I notice that Bryan Ferry is coming to Plymouth, to The Pavilions next year. It would be nice to see him and nice to imagine that he would be one of the few Ferry’s guaranteed to enter and leave Plymouth without be affected by striking French fishermen.
Last week, for some apparent reason, I agreed to drop into Cribbs Causeway shopping centre with the enemy, the good lady wife. I have yet to work out why I did this, especially at this time of year, but I did. For those who have not been there, it is on the outskirts of Bristol and is the size of Plymouth with 5000 free parking spaces.
If anyone is confused about that statement, go ask your parents/grandparents what a free parking space was! Anyway, the isles are so wide that it actually had a Santa train running up and down one of the shopping thoroughfares. It was
great to watch and took me back to the good old days when trains ran in Devon.
But I did make the big mistake of suggesting that we split up and meet back ‘here’ in half an hour. After half an hour, ‘here’ was nowhere to be found. What I though was ‘here’ was in fact somewhere else. So I made a call and we started a search on a scale not seen since the quest to find Lord Lucan. Like all couples, we started to call each other on the mobile.
Calls one to three confirmed we were still in the same shopping centre. Then call four!
‘So where are you now?’ I asked.
I’m outside a clothes shop, near a phone shop, beside a coffee place.’
NARROW IT DOWN WOMAN! We once got separated in Rome and when I called her, she stated that was outside a church! Give me strength…it would be like standing in Ivybridge and saying I am outside a hairdressers….der!
Any road, eventually we caught up with each other and rediscovered ‘here’ which was still there where we left it. But the next quest was where had we left the car? Needless to say that I am still driving the Cribbs Causeway hire vehicle but will drop it back next Monday and look for mine once again. Of course I could always get the train back to Bristol but I really don’t have eight hours to waste, don’t like coach travel and have no wish to see Bideford, Barnstable and Bournemouth branch lines.
I hope Christmas was all you wished it to be. I almost got it right this year with the presents. The enemy asked for fifty shades of grey! I wasn’t sure what that was so I bought her a membership to Thurlestone Golf Club. She seemed a little miffed.
Yours Fitz
P.S. If Lord Lucan wanted to come back to this country yet still hide in society, totally ignored and unbothered why doesn’t he stand for Police and Crime Commissioner.
