Sunday 9th April, 2017                              1200

On Friday I had a rare visit from Janet in my office. I’m pretty sure she doesn’t teach on the days I do and I only ever see her when she has a deadline to meet for some paperwork.

She came to discuss my wanting the dragon boat Saturday off and quite blithely suggested she could go to the dean and request a day’s leave for me. I was against this of course, I have more than a month in which to “pre“-catch up the lessons and I shall do so. With a smile she commented that with the class schedules I may well find myself having to come to school on three separate occasions. So be it and I shall find out tomorrow when I ask to see each of the timetables and arrange dates. Hopefully I can get them out of the way well before the holiday and who knows, it might please the students, who will have one less class on a Saturday. And it will be quite pleasant to only have to work for an hour and a half each time.

Last night I decided to go out for dinner and combine it with yet another shopping trip. I don’t know why but I had an urge to have another Generation Game Hotpot. The first time I went was mid-afternoon when it was quiet but last night it was packed. So much so in fact that shortly after I arrived newcomers were forced to stand and wait for available places. Unfortunately I had the bad luck to have Mr & Mrs Peasant plonk themselves next to me. They only spoke in one volume (loud enough to be heard in Beijing) and the bloke in particular was most uncultured. Swiftly he littered the floor with used napkins and dropped morsels and his eating of corn on the cob resembled a scatter bomb exploding. I found myself wishing there were partitions because at any moment I felt in danger of being peppered with food particles. However the food was enjoyable because now I know which items are good and which to avoid. The big prawns are a draw and the only disappointment was a lack of the dark brown liquid filled meatballs that caught me out the first time when one exploded as I bit it.

After shopping it was straight home for what I thought would be a quiet and uneventful Saturday night. How wrong can I be and so often???

Scrolling through Facebook I spotted my sister had posted “Gotta be one for Arthur!”

Now I was oblivious to the fact that the Grand National was taking place, let alone the runners and riders so once I realised what she was talking about, I checked. Sure enough, One For Arthur was a runner. Now nags and I don’t do very well at all. I once went on a lads outing for a day at Stratford races, opted to back every horse tipped by the Telegraph’s pundit and singularly failed to even get a place.

Whenever I was home on leave my Mother always got me to go down to the bookies to place the entire family’s bets. I am probably the only punter in the world who never backed Red Rum once. My only success was with Ben Nevis in 1980 when I won £500 with odds of 40-1 (Mum was aghast at my selection). My picks have always been because of the names and Nevis was my nickname for the Chief Steward on the ship I had just left.

Well, Mum bagged the winner last year by backing her and Dad’s song. Arthur was my Dad’s name (and also my middle name). Mum’s gone now but I felt her in the room last night I swear. I sent a message to baby sis and asked her to stick £25 each way on it for me. It was only this morning that I realised the runner number was 22 which was always one of my lottery numbers when in the UK. Had I known that last night the bet would have been a lot higher.

I couldn’t get the race on TV so listened on radio. I never even heard the damned thing mentioned until near the end just after sis sent me a message declaring it was in the lead. Seconds later I was £420 richer! Whoopee! The summer holiday war chest just got bigger!

Of course I had to celebrate and as a result all thoughts of going to sleep at a sensible time evaporated. I suspect I may suffer tomorrow. The toad in the hole I thought I’d cook tonight? Nah. I think I shall eat out again!