"I know, I'll make myself a spaghetti bolognese" I said to myself as I scoured the fridge for food this evening, hungry after a morning's football and an afternoon in front of the computer. And why not, there was half a pack of beef mince left over and my weekly trip to Sainsbury's had seen stocks of mushrooms, peppers and onions replenished.
So I stuck the Brazilian Grand Prix on the tele and went to work preparing the meal. I cut up half of a green pepper and half of onion and washed some baby button mushrooms before switching on the hob, bunging in the mince, waiting for it to brown and adding some Thyme, Basil and Dill Weed to give the meat extra flavour. Once the mince looked just about cooked, I threw in the vegetables and stirred it round, taking in all the sweet, succulent smell of the spices combined with the sizzling fresh vegetables. Just for good measure, I selected the 'Extra Spicy' Dolmio sauce from the cupboard ahead of the 'Original' and poured it in, all the while stirring the bolognese with the one remaining clean slice.
"That looks just about ready to me" I muttered after about ten minutes at the hob, as the sauce began to bubble slightly and the Formula One cars lapped the circuit for the last few times, so I reached into another cupboard and pulled out a plate, grabbed the cutlery from the drawer and refilled my glass of squash. Back to the hob I went, switched off the heat and lifted up the wok containing my lavish bolognese.
And then I realised I hadn't cooked any spaghetti.
The pain in my right shoulder still hasn't gone away you know, although it is so much better than it was. I am still at a loss as to how I could have caused myself such an injury when lying in bed.
Anyway, whether or not there was a voodoo doll involved remains to be deduced, but this next event is equally as weird.
When I moved house back in May, I moved approximately seven miles south east and that meant that my usual half hour traipse around the M25 on the return home from work every night was no longer necessary. My new route home involves an initial four miles through several back streets and country lanes and then the negotiation of several A-roads in the suburbs of North West London.
It had been a particularly stressful day at work - the 'things to do' pile just kept getting bigger and bigger, I was under pressure to get a report done and every time I got rid of an email, another one appeared in the inbox. But by quarter to six I'd had enough so I jumped in the car, turned left and joined the Old Uxbridge Road. The Old Uxbridge Road is a B-road, which means that it is quite narrow and cars very often have to slow right down to get past each other and this particular B-road intersects some fields - there are cows on the left and a football pitch on the right. It's typical English countryside, if you like. A bit like the opening scene in an episode of Postman Pat.
I was driving at a sensible speed, wary of the concealed entrance coming up on the left where a small calf had been strutting around loose the other week, but the road was almost straight and as usual, there was nothing coming the other way. By the time the concealed entrance had been and gone, the straight part of the road began to come to an end and the left hand turn loomed. It's not a nasty left hand turn by any stretch of the imagination, nor is it a gentle one, but it is a bit of a blind corner and you should always take it slowly and with precaution. I wasn't going fast, how could I? There could be anything just around the corner - a child on a bike, a jogger out in the late summer sun or another loose calf.
As the car approached the bend, I was halted in mid-chorus of Easyworld's 'You and Me' by a voice that came into my head. I actually heard a voice in my head and it stopped me singing. It told me to "be extra careful round this bend today". In those exact words. I still remember them even now, such was their clarity and tone and such was my surprise to hear a voice in my head. I wasn't going any faster than normal and my normal wasn't very fast anyway, but as images of colliding with a small cow or worse entered my brain in a nanosecond, I slowed right down and took the extra precaution as the voice had commanded. Seconds later, on the wrong side of the road and at breakneck speed, a BMW Z4 (what else?) came hurtling round the corner, causing me to take evasive action and I narrowly avoided swerving into the nicely-groomed hedgerow. I kid you not, any further forward and that Z4 would have gone headlong into the front of my car. Without putting my foot on the brake when I did, after the instruction from the voice, the cars would have collided and I could well have not been here to recount the story.
Now, I'm not one for believing in ghosts or supernatural activity and quite honestly I'm a bit of an athieist, but that event was freaky. Is there such a thing as a guardian angel? Could my guardian angel have been at my defence in that instance, warning me to slow right down for that left hand corner? Maybe it was the voice of precaution? I actually heard a voice in my head and that voice stopped me singing. Whatever it was, it was bizarre, it was spooky and it was weird but I'm glad it happened, it has cemented my belief that BMW drivers are the biggest w*nkers on the planet.
Last Saturday night I stayed in. Debs is still away travelling the wonders of Australasia and Alex was sunning himself in the warm climates of Mediterranean Spain so I was in the flat by myself, happily watching whatever trash came on Sky and eventually retiring to bed at a respectful hour to get my head into another chapter of Sherlock Holmes' adventures. Knowing that my football season was starting the following morning, I switched out the light around midnight and let my sleepy head rest in relaxation on the freshly plumped up pillows.
I was in agony when I woke up. My right arm would hardly move and it was painful to lean on my right side. Thinking I must have slept funny, I slowly began to roll my shoulders and exercise my arm so that the blood in the muscles could get flowing and hopefully the searing pain would subside. Happily it did and I dashed off to football where we made a great start to the season in a 3-0 victory.
Back at home and in the shower after football, I noticed a strange mark on my right shoulder, exactly where the pain had been, and still was, coming from. It was in the shape of an 'x', red, and right on the top of the shoulder bone. I touched it and yelped in discomfort as a stabbing pain shot straight up to my neck. By this point I could hardly raise my arm at all, I had to use my left arm to lift up my right. Later in the day I tried driving - not a chance. Ever tried using the steering wheel with one shoulder out of action? Well let me tell you, it's painful and very VERY dangerous. It's amazing the things you take for granted with your body - I had to think twice about lifting a pint glass to my mouth, or reaching for the remote control, or grabbing the mobile when it rang, the pain was excruciating and the worst thing was that I had absolutely no idea what I had done.
Was the injury muscular? Well how do you explain the red cross and the pain I got from pressing down on the point of intersection? How did I get such a mark when all I had done was to lay in bed asleep? I hadn't injured during the day because I would have noticed, so what had happened? Had I got up in the middle of the night, sleep-walking, and ran shoulder first into an oversized Phillips head screwdriver? Or were there more sinister affairs at work here? Could there be somebody out there sticking a large needle into a small, balding, big-eared doll made out of patchwork and loincloth, causing me immense pain in some sort of sadistic voodoo grudge attack?
Thankfully, two weeks on, the pain has subsided, although there is still discomfort when I press on my shoulder bone. The red cross has gone and I am able to drive my car with two hands, change the tv channel and drink pints of beer, but I am conscious of what might happen next. Might I sleepwalk out of the window, or stumble down the stairs in a dazed slumber? Or maybe the voodoo doll will strike again?
Or maybe I've been reading too much Sherlock Holmes.
After the drunken blur that was the recent Bank Holiday, I stumbled into work on Tuesday morning a somewhat fatigued young man. The girl that sits next to me was in a far more buoyant mood.
"How was your weekend Jon?" she enquired, an enthusiastic, genuine vibe in her voice. So I told her about the gig I went to on Thursday, how I'd been out with Simon S on Friday night and how Saturday night I had ended up having a large one again instead of the planned quiet night in. I added in the fact that I worked on the Monday and then, to return the courteous gesture, I asked her how her weekend was.
"Playing volleyball weren't you?" I remembered in a momentary flash of impressive memory. She went on to explain about how she was part of a team that had taken part in a volleyball competition near Bournemouth and how she had had such a fantastic weekend in the sun, playing volleyball, having barbecues, seeing friends and generally making the most of the long weekend. She paused for a moment and then, with a smile on her face said "and now I'm in the office". Or at least that's what I though she said, "hmmm" I replied, knowing exactly what she meant. Bank holidays are excellent fun - they sum up what living is all about, and then we all have to go back to the office the next day.
So I turned to my computer screen, but there was this huge smile on her face and she was staring me as if she was expecting more of a response than "hmmm". And that stare lasted a good second or two longer than it should have done, and she was still beaming away, a kind of excitement burning underneath somewhere. I really didn't have the energy to think of anything to add so I just got my head down and tore into my swollen email inbox.
Another colleague arrived and the two of them went off for a coffee about twenty minutes later, I declined their offer of bringing me one back on the basis that I only drink coffee when I can't keep my eyes open. As they ambled back from the cantine, steaming coffees in hand, the freshly arrived colleague said to me:
"did you actually hear what Susanne said to you when she told you her news?" I glanced up from my computer screen, "what news?" I replied, flummoxed by such a question - she hadn't told me any news, only that she had spent the weekend playing volleyball and meeting up with a few friends.
It turns out that she hadn't said "and now I'm in the office" at all, in fact it was nothing of the sort and what I had heard was a million miles from what she had told me.
She had, in fact, said to me the words "and now I'm a fiancée", expecting hearty congratulations, a hug and bags of over-excitement - so my reply of "hmmm", ignoring her and immersing myself in a swamp load of emails was not really the reaction she was expecting.