IT WAS A BRIEF ENCOUNTER.
Back in the eighteen hundreds my mother's father, Grandpa Pope, was an apprentice baker to Judge the Baker of Hastings. His duties included the delivery of bread which he carried, in a basket, to customers near and far. He would have been about eleven years old.
One morning he made a delivery across a field to a large house and on his way back, at the gate in the fence bordering the field, saw a man on a horse approaching. He opened the gate and, when they were through, closed it behind them.
The horseman abruptly reined in, shouted: "Good lad! Catch!" and threw him a coin which he duly caught with his free hand.
"Keep that, boy," the rider advised as he departed. "And when you're old you'll be able to tell people Cecil Rhodes gave it to you."
I was young at the time my grandfather told me the story, but old enough to have heard of Rhodesia.
"So did you keep it?" I asked.
"No, spent it within a week," he said. "To me he was just another posh fella on a horse."
I have upheld that matter-of-fact outlook to national heroes ever since.
I am seldom disappointed.
MUSIC.
KATIE DERHAM.Mo and I. Either end of the settee. Feet up. No tele. Reading. When I said:
"I do hope the Proms will be back soon. I miss lovely Katie Derham."
"With her trainers," said Mo.
"And, on Last Night, a pretty dress and her trainers," I said. "You have to look up to a woman like that."
"You certainly do." said Mo.
That's fifty nine years of marriage for you
TELEVISION.
We binged until the repeat demise of George Gently and binged until the repeat near demise of AC12 (Law and Order) and now we're just about binged out on repeats.
We found we'd forgotten almost all of it anyway. Sad.
NCIS is back and The Walking Dead will be back on 1st March.
Death in Paradise has just finished again: our hero still hasn't told his pretty lady sergeant he loves her, so there's bound to be another series.
I'll watch 'em all if I'm not asleep with a cat.
"Keep that, boy," the rider advised as he departed. "And when you're old you'll be able to tell people Cecil Rhodes gave it to you."
I was young at the time my grandfather told me the story, but old enough to have heard of Rhodesia.
"So did you keep it?" I asked.
"No, spent it within a week," he said. "To me he was just another posh fella on a horse."
I have upheld that matter-of-fact outlook to national heroes ever since.
I am seldom disappointed.
MUSIC.
KATIE DERHAM.
"I do hope the Proms will be back soon. I miss lovely Katie Derham."
"With her trainers," said Mo.
"And, on Last Night, a pretty dress and her trainers," I said. "You have to look up to a woman like that."
"You certainly do." said Mo.
That's fifty nine years of marriage for you
TELEVISION.
We binged until the repeat demise of George Gently and binged until the repeat near demise of AC12 (Law and Order) and now we're just about binged out on repeats.
We found we'd forgotten almost all of it anyway. Sad.
NCIS is back and The Walking Dead will be back on 1st March.
Death in Paradise has just finished again: our hero still hasn't told his pretty lady sergeant he loves her, so there's bound to be another series.
I'll watch 'em all if I'm not asleep with a cat.
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