Runnin' On

More thoughts and memories

I'm afraid that when the sun comes out I lose all interest in writing, when we sit out in the garden I'm more inclined to shift myself and do a bit of gardening than to go indoors to start on my piece for the Pump. If the sun is out the Tilburns are too, nattily attired in their shorts and t-shirts, although I must admit the really natty shorts I used to wear are laid aside now. I came to the conclusion that the struggling zips were soon going to inflict lasting damage to the Tilburn tum.

Comfort has been achieved with a baggier type of shorts with an elastic waistband, bliss regained, I will start my diet later in the year.

Sometimes I'll be organised enough to have a sheet of paper or the back of an envelope if the postman has been, then I'll scribble down anything that seems worth turning into a subject when the sun goes in. Where have all the envelopes and pieces of paper gone though? I start to panic as the deadline day comes near; I've never found a list yet. I do wonder if William Shakespeare had the same problem?

However, this month is different and I'm hoping that the subject of this "Runnin' on" will let me send it in to our editor. If the article doesn't please him I promise that I won't be offended, though I'll have to find another subject before the deadline!

Being retired has made us much more time to enjoy our daily newspaper, we share the games and crosswords and we have nearly worn out our ancient dictionary. It was fairly tattered by the time our children had used it for their school work, I should think it could make its own way to Downham Secondary school if I started it off from our previous home on Clackclose Estate!

Because of the "Pump" we may have to buy a better dictionary, ours doesn't contain all the answers to the Pump crosswords. Even if I could do the big crossword in our Daily Express I'd only win a Penguin Dictionary so I think we'll have to make do with our old school one.

We now have a new Paper person, Colin shares our sun-worshipping taste in clothes and wears shorts on the hot days. No doubt he will get a better tan than we do though, he starts a lot earlier than we can manage. I suppose we could do without our coffee in bed while we watch BBC's Breakfast each morning!

Colin does deliver a lot of newspapers so he rotates the order of the villages, when its our turn for a later delivery we are about in time to see him, and if he's got a young passenger in his car we wave when a small hand appears at the window.

We feel that our days have a sunnier start when our newspaper man is such a smiler, I bet he cheers everyone up, I know our days get off to a super start!

Janet Tilburn