My dear family & friends
I’ve been watching Edgar closely today for signs that I should take him to the vet. He must have eaten something – probably while we were out walking – that didn’t agree with him. I hadn’t realised there was a problem until I walked into the living room downstairs late yesterday afternoon to discover that he had been sick and poohed everywhere. I didn’t hear what was happening because I’d been listening to Portuguese radio while doodling around on my computer. Unfortunately I’m also not very good at noticing the signs of distress, unlike Lucia who seems to know what the animals want before they themselves know they want it. If Lucia had been home I would have left it to her to clean everything up – that’s the agreement we struck before we even got the dogs. If I had wanted to clean up sick and pooh from the living room floor, I would have had children. But Lucia wasn’t home, so I had bite back my gag reflexes and do it myself. You have got to know that I wasn’t happy. We left him in the conservatory with an extra heater overnight to minimise the effect of any accidents. Lucia woke up at 2AM to check that he was alright. I didn’t.
But it reminded me of a line I recently heard from some comedian on late-night television – it was probably Russell Howard. I forget what the skit was about, but he said: “After twenty minutes you couldn’t tell what was pooh and what was chocolate.” Did that gross you out? Yeah, me too. I laughed anyway.
And before you get the wrong idea about my television viewing habits, I don’t actually stay up all hours to watch this stuff. We’ve got one of these clever Sky satellite receivers that allow one to record hours and hours of television at the touch of a button. We then watch it at a more sociable hour (usually when I’m ironing.) I’ve recently been recording all the stand-up comedy shows on the Comedy Central channel. My conclusion is that there are a lot of not-very-funny people out there – although just enough to keep me watching.
There haven’t been many adventures since I last wrote. We did go to the Birmingham Botanical Gardens two weeks ago, but it started pissing with rain when we got there. We carefully viewed everything in the glasshouses in the hope that the rain would soon stop. It didn’t. We eventually ventured out into the wind and rain to see what was there. We were the only people who did. I think it would be a lot nicer in spring or summer. Afterwards I took Lucia to the South African shop in Harborne – a western suburb of Birmingham. She loaded up on Provita and I bought the last of the store’s Lunch Bars.
Last weekend we went into Birmingham again to do some xmas shopping and to see Birmingham’s Frankfurt Christmas Market. It rained again. We spent two hours wondering around the Bullring Shopping Centre looking for things that we never found. Then we ventured up New Street in the rain towards the Town Hall viewing the wares at the market and dodging puddles. Lucia didn’t have the right shoes on for the rain and her feet were soon sodden. There was a lot of repetition – stalls selling exactly the same tat as each other. There were few genuine independent craft stalls where one could pore over their goods. We shared some bratwurst at one stall and some beer at another as well as a plate of German fried potatoes and mushrooms. But we were getting cold and wet so we caught the train home.
And talking of disappointing markets, Leamington Spa has its own xmas market every Sunday down The Parade. But it’s mostly just tat that you can find at any market and a few rides from Barker’s funfair. It seems a waste to close the road for that.
On the technology front, I received my free disks (it was one of the benefits when I bought my new computer) for the new Windows7 operating system the other day. It might have been fun if they had sent me the right version. It took me two hours to figure that out that I had been sent the wrong thing, and then another two hours on the phone trying to make sure that I would get the right version. I ended up talking to call centres in South Africa, Estonia and Poland. Oh well, the post marks will be interesting.
Another interesting experiment revolved around my printer which was running out of ink. A set of the Canon ink cartridges costs nearly £60. But when I bought the printer (several years ago) I was told that generic ink cartridges would be available in a year or two. So I searched around on the Internet for the generic cartridges and bought four sets for £20. So the difference here is £5 for a set of generic cartridges or £60 for a set from Canon. No, I don’t know what the catch is either. Perhaps somebody can enlighten me. The generic cartridges seem to work fine although they are a bit messier when you change them.
What else?
I’ve been getting friendlier with Helder at the Pastelaria Portuguesa in Warwick. I usually time my morning walk with the dogs to get there just after he opens. We each have a coffee (a bica cheia for my Portuguese correspondents) and tell stories. He recently told me the story of how he became a baker because I asked him about his hand-written recipe book which looked well-used and quite old .
When he was 13 years old his family was so poor that he had to go out and get a job. His school had night classes for all the other children like him who also had to work during the day. His first job was in a foundry with his stepfather. After the first shift he says you couldn’t tell what was a bruise and what was blood on his shoulder. He stayed for a month to get the pay cheque and then asked his stepfather to tell the boss that he wasn’t coming back.
After getting that first pay cheque he went out for a drink with some friends after school. (Remember he was going to school at night.) They each had these very small beers (200ml) which you can buy in Portugal, and it was the 1970s so nobody really minded if a 13-year-old was buying beer. They ended up in conversation (as one does) with an older person who bought them some much bigger beers. They got pissed.
At some point the older person said: “Goodbye, I’ve got to go to work.”
Helder said to him: “It’s midnight, where do you work?”
“In a bakery,” said the older dude.
Helder asked: “Is it nice work?” and he said: “Yes” so Helder said: “Are they looking for people?”
And Helder went to work with him.
At the end of the shift the bakery owner offered him a full-time job.
His mother was fairly freaked when he got home at midday the next day (remember no cell phones in the 1970s), but he was able to give her the money for the night’s work that he had just earned.
And that is how Helder became a baker with a full-time job at age 13.
I find this story very humbling. We all like to tell stories of how hard we’ve had it at some point in our lives. But actually most of us have been coddled into softness. And then you meet somebody who really did have it hard, and we cannot compare.
That’s it
Love, light & peace
Llewellyn
http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/llewellynijones
