This Sort of Thing - December 2023 - Side A

 

Introduction

Here we go again. More infidelity! I love the ABC people to bits but other creative writing websites are available, and sure we’re all prone to a wee bit of temptation.

So over in the other place they tell me anyone who manages to write exactly one hundred words for every day of December gets a gold star and wins their own bodyweight in pigs in blankets. Though I would suspect that for many humans this would amount to approximately one pig, or maybe less, depending on the density of the fabric used to make the blanket.

I wrote this…

 

1 December, Friday

Behind Advent Door 1, Jack Nicholson saying, ‘Little pigs. Little pigs. Let me come in.’ Well that’s enough of that!

Priyatelkata visited her other house for gutter repairs. She does this every 1st December, starting today.

A gypsy clearing trees next door left his chainsaw in our shed because he had no petrol in his car to carry it home. His mouth was full (well, half full) of Shane MacGowan’s teeth. An endearing way to pay his respects.

We had warmth and sunniness. Wearing tee-shirts, we cleared away snowstorm garden debris from last weekend.

In Gaza the seven-day ceasefire ended.

 

2 December, Saturday

Cat Nouveau enjoys playing with the jingle jangle rosary beads from Dingle that dangle from the rafters in the upstairs room near a framed photograph of Leeds United’s 1964 promotion winning squad (ah, big Jack and wee Billy).

Perhaps the cat’s a Roman Catlic. We’ll call him Brother Crado so friends and neighbours will think he’s monastic AND Socialist, buttering both sides of the kozunak.

He’s definitely a Leeds fan. He’s no choice in the matter! And Leeds haven’t lost a game since we took him in. Today we beat the ‘Boro.

I hope he stays. Priyatelkata doesn’t like football.

 

3 December, Sunday

The dismantling of our antique tubular steel grapevine frame began. Not a difficult job, but sad. A victim of last weekend’s snow.

Such great memories of that pile of rust. Good times, bad times, you know I’ve had my share… picking mega-buckets of juicy black grapes every September and scraping my head on it to the point of suffering tremendous pain whenever I walked beneath because it was constructed twenty centimetres too low are particularly vivid, except on the occasions I lost consciousness.

Although cut back to miserable proportions, I sensed the vines’ excitement at talk of a new pergola.

 

4 December, Monday

If you’re having vermicelli for your tea tonight, then look away now.

Cat Nouveau has what might be described as a tummy problem. It’s probably as a result of him being stuffed full of antibiotics to resolve his lungsy problem. The second episode of his nocturnal deposits on the floor could be described as containing vermicelli. But the vermicelli appeared to be alive. It was growling at me and the poor cat.

The vet was pleased to see us. It had been five days since our last visit and she was worried that either the cat, or we, had died.

 

5 December, Tuesday

Remembering George who had worked on ships. As proof, he had tattoos, scars, tall tales and a vocabulary enhanced by words you wouldn’t use in the company of nuns. He had been a hard man until his need for a colostomy bag had come along.

I’d been a seafarer too, so we got on well. I listened where his family didn’t. He called me a lightweight because I’d never sailed through the Panama Canal.

He laughed as we said goodbye for the final time but when I reached his garden gate I looked back and saw him wiping away tears.

 

6 December, Wednesday

Today the Eastern Orthodox Church celebrates Nikulden (Никулден) or St Nicholas' Day.

Apparently he was very generous and saved sailors, which presumably involved spending a lot of time hanging round the docks.

On this day Bulgarians eat fresh fish. Cruelly fresh, as during the preceding days fibreglass vats crammed with live carp appear outside food emporiums enabling shoppers to take their pick.

In English restaurants I’ve witnessed complaints about fish being served with heads intact. Imagine the chaos if a live carp was dished up. All that flapping!  Mushy peas and chips running down the walls.

Molly Malone would love it.

 

7 December, Thursday

I used to think poets

Were boring,

Until I became one of them

wrote Benjamin Zephaniah, in a poem.

Years ago I felt the same way, until reading poetry written by Benjamin Zephaniah opened my ears.

He also said poetry should be for everyone, regardless of their age, race or ability to read and write. A good and principled man who spoke up for the vulnerable and for minorities and who declined an order of chivalry from an imperialist institution because of what it stood for.

His passing today is heart breaking because his work wasn’t finished.  

Lickle bit, Bredda!

 

8 December, Friday

I’ve had a touch of the appendicitis this week. Niggling, rather than tremendous pain in the lower-right abdomen. Dr Wikipedia confirmed this.

Rising from my slumbers today it seemed worse so I called to book the 13:30 pm slot with Dr Khrushchev.

By noon the discomfort had moved a bit, thus negating appendectomy requirements. My ailment a combination of a mischief done whilst working in the garden and chronic hypochondria.

I rang the surgery to cancel. The receptionist called me a slabak (слабак), the Bulgarian word for ‘wimp’.

Meanwhile the pages at the back of my dictionary became swollen and red.

 

9 December, Saturday

It’s the birthday of my thirdborn child. She’s attained the age that I was when she was born. I miscalculated that she’d be giving birth today. But in her life she does have a puppy and a drum kit, which I never had.

I watched online news footage of Shane MacGowan’s funeral. It was yesterday, on what would have been Sinéad O'Connor’s fifty-seventh birthday. I had tears for my dear old Ireland.

In addition to the appendicitis, I’ve pulled a muscle in my back and clattered my head against a metal post in the garden.

I hurt in four places.

 

10 December, Sunday

The weather outside was frightfully dank so I stayed in and attempted to write a poem about Shane MacGowan. Despite learning to spell Cú Chulainn I only managed a poor imitation of what he'd have written himself.

I'd have called it 'Thank You for the Fairytale', which I thought was quite good, but a poem needs more than a title.

At least it put me in the frame of mind to finish my miserable winter poem that I started a month ago.

This cheered me up so I couldn't go back to Shane's poem.

A day spent honing and groaning.

 

11 December, Monday

We were in desperate need of some short stubby pencils and a strong blue nylon bag for carrying logs in from the woodshed for the petchka. Luckily a new IKEA shop has recently opened in Veliko Tarnovo so we went for a gander.

We got everything we wanted for just one lev (43p). We're really looking forward to enjoying the benefits of our new loyalty card.

Before leaving we bought a jar of herrings, all of which were named after members of Abba.

When we got home we listened to a CD by the Cardigans, a far superior Swedish band.

 

12 December, Tuesday

The day of the Technical Inspection (Bulgarian for MOT Test) revived memories of similar automotive shenanigans endured in other countries I have lived in where I was subjected to tremendous levels of stress and brutal financial consequences.

Nikolay the mechanic smiled as I handed him a mere 110 leva (£48). Always smiling, he always has time for us and our car always passes. 1960s built Ladas usually pass, so our state-of-the-art 2007 vintage Toyota sailed through.

Some say the test isn’t thorough, or Bulgarian mechanics are slapdash, but our test certificate bears President Radev’s signature, so it must be good.

 

13 December, Wednesday

We drove through beautiful mountains to our lovely Nova Zagora where the antique shop could be a distribution centre for Aladdin’s Caves.

We asked a man and woman market stallholder team for gourds (for Priyatelkata’s art). Neither they nor a dozen stallholder friends had them so they showed us their holiday photographs, sold us enormous fresh leeks and gave us bulbs for growing samardala, an ingredient of the perfect condiment for eggs and tomatoes. 

Our highlight, however, was seeing a one-legged man riding a bicycle. It had only one pedal, attached to his sole foot by an elaborate elastic arrangement.

 

14 December, Thursday

The whiff from the arse of our little cat pumped full of antibiotics reminds me of childhood days living in Middlesbrough, just downwind from ICI’s Wilton petro-chemical plant.

Lying in bed back then, wearing my British Steel Corporation themed pyjamas and gas mask, dreaming of a life as Dusty Springfield’s adorable husband, I would wonder what ICI actually did to earn their brass.

Lately it became clear that they boiled tender felines to extract hydrogen sulphide which the local council would use as chemical weaponry to halt waves of refugees attempting to cross the River Tees to escape famine-stricken Hartlepool.

 

15 December, Friday

We chose the year’s wettest day to drive along the Balkans' most dangerous road to Resen where the streets have no name signs. Even if they had we would still have struggled to locate Ulitsa Buzludzha because of the intensity of the lashing rain. Priyatelkata was delighted to find that elusive gourd salesman.

Cat Nouveau’s latest ailment, says the Google Bugle, is pica. When stressed he licks settees and duvets. I hope we’ll be able to find the 100 guineas needed to pay his psychiatrist’s fee.

Also, we have a loose roof tile.

I spent the afternoon licking my duvet.

 

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Read the second bit here:

Side B - https://www.abctales.com/story/turlough/sort-thing-december-2023-side-b

 

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Image:

Lasses’ night out in Veliko Tarnovo - photographed by me.