Google+ A Tangled Rope: Over the Border

Friday, June 04, 2010

Over the Border

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How can we forget that smell? How could we ever go on to become fully-qualified professional Hamster Disconcerters knowing what we knew? Would we ever truly understand the chin of Jimmy Hill? But we were young and in love and we thought it would last forever, so such questions we left unanswered as we played the rude version of dominoes late into those seemingly endless summer nights….

But, we were wrong…

I asked her for the marmalade and she slapped my face. How was I to know that in the wild untamed lands east of Doncaster such intimacy between the un-betrothed was - at the very least - frowned upon?

I knew that if I did not leave town then her brothers would make sure I either married her, or that I never ever asked a nubile woman to pass the marmalade again.

Feeling attached to my testicles, and wanting to remain that way, I headed for the hills. I went south, towards the wild frontier towns of the North Midlands. I thought I could move south for the winter. Maybe as far south as Wolverhampton, Walsall - possibly - if I had the courage - even Wednesbury. I thought then I would move on, in the following spring, and, maybe, just maybe - if my nerve held - cross the border into Wales.

I knew that, if my luck held, I would find sheep in Wales. It had been a long time and it had been hard, very hard.

I also knew, once it grew long and hard, that I would have no alternative but to take myself in hand again until that day arrived.

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