MOVING FORWARDS I

It has been six years. I Piccalilli have not seen my friend Bloggiana for six years. It is a long story and one I shall tell in due course but right now I am not thinking about the long story because I am standing on the doorstep of the smallest house this side of the Maginot line wondering what on earth I am going to say to the old girl once she opens the door and sees her one-time beetroot-chopping, parsnip-pickling, garlic-touting chutney-holic alter ego finally trit-trotting home to roost after six whole years.

I knock on the door. I knock quietly because part of me is afraid of what Bloggiana might say when she sees me. I am too nervous to see the contradiction in my approach so I knock again quietly and after a few more minutes, again.

"Who the fuck is tweedling like a fucking hopfoot on my godforsaken knocker?"

This is the kind of response I was dreading and my knees wobble.

"Christ in hell's sake, why can't a body knock like they want to come in, God tell me?" and with that, the door makes a kind of ripping noise and I find myself face to face with my old mucker.

"Piccalilli! Well fuck me".

And then she closes the door again and obviously - I tell myself, obviously - 'forgets' to let me through so I am stranded where I began on the tiny threshold not looking at her face but at her knocker.

***

It has been six years and I have been round the world and back. Me and my Hot Banana. We have trodden the chutney boards like two little mischief chilli peppers stowed away on the goodship Taste of Europe. We have been garlanded. Feted. My Hot Banana has been sipped and supped and prodded and sampled by chutney lovers the length and breadth of the Euroglobe. I have been a star. I myself have tasted the onion marmalade of stardom. I, Piccalilli. It has been a whirlwind.

***

The door is ripped open again. Considering there is nothing between the door-frame and Bloggiana's ample bosom but air, it is hard to understand how this is achieved but rippage of air undoubtedly takes place. Bloggiana glares at me. She is wearing spectacles. This is new. She is wearing a hard hat. This is normal. She has a wreath of smoke about her person and quite a lot of dirt under her fingernails and her lips are shaped ready for the inevitable f-word that will form sooner or later on my advancing into the room. All this is normal. I stand my ground. (Wobbling knees). To buy time, I look Bloggiana up and down. Note the lack of britches. Note the use instead of tartan trews. Note the fact that atop her hard hat, there is not a glo-brite solar-powered eezee-torch (Bloggiana being famed for her lack of perceptiveness when it comes to buying gadgets) but a glorious trinity of eagle-feathers. Note the distinctive whiff of Scotch which blows over me, through that very air that has just been ripped by the door, blowing with the intensity and fervour of the farts that my sous-chef lets out when he bends down to pick up a raisin having been on sampling duties. Note the sounds that too are ripping the air in the way that only a set of badly played bag-pipes can. Think crikey and grope inside my pocket for something to vape.

to be continued./.