After tea on Saturday I had an argument with myself about whether to stay in or go to the pub. The timid side of me listed several valid reasons for staying in, including the 20-mile round trip on icy roads. These my intrepid side sarcastically dismissed one by one, insisting that they merely added up
‘Do you want a dance?’ she said. She stood there smiling at me with her hand held out invitingly. I’d already decided I wasn’t going to get caught up in the dancing. But this woman — well, you should have seen her. She was about 19; as full of health, life and potential fecundity as
On Sunday morning I went outside and found that my recent bout of mild depression had gone, the sun on my cheek felt as warm as it does in May, and the birds were singing different songs. I was the first person in the gym — my first visit of 2010. I wished the bleary-eyed
My first grandson, Oscar, born just before Christmas, has an elder brother and two elder sisters, all aged under six. Including his mum, whom I’ve only recently met, this meant five extra presents to be chosen, wrapped and delivered on Christmas Day. As I’m still a stranger to the majority of this family, I wanted
‘Chair,’ said the free ad in the local paper. ‘Wing backed. Fireproof. As new. Never been sat in. £25.’ I rang the number and the owner suggested I went round and had a look at it right away. He sounded elderly and a bit desperate. The address he gave was a modest bungalow in the
Almost without fail, I bash out a daily diary entry on a loose sheet of A4 then shove it in an old ringbinder. Glued on the inside cover of this ringbinder is a yellowing newspaper clipping. It’s a column by the late Nigel Nicolson, written around the time of the New Year, offering Sunday Telegraph
I set off in a rainstorm. Whether it is, or isn’t, caused by CO2 emissions triggering global warming, I’ve never seen an English monsoon season like this one. From our house, there’s a five-mile-long, single-track lane to negotiate before you can get anywhere. Normally in heavy downpours the water pours into the lane off the
I finally found Trev playing darts in the Volunteer. Usually you can tell which pub Trev’s in because you can hear him whooping and roaring, or even crowing like a cockerel, from halfway down the high street. But tonight he was planting his arrows calmly, modestly and considerately, without all the usual alarums and excursions.
Everything had gone wrong for him lately, said Mr Beaumont. He was going blind. His prostate trouble had worsened. His dear wife of 60 years had passed away just a fortnight before, following a long struggle with Parkinson’s disease. And the day before she’d died, she’d fallen on him, breaking his leg. We were standing
‘Take a pew,’ said the doctor, scanning my medical notes. ‘Been to Africa and playing the field with the local beauties, have we?’ The tone was brisk, enthusiastic, conspiratorial, perhaps even a bit nostalgic. I nodded dumbly. ‘Right-ho, old man, drop the trousers.’ My underwear was a natty repeated pattern of the international warning symbol
I came up to London last week for a four-day jolly: two football matches, two parties. I can’t afford London hotel prices, so I booked myself into a youth hostel behind Portland Place. A smiling Uruguayan beauty checked me in to an eight-berth dormitory on the second floor. I laid claim to one of the
I met Combo at dawn. I was standing on the Malawian shore of the lake watching the sun rise over the mountains in Mozambique and she came and stood wordlessly beside me and we watched together. After a while I offered her a swig from the bottle I was holding. ‘No,’ she said, without taking
Seven hours between flights at Nairobi airport and nowhere to smoke. So I bought a ten-dollar transit visa, left the airport precincts and headed for the nearest bar. It was called The Pub. The white-shirted, bow-tied waiters saw me coming and greeted me with a chuckle, as if they were thinking, ‘Here comes another nicotine
Mvuu Lodge, Liwonde, Malawi I arrived at the jetty in pitch darkness. A boat was waiting to ferry me across the river. On the other side I was handed a refreshing drink and asked to sign a waiver form exempting the management from legal action by my next of kin if I was attacked by
Prince Philip is right about modern television sets. He says they are poorly designed. If one needs to adjust one’s set, he told a television interviewer, one has to get down on all fours with magnifying glass, instruction manual, and a torch between one’s teeth, and virtually make love to the thing. He also has
As I was getting changed, a naked figure emerged from the clouds of steam in the showers. The upper half was the Incredible Hulk, the lower half Charles Haughtry. I recognised the face. It was a lad I always used to see working out in the other gym. Usually, we’d be the only ones in
After three days walking alone on the high moor, and two nights at a remote youth hostel, above which the silence and the immensity and brilliance of the universe were unnerving, I jumped in the car and drove down to the nearest centre of commerce and civilisation to reacquaint myself with humanity and get some
I glanced in my rear-view mirror. A police patrol car, right on my tail, blue lights flashing. A woman cop in the passenger seat leaning forward and jabbing instructions at me with her forefinger. I was to turn left into the pub car park. I knocked up the indicator stick and swung in. The patrol
The plan was that in the morning we’d gather our wild foods from the woods and hedgerows, and in the afternoon we’d light a fire and cook and eat a communal meal. But if our survival had really depended on it, the first thing I would have done was to butcher and eat the little
William was standing alone at the bus stop so I pulled over and offered him a lift into town. He accepted with alacrity. My passenger seat was a long way down, much further than he anticipated, and he lowered himself into it gingerly, and with difficulty and some agonised groaning. But once he was established