Only two measly strokes today, will never go down in the anals of fame at this rate – mmm that doesn’t look right better look it up. Good job I did, maybe I should say halls instead of annals, always best I’ve found not to mention bottoms when I’m blogging. Annals, Halls, I’m not fussy really as long as I get a mention. All I want to do in life, aside from raising awareness and defeating HIV related stigma of course, is get on with my painting and produce a great masterpiece, but there is simply no time. I am too busy foraging for food like the Great White Hunter, although not sure if that expression is strictly pc these days.
Foragers are a bit like Borrowers only a bit taller. They can also be known as pensioners a breed of rapidly shrinking folk who automatically qualify as Borrowers albeit more likely from Wonga! Foragers are often to be seen at Aldi or the pound shop and know how to shop for the best deals for the minimum amount of money. They also know how to make useless things out of bits of thread and empty cotton reels. Even though due to age (or the meds!) I am shrinking at a rate of knots I think I would be hard pushed to sit on a cotton reel.
In the pursuit of some pre Christmas foraging I drag Luis who is here for the festive season off to Bury, this time to the outdoor market because he wants to try the famous Bury black pudding, which is not like ticky ticky pudding his favourite desert – that’s sticky toffee pudding in Spanish. For some reason Luis can’t get his Spanish tongue round the words sticky and toffee. The mere mention of ticky ticky pudding brings a toothless smile to his normally grumpy albeit handsome face and a song to his tuneless lips, unfortunately being tone deaf it’s often hard to recognize what tune he’s actually singing.
“What you singin?”
“Ticcky ticky pudding”
“No you not, you singing chirpy chirpy cheep cheep.”
“Eees ticky ticky pudding,” he insists, “by los rollins.”
“The Rolling Stones didn’t make song about pudding,” I correct him, “brown sugar but not puddings ticky or otherwise.”
“Ticky ticky pudding…. ticky ticky pudding,” he pasadobles around me clicking is fingers groucho style.
Think he may be getting mixed up with the Stones album Sticky Fingers from the distant seventies and has missed the point completely. Language does get lost in translation, as does humour, which you may have noticed if you have to translate my blogs! Before we set off, to prove my point, I have a quick Google and show him the album cover which was designed by Andy Warhol and had a fly you could actually unzip. Because of the obvious sexual connotations the cover was censored in Spain and the image replaced with a can of syrup with fingers poking out, which in some ways looks even more suggestive. That set Luis off again, but now he’s changed the words to ticky tocky finger.
It’s freezing bloody cold at the outdoor market. The meat market vendors try to outshout each other offering their bloody wares and dismembered carcasses for our perusal, trying to tempt us.
“Ear yar love,” one beckons, “deal of tut day, an ole chicken” he dangles said bird by its scraggly legs.
“Why he selling old chickens?” Luis wants to know.
“An if you throw in another fiver you can ‘ave a gammon joint, four kebabs, tray of pork steaks, beef joint, pack of bacon,” he reels them off like an auctioneer.
We leave with a sack of meat enough to feed an army – or my son. Its hard work not to mention expensive foraging for vittles for two hombres, not to mention my good self, but got to keep them happy. This it seems is an impossible task, if one hombre is not in a bad mood then the other one is and never the twain shall ‘meat’ – and when they let fly, they let fly in Spanish. I am not really sure what Spanish Fly is, better ask Luis. Mind you, I asked him what a daddy long legs was called in Spanish and he said a mosquito. Bloody big mosquito is all I can say. I’ll look it up in the urban dictionary, here we go – “an Aphrodesiacal elixr made from the crushed body parts of blister beetles.” Think those urban types need some spelling lessons.
The Great white huntress having brought home the spoils you’d think I would now have time to finish my painting/masterpiece, wouldn’t you, but not so – brushes out, a couple of stokes and then it starts.
Son – mum, what? mum, what? mum, what? mum, what?
Luis – adri, que? adri, que? adri, que?
Doody – woof (what you want beauty face? I always answer the dog – best to just ignore the other two)
That goes on all day by way of conversation in our house – so now you know what Luis says and you know what my son says and you know what Lady Doodledog says. But what does the fox say you might ask? Well you would if you’ve been watching the viral video, “What does the fox say?” on you tube. Luis thinks its hysterical.
If foraging for food wasn’t time consuming enough, I now have to start foraging for last minute Xmas pressies. At least I have twenty pound gift voucher to spend at Amazon for filling in an online questionnaire about HIV meds. It was a bit confusing to say the least, but then show me a pozzer who isn’t confused about their regime or who can pronounce, or even remember the names of their meds. Why can’t the drug companies call them something simpler or more user friendly, maybe give them names or nick names like some recreational drugs, Mary Jane for example, although obviously not heroin which for some reason is named after a horse – Mr Ed? What are you on? – I’m taking two Lukes and a Reg, its part of my five a day. How about you? Oh a Roger in the morning and two last thing at night.
I should be so lucky!
In the days before HIV for me a CD was something that span round – a load was something you put in the washer and anti viral was some distant relation. And silicone was a daft road thing!! Sorry, couldn’t resist that am feeling a bit giddy – all that rogering must have gone to my head.
