St. Lucia or Saxthorpe ?

Lumpkin appeared the other afternoon as if he had just nipped out for some milk and was full of the joys of spring. Apparently he and his fiance had been away in Italy. He told me all about the wonderful food they had eaten while over there and I started to feel hungry and wanted to tell him about my culinary disposition but thought better of it as it only made me more hungry.
He said they had been discussing venues for the wedding and that his fiance wanted to get married in a little beach chapel in St. Lucia but that he wanted to get wed in the church in Saxthorpe where he grew up. She then pointed out that as her father would be paying for everything, she thought it only fair that she chose the venue and also who was invited.
I couldn't help thinking that Lumpkin may well be on a hiding to nothing with this old bird but said nothing to him, after all he seems happy and he is obviously getting a spoon-full of delights.

Wednesday evening saw me attending a dinner party at an old friends house. I hadn't seen him for a year or two and it was good to catch up. It was also nice to sit down to some decent food and relax a bit. We sat after dinner when the women had retired to the sitting room and chatted about what we had been up to and things that had gone on recently. He then told me that he had bought and sold a bit of property and that he had just sold an old wine bar in town which he bought from the previous owner who was unable to pay the mortgage and the new chap wants to turn it into a lap dancing club and casino...
I asked who the chap was but he said he was dealing through solicitors but I was sure that it was indeed the Silver Fox.
So, he was back.
Well, as long as he stayed in town, it wouldn't matter but I thought I would let the Bishop know when I got the chance.

Last night saw me in The Bull for a pint and I ended up chatting to Hilly and a few others. He was telling me how his wife had now stopped having sex with him and so I said that it was a pity but Hilly said no, it was great - he could now exercise his calf muscles on a regular basis in the bathroom without having to 'attend to the old dragon' as he put it.
Takes all sorts I suppose.
Pilly bought me a pint and was telling me that Internet sales of his Adult toys or 'rubber bollards' as he calls them have soared. He has just bought a new injection moulding machine to keep up with production and to lower his overheads. He said that on the whole, things were going up and up and I suspect he didn't just mean his material costs...
The night ended with Dusty bent over the bar trying to suck the drip-trays dry with a straw. All that happened was that he got wedged between the Wherry and the Old Speckled hen pumps, tried to wriggle free but ended up spraying his own head with Diet Coke. He then laughed, hicupped, farted and made the taxi driver, who was waiting to take Hilly home, wretch and throw up over the juke box.
Apparently Dusty was still asleep on the bar when they locked up.
So, another week gone by with only one decent meal to speak of, the rest mainly being take-aways and soup. However, I saw an advert in the paper shop the other morning which was offering domestic services, cooking and cleaning etc so I might give it a call later. You never know, it might be some tasty young piece who is looking for some extra income and will brighten up the place with her charm.
More than likely be some manky old biffer who enjoys sniffing through peoples pant drawers...

Valentino Rossi eat your heart out

It's been a strange week. The Bishop called round for a small sherry which meant he was angling for something. Turns out that he had got wind that the Silver Fox may have returned and was asking if I knew anything. I told him that I had heard the rumours but had found out very little. It seemed to ease his mind a bit but he still would not say what it was that was bothering him either way. I still think he owes the Fox some money, for what, I have no idea.
He then went on to ask if I had seen much of Dylan and if I thought she would be likely to attend one of his parish dinners if he invited her. Basically the parish dinners are a piss-up paid for by the church under the pretence of  'forging village relations'.
Last time it saw the butcher punching the local planning officer and the Bishop half naked, wearing the bread bin on his head and his Mitre full of crusty rolls.
Nobody ate the french stick.

Raggy is back at work and looks a lot better - well, he looks better than he did before but still looks like he has been dug up. Mrs Burroughs is apparently still under the weather and her husband reckons he may take her away for a break to get her strength back. He ought to take me away with them so I can get my bloody strength back - I need some proper food and fast ! The other night I ordered a pizza and nearly an hour later I heard what sounded like a leaf-blower coming up the drive. I then heard a loud scraping noise followed by a 'bang!'
I opened the front door and saw a moped in my geranium bed and a body slumped over my ornamental fountain. The body suddenly got up, went across to the moped, extracted it from the flower bed and put it up on its stand and opened the box on the back and walked over to me. I asked if he was alright and he said "Yeh, fine mister, I just came too wide and got caught in your gravel trap"
I looked around and said "Gravel trap ? My entire front drive is gravel, what did you expect ?"
"Yeh, I know, you want to get some more tarmac down cos' its a deff trap innit"
He then handed me a warm paper parcel and asked for six pounds so I gave him a tenner as I was still looking around at what on earth possessed him to come round the drive as if he was at Mallory Park.
He reached into his pocket for the change and I told him to keep it, still trying to figure out what he had done. "Nice one ! Enjoy your kebab !". I just nodded and was still trying to work out what he had done to end up sprawled across the front of the house when he got back on his moped, revved up and sped off back down the drive, his tail light hanging off and the lid of his box flapping like a shit-house door in a storm. I turned to go back inside when down the drive I heard the moped rev wildly, followed by a loud metallic rumble and a 'bang!' and then "Aww F*ck !" then straight away the moped started once more and sped off into the night.
It occurred to me that he must have come off as he went over the cattle grid.
I got back inside and went into the kitchen and sat at the table. It then struck me what he had said as I opened the paper parcel and saw not a pizza but a kebab. I groaned as I saw the gaping pitta bread with all the meat hanging out the sides, covered in greasy juice and my mind flashed back to that girl I knew in Hatfield and my hunger suddenly disappeared....

Kipper has returned to work. I opened the window the other morning and saw him trimming the hedge.
I went out and asked how he was and he said he was fine and had just needed a few days to clear his head. He must have had a blocked nose and sore throat as he muttered something about being coked up.
I asked how the tomatoes were doing but he said they had died but he would be planting some more. I asked if it was the frost that had killed them and he said more than likely. I asked if he would compost the dead plants and he replied that he had already burnt them.
Apparently his friends from the nursery are getting him some more seeds. Personally I would have gone for more plants rather than seeds but I'm sure he knows what he's doing. I asked when he would be re-planting and he said as soon as his nursery friends get back as they are away on holiday at the moment in Amsterdam.
I bet they've gone to visit the Anne Frank museum.

Press your red button now

My staff seem to be dropping like flies at the moment. First Mrs Burroughs gets the flu from which she is still suffering, then Kipper disappears off the face of the earth. Nobody has seen him for days.
Then, to cap it off, the crowning turd in the water-pipe, Raggy, my Domesday butler has taken ill. An old guy came to the Hall the other afternoon and introduced himself as Raggy's son. He must have been 65 if not more. Anyway, he told me that his father apologises but will need a couple of days off to rest as he is not feeling all that well. I said it was fine and to pass on my best wishes.
To be totally honest, I don't need him but he seems so happy tottering around here, dusting, cleaning, putting bloody stuffed Hedgehog's in the bathroom.
Raggy wasn't too clever the other afternoon before he left off come to think of it. I heard him drop the dustpan and went to see if he was alright and found him in a bit of a flap as he had snagged the line from his piss-sack on the tail of a stuffed Muntjac and he stood there looking like a garden sprinkler with the contents of his bladder-bottle spraying all over the tiled floor.
I wanted to ask if he was okay but had to walk away before I started to laugh.
Harsh, I know but you should have seen him - he looked like a urine Vesuvius.

I had a bit of a result the other evening when a rather lovely little sort from the hunt asked if I fancied a night out with her as she wanted some company for the evening and that it would be good to catch up.
We went a little further afield and ended up in a Thai restaurant. I have to say that for me it was a bit of a new experience but one that I rather enjoyed. Mind you, with my current dining situation, anything makes a change from dining with Colonel Sanders.
The waitress asked if I would like rice with my meal so I said yes. She then asked what sort of rice I wanted and so I replied "pudding".
She just shook her head.

After another meal with The Colonel the other evening, I couldn't be bothered to go out so I put the telly on in the drawing room. It was fairly late and there seemed to be a good few Casino and gambling programs on. You had to ring in your credit card details and then you could join in via your remote control or something similar.
Anyway, I flicked through a few channels and found one where they showed you various items and you had to guess the price as it decreased and would eventually stop. I was fairly good at it and guessed the price several times so I thought I might be able to win a pound or two so rang in, gave my card details and played on. I did rather well and guessed the price just before it ended time and time again.
Yesterday I had a pallet arrive on a lorry which I had no idea what it contained. I signed for it and then decided to see what on earth it was. I opened the boxes and they contained all sorts of stuff - a woolly hat, a plastic tulip in a pot, some designer sunglasses, a woman's sheepskin coat, a set of fondue forks, an electric cheese grater, a pair of suede children's slippers, a battery powered egg-whisk and a sump for a Mk.3 Cortina.
Turns out the other night it wasn't one of those casino programs after all.
It was f*cking QVC....

Finger lickin' good

My gardener, Kipper, hasn't been in to work for three days now. It's not unusual for him to have time off as and when while he waits for the ground to warm up but he has been so active lately with his tomatoes in the greenhouse that it seems strange that he has left them unattended. I might ring him later to check he is alright. The last time I saw him was when he left off and was riding down the drive on his bike with what looked a big bag of leaf clippings.

Despite several calls to various people in the know, I have yet to get definitive proof that the Silver Fox has returned. One source said there was no way he would ever come back round these parts as he upset a lot of people the last time, another said he had heard the Fox was living in Spain and another said he heard he was running a hand car-wash near Scunthorpe. I'm still not convinced but I'm going to wait until I am sure before I mention anything to the Bishop.
The one thing I do know however is that the premises that Pilly said the Silver Fox was going to turn into a casino and lap-dancing club has indeed had an application for change of use put on it.
There's no smoke without fire, especially if you owe the Fox money and he sets your car alight.

My dining situation is looking distinctly bleak. Mrs Burroughs is still ill apparently and I am getting sick of eating soup every evening. Raggy, my care in the community butler offered to cook for me the other night as he had apparently found a wonderful pheasant outside the Hall gates which had been run over by a car. He showed me this 'wonderful pheasant' and I was immediately struck that I was going to end up with 'entrail and gut casserole'. I declined his generous offer and told him to take it home and enjoy it himself to which he replied "Oh no Sir, I wouldn't eat that old crap".

My gamekeeper has taken a fortnight off for his annual holiday and left strict instructions that none of the beaters are to do any pigeon shooting until he returns. Personally I don't see what all the fuss is about when it comes to shooting pigeons. It always bored me senseless sitting still for hours on end in a makeshift hide, not showing your face "in case they see the white of your face and fly away"
If they were that clever they wouldn't fly in towards a plastic pigeon going round and round on a battery powered washing line.
Anyway, apparently its what the beaters look forward to - sitting behind some scrim-net all day, freezing cold while they can watch some pigeons two miles away on some land that they don't have access to. Mind you, I could maybe cook a pigeon for tea. Having said that, there's not a lot to a pigeon, it's mainly a couple of hard little bits of breast meat that taste like Pedigree chum.
I suppose you could quite easily live off the land if you had to. There used to be a woman in the village who was 'in touch with nature'. She used to grow all her own veg, ate the berries of the trees and hedges, didn't eat meat, only wore natural fibre clothes, never washed her hair as apparently the grease and shyte helped it to wash itself... and only bathed in cold water when she had to.
Hell, I bet she stank.
She had arm-pit hair like an old coypu's arse.
No, you can stick your manky pigeons and hedge-monkey scavenging, until I can find another cook I shall dine out with an old military friend.
Colonel Sanders, here I come.

The return of the Silver Fox

I got back to the Hall fairly late the other evening and just got inside when the phone rang. Turns out that it was Mrs Burroughs husband who was ringing to say that his wife was ill with the flu and that she would be unable to come and cook for the next few days. He apologised but I said that it wasn't a problem and that she should rest and come back when she has fully recovered and he said that he was touched that I was so understanding.
The last thing I want is her sneezing and drooling in my mash.

So, I am having to fend for myself and cook my evening meals. It can't be that hard I thought but the other night saw me with a plateful of hard hot potatoes, some cabbage which looked like mongoose snot and some sausages which looked like charcoal briquettes. I therefore decided something had to be done. I considered having a kebab but the thought of all that meat hanging out, covered in greasy juice always reminds me of a girl I once knew from Hatfield.
I thought the best thing to do was to drive in to town and see what was on offer. I parked up and had a walk around and saw a couple of restaurants, one Italian and one Japanese. The Japanese one was beside the train station and it occurred to me that our old boys must have come much further with that Burma railway than we first thought...
I decided to go in the Italian and got a table and ended up having some very nice pasta and chicken in a creamy sauce (it was called 'Chicken Carburetter' or similar).
However, until Mrs Burroughs returns, I will have to find a replacement for her. I half thought of asking Dylan if she fancied earning a few extra pennies but I'm not sure how she would see me asking her to cook my evening meals, it might come across a bit patronising although she would certainly brighten the place up with her charm. I suppose I could just eat out each night but it's a bit of a bother and I don't know whether I would want pasta every night and the Japanese place looked as though you sat at bamboo benches with palm-frond place mats rather than at tables which to me would be like eating your dinner on the set of Tenko.

Now that the snow has gone and the bulbs are starting to push through the lawn, I thought it would be good to start thinking where I want to go on holiday this year so the other evening just after tea (well, a tin of soup and I even managed to spill that all over the stove) I had a quick look online and did a google search for somewhere hot, somewhere like the British Virgin Islands in the Caribbean which I hear is great so I typed in "hot virgins".
It was gone midnight by the time I had come off the first site and managed to find Thomas Cook's web page...
I saw some nice resorts, most of which cater for the younger generation but there are some nice looking ones for those of 30 and above. One resort said its staff were all helpful and eager to please its guests and they offered a full range of activities including watersports in the price.
I've always had to pay extra for that.

I got a call yesterday evening from Pilly to ask me if I had heard the rumours that the Silver Fox had returned. He had been reported as having bought a bar in town and was going to turn it into a casino and lap dancing club. I said that I hadn't heard any such thing but would try and find out if it was true.
Just to explain, the Silver Fox is a northern chap who ran some clubs in town some years back. He is a tall fellow with a head of grey/silver hair and a temperament as grouchy as a snared fox, hence his nickname. Back in the day he ran a lot of scams and they say he had to disappear when a big consignment of imported tobacco got confiscated by the old bill. However, it seems that he has now broken cover and looks to be starting up a new venture in town.
I don't tend to go into town much as it is full of the things I dislike most - people.
Mind you, it will be interesting to see if the rumours are true because if they are then the Bishop might want to know as I seem to remember he owed the Silver Fox some money before he vanished and it won't be long before he comes knocking on the church door I suspect.
We'll soon know when the little collection plate gets swapped for a dustbin lid...

Dinner is served

My butler, Raggy, has seen fit to start ringing the dinner gong when every meal is ready. My grandfather insisted it was used back in his day as did my father but I have always found it unnecessary and a bit dated to be truthful. It's not like this is Downton Abbey and we have masses of servants and several generations of family living here - it's just me, my dogs and anyone who happens to pop in for a cup of tea and a chat. My cook, Mrs Burroughs only comes up once a day to hoover round, have a quick dust and then cook my evening meal. She knows that if I am not home when it is ready, she is to put it in the bottom of the Aga and I will eat it when I return. Raggy however now gives the gong a thump as soon as she plates the food up whether I am here or not. Apparently the other day she was just draining the potatoes when Raggy sets the dinner gong off and poor old Mrs Burroughs nearly has a fit, dropped the saucepan of spuds on the floor, startled the dog who was asleep and in turn jumped up and bit her on the arse, spun round and had a mud-out in the laundry basket and then scurried off and hid in the study.
Raggy then totters in to see what the noise was all about, sees Mrs Burroughs sat down rubbing her backside, looks at the spuds on the floor and the gret'ol turd on top of my shirts and rolls his eyes and remarks that she ought to clean the mess up rather than taking a break.
I'm glad she threw a spud at him and not the gret'ol barkers egg...

Lumpkin has been very quiet of late but is more than likely loved up and enjoying some time with that little old sort he is now engaged to. As always, it will be okay until the novelty for both of them wears off - it's just a matter of which one first.
Young Dylan dropped in yesterday and very kindly brought me a cake she had made.  I invited her in for a cup of tea and we tried the cake which I must say was excellent. She told me she was going away for the weekend to see some friends in London and asked if I would be so kind as to bring her washing in from the line if it looked like rain. I said that of course I would and then as I sat there, I wondered just how much the Bishop would be prepared to pay to get his grubby little hands on Dylan's undies but then I thought it was a rather perverse and calculating thought and I would do no such thing and the thought would not cross my mind ever again.
Probably.

The was a bit of excitement in the village earlier in the week when the village shop got broken into.
They say no cash was taken but the thief got away with 3 bottles of Imodium, a copy of Razzle, two packets of Wurthers Originals, a box of Jay cloths and a packet of Quorn mince. They don't have a clue as to who could have done it and are putting it down to opportunists but I reckon they should be looking for an over 65 vegetarian w*nker with dodgy guts.
Mind you, I'm not going to say anything as I would hate to see SO19 kick in the front door of old Mr Bailey as I'm not sure he's even a vegetarian and at 93, the shock from the frame charges blowing in his porch windows might cause the old boy to shit himself.
Having said that, if it was him then at least he could clean himself up with the Jay cloths...

Is this fete ?

The Valentines night extravaganza in The Bull went rather well and on the whole it was a fairly respectable and pleasant affair. Well, I say respectable, which it was up until the point the Bishop came in to bless all the St.Valentines couples, stayed for a couple of whiskey's, stayed for a couple more and ended up lifting the skirts of all the women who walked past him with his crosier. For those of you unfamiliar with a crosier, it is the long stick, a bit like a shepherds crook which is ideally suited for lifting skirts, twanging knicker elastic and at one point undoing a bra strap (A real talent I can assure you) He was eventually driven home by the verger but not before the Bishop had told him to go and give his wife "one up the vestry" which delighted many of the patrons in the pub and I think that church attendance may well increase on Sunday.

I had been looking for my pipe for a week or two now but couldn't find it anywhere. Yesterday I was taking a stroll with the dogs and bumped into Kipper, the gardener. In one hand he had a bag of what I assume was more aphid powder and in the other he had my pipe. I thanked him and asked him where he had found it but he wasn't really sure but I suspect he must have had a little try on it as it was still warm, bless him. He seemed very agitated and wouldn't keep still and kept shifting from foot to foot and fidgeting. I asked if anything was the matter but he said he was fine, in fact he repeated it several times and then walked off to his shed. Well, he actually jogged, then sprinted and then jogged again.
I think the poor fellow has been overdoing it and might need some time off to rest. His nose was all red as were his eyes.
Poor chap.

I received an email the other day from the village fete committee asking me if I would judge a class in this years village fete. They didn't elaborate as to which class I would judge but it will more than likely be the bloody marrow growing class or 'Best lawn mower in show'. I never get to judge the 18-30's beauty competition or 'Most Yummy Mummy' class. It's always our local MP, the crooked bastard, or the Bishop who ends up getting those. Still, it's a long way off yet and I might be able to have a word with someone. Come to think of it, I wonder if the Bishop would see that I got the Yummy Mummy class if I happened to mention about a certain set of photos ? I don't like to use blackmail to get what I want, well, actually I don't care but it's the principle of it all. Why should he get all the fun while I'm stood looking at odd shaped vegetables, most of who seem to be on the Parish Council.
Last years yummy mummy winner got sloshed on the bottle of champagne she won and ended up being led round the grand ring by a local dairy farmer who had spent all afternoon in the beer tent.
Her shirt popped open at one point and she came second in the Young Cow in Milk class.
She even got a rosette.