Tuesday, February 05, 2008

The Social Whirl of Matlock

I am back up north having a break in Matlock with my Gran and its been a complete social whirlwind on day one. I nearly missed the train as St Pancras International has completely changed again and it’s a bit of a maze, a stunning one though.

I arrived and Gran seemed really pleased to see me which always makes you feel nice, she had bought me the campest Christmas presents. A glittery jewelled dustpan and brush, some Spice Girl books and a book on writing, she knows her eldest grandson so well. She seems to be coping as well as someone can who has been so recently widowed. Busy would be the word I would use for her lifestyle. Incredibly busy maybe too busy.

Caz came round with Alfie. We had a fabulous soup with amazing savoury scones that I must get the recipe for, oh out pops the middle aged Simon again. Alfie is hilarious he naturally asked where Mr B was consistently, he is a massive fan. He also wanted to play football for about three hours.

We have just gotten back from a lovely evening with some of Gran’s oldest friends. The legends that are Bernie and John who used to live next door to Gran and Bong and now live five houses down on the new road. They are hilarious and love a drink. I wont go into the details of the whole evening I will just go with some classic Bernie quotes… now remember she is 63.

On her husbands first child meeting their children ‘he wet the bed for weeks and one night he came down with his brothers and said Mummy I will live with you if you and Daddy split up and he will live with Daddy. I thought bloody hell we’ve ruined the poor little bastards lives’.

On me having kids in the future ‘oh fuck that Simon, get a dog’.

On gay men ‘I just love them, I lived on Old Compton Street for a while, best nights of my fucking life’.

When Gran was drunk and talking rubbish ‘in the nicest way Dot, shut the fuck up’.

Now that is a gay icon, and shows you that you can have fun in your sixties a time I was originally not sure I was looking forward to. Thank god for people like Bernie.

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