entries

Next Entries →