Don't Wanna Go Back To Work

The annoying thing when I know there's a lot to write about is I never know where to start.

We headed down to Hertfordshire to see my brother yesterday, since it was his birthday on Friday. Going down on Friday and staying over wasn't an option because he'd already decided he was spending the evening with his fianc�e. Obviously this is fair enough.

I'd bought him 007: Nightfire and Dead Or Alive 2 for his PS2. Both seemed to go down quite well with him. Alison was overjoyed to find that DOA2 actually had English voiceovers rather than Japanese/Chinese/some other language murmuring with English subtitles (as is the case with DOA3 and DOA:XBV). At one point I was playing as Gen-Fu against Alison as Leifang. When she beat me Leifang said something like "Take it easy, Old Man," which naturally everyone in the room apart from me found amusing.

Before we actually played any of the games I'd got him we went out for lunch at a pub up the road from him. While we were eating there was a choir slowly gathering in the pub at tables near us, presumably because they had a gig in the area that evening. Amongst their numbers were many women who Trinny and Susannah (Trinny off the tele, not Trinny Trinny) could have had a field day with. Alison kept flipping between Extreme Bitching mode and Berate Gareth For Bitching mode, which got quite confusing.

There were obviously some discussions about the wedding, but I got the impression they were both fed up with talking about it. Not surprising, really.

We left at about 4pm, and were going to head on to Alison's grandparents via Toys'R'Us, where I wanted to look for a certain Lego set. This got kinda sidetracked. I was reasonably sure of the way to Toys'R'Us from my brother's but the crucial end bit I got wrong.

This was where the CUNT came in. We arrived at a roundabout, where we spotted Toys'R'Us from a distance and for a split-second tried to work out where we needed to go. I was just watching for a gap in the traffic to pull out into when we suddenly heard an engine being revved very loudly. This wasn't a one-off, it kept happening. I glanced in the rear-view and saw that the car behind was a typical boy-racer type Astra, and the driver was gesticulating at me wildly. I waved my hand dismissively by my head, like I was swiping at a fly, then went back to concentrating on pulling out.

The CUNT obviously didn't like this. As I pulled out, he swerved out round me, overtaking me on the roundabout, then swerved back in front of me as I pulled off the roundabout. I can't remember if I needed to brake at that point before he sped off into the distance, I just remember that at that point I lost interest in finding Toys'R'Us and just headed on towards the motorway to head to Alison's grandparents.

I was really intimidated by the experience, which is not like me - I usually just get angry. On the motorway I barely got above 60mph (also not like me), and I have a vague recollection of being hunched forward over the steering wheel. Eventually Alison jolted me out of it, but for a good half hour I was totally subdued. Thank you very much, you impatient CUNT.

My apologies for overuse and overemphasis of a bad word there but for a while it really did fuck me up and the use of bright bold italics does have some form of cathartic effect. At least, that's my excuse.

It took me a while to perk up when we got to Alison's grandparents. They live in the same vague area of the country as my brother, just 45 minutes or so further North. Alison's parents were also visiting them, mainly because Alison's grandad had been in hospital recently under observation for various problems he'd been having. Now, Alison's grandad (who I think I will hence forth refer to as Grampa) is what you might refer to as "Salt of the Earth". There is little that bothers him, particularly when it comes to stuff he says.

For instance, when we told everyone we were getting 2 tonnes of gravel for the front garden, he suddenly spluttered "Shit!" Now, when I first met Grampa, this sort of thing was a revelation. Grandparents don't swear. It's still funny now. He repeated a comment a friend of his apparently made about the way things had changed. It was something like "It used to be that you'd eat in the house and shit in the garden. Now, you eat in the garden and shit in the house." I think he may have muttered something about "fucking barbeques" afterwards.

Grampa also has a good response for if someone says "Hey!" or "Eh?" too much. You pretend to think they said "hay" or "'ay" and say "...makes horses strong and bulls shit."

There were many many comments and incidents like that, and on a number of occasions most of the people in the room were in tears of laughter. We (Alison and I) got the impression this was very therapeutic, given that people have been very worried about Grampa lately.

We also saw the celebrity Weakest Link. Have to say that Anouska actually doesn't scrub up too bad. And she was much better at laying into Anne Robinson than all the other contestants.

On the way back we stopped to eat at, erm, Newport Pagnell services (parking in more or less the same spot we parked when the catalytic converter went in December) and I had the most unappetising looking chilli con carne I've ever seen. It didn't taste too bad, but it certainly wasn't the best meal I've ever had. I think even the stuff at Milton Keynes when we went to the dogs was better.

Then today, we bought an ornament for the garden.

Isn't he just the coolest thing?

That wasn't the only thing we did today, but it's the only thing really worth talking about. I could tell you more but the head is feeling like it's going to explode so I think it would be better for all if I went to bed.