Shrove Tuesday

Finally, along comes a holiday I don't instantly turn my nose up at: Shrove Tuesday, which means pancake day. I'm fond of pancakes, even though I'm hopeless in making them as they always turn out a bit rubbery and stringy. My mother was the queen of pancakes, as was Poppy. Must be one of those special female knacks. Like finding something crucial and interesting - to them - to yap about just as I'm settling down to watch a film. My mother would only permit one 'filling' - a thin layer of castor sugar over which a halved orange would be squeezed. Took me beyond puberty to fathom that alternatives are possible, or even legal. I still eschew 'savoury' fillings, though. Gabriel is an advocate of sliced sausage, chunks of bacon, scrambled egg and tomato sauce - the mere thought of such gets me tasting stomach acid at the back of my throat. My favourite is peanut butter, banana and honey.

Of course Ash Wednesday follows Shrove Tuesday, signifying the start of Lent. Despite being as much of a Christian as Woody Allen I've decided I'm giving up both alcohol and meat for Lent. Nothing of course to commemorate Jesus' forty days in the wilderness, or Noah's fanciful forty days on a boat (just how *did* he find a male and a female from all 350,000 species of beetle in the middle east?); just that I (a) desperately need to lose some weight, as I'm siddling up to that dreaded fifteen-stone mark once again and (b) I'm drinking far, far too much. Just for a change. My fat cells and liver need a holiday. If I keep this up someone'll typing "liver disease", "heart disease" or "stomach cancer" into the obituary I'll never earn. And within a few years to boot.

Colin's bravado has been blown. Took a phone call for him late yesterday afternoon from the local police station. Initially there was some confusion until I cleared up the fact that yes I was Mr [T] but I was Mr Bryn [T] and not Mr Colin [T]; once I'd established I was Mr Colin [T]'s next-of-kin and that Mr Colin [T] was not present to take the call (I had no idea where he was as he wasn't at 'home' and hadn't left any details of his plans or potential whereabouts) the message was relayed to me to relay to him that 'the other party has decided not to press charges and we shall be making no further enquiries therefore we consider the matter closed.'

So I immediately set about wondering whether Colin's sleeping arrangements on Saturday evening involved a police cell.

Cooked a mild curry for dinner (nothing to elongate my culinary skills though - just fry some chicken, lob in a jar of orange gunk and simmer for fifteen minutes) for two as just me and Lukas were the only carnivores about. Sightings of Gabriel post-school seem to be becoming increasingly infrequent. I asked Lukas how his day had been and he said Miserable. With touching irony, the activity-in-vogue for his Monday P.E. lesson is to be basketball. Which of course he cannot do for a further month as a precautionary measure following his broken arm. Instead, he got to run laps around the athletic track for forty minutes whilst another couple of boys (set the same task as a punishment) sat in the long-jump sand-pit, smoked and hurled sand and abuse at him once per lap.

Colin came home around half six, blustering into the house with not-at-all disguised vigour and enthusiam. I enquired as to where he had been all day, but he just said Oh, this and that. So I delved a little more finitely and asked how the job-hunting and accomodation-hunting was jogging along. He said, to be honest Bryn, it's not looking good at all - looks as if I've made a real c0ck up of things. I've only managed to get even one semi-serious offer and that's in Bonn and I don't really fancy re-acquainting myself with our teutonic cousins. If I'm becoming a burden in any way, Bryn, just tell me to leave and I'll go, honestly.

I told him that that was not the case at all. Then I informed him of the good news - that whoever was going to press charges for whatever reason was now not going to press charges. For whatever reason. Colin looked as if taken aback for a second or two then said Cheeky Bl00dy B@stard!

So I asked for details but Colin said it was nothing, just a bit of banter than got a little out of hand, you know what it's like. I told him I didn't, and asked why the Police became involved and whether he'd seen the inside of a police cell Saturday night. Colin denied this, and said "the Police" was one of those plastic coppers i.e. Community Support Officer who was obviously a bit bored and cold and fancied a excuse to spend half-an-hour or so inside a station. It was nothing at all.

He asked me if I had phoned the number he had given me, so I said of course I hadn't. Colin asked why not and I said as far as I could remember not one single woman I'd met on our speed-dating extravaganza had made even the minimalest dent in my impressions, so I could not think of any reason why I'd ever want to see any single one of them every again.

My brother became quite animated at this. He began a(nother) monologue about my problems and my desire not to be happy. He claimed I've been unhappy for so long that I'm now frightened of the prospect of actually being happy. This was a ridiculous thing to say, and I told him so. So he said prove me wrong, ring the number. I said but I don't think ringing one of the woman I'd met on Saturday night would make me any happier, to which Colin virtually screamed: IT MIGHT!

Later, whilst thinking about this exchange, I asked myself a question. If I honestly didn't want to meet any of the woman from Saturday night, why had I kept the number?