Once a Guardsman always a Guardsman

A woman’s work is never done.

The truest statement in the statute book.

I left home five years ago when my wife of over 40 years (joined @ the hip.com) and I decided we didn’t like each other any more.

I hail from the North of England, but genetically I’m a sort of Londoner.

My Dad was a West London boy, so was his Dad and so was his Dad (my Great Grandad - who incidentally was a Thames bargee and had his leg crushed at work…..And lay back drinking a bottle of rum while a surgeon sawed his leg off.)

The wheel has since turned full circle and now Johnny Craft’s son lives in an apartment in Whitechapel. The man from la Mancha, sorry, the man from la Manchester, well near where Manchester is now, is‘getting his bum in gear’, as they say in Liverpool - in terms of coping with life in our CapitalCity.

And it’s some city isn’t it?

No wonder half the population of the Planet would love to be domiciled here. My problem at this advanced stage of decrepitude (I’m a seventy years old coffin-dodger by the way) is (wait for it)

…the cleaning……..the washing (I do it by hand to save money ‘cos I’m a tight bastard) ……..And the shopping (I no longer have a car).

So I stagger on and off public transport loaded with Sainsbury’s carrier bags and shopping from Whitechapel Street Market. I sometimes regret not having a car, but in all fairness I’m a lot slimmer and much fitter than before.

Although, when I used to play in a Concert Band in Manchester, after practice one night while having a jar in the pub, this guy said in a stage-whisper to my mate, that I had “a lean and hungry look” - which did me a lot of no good.

But anyway, I now have the ‘feel-good factor’ so I don’t give two fucks whether I look hungry or not.com.

And as forthe cooking…

I burn the toast a little too often - and my fingers aswell, but between you and me I am quite proud of my culinary skills. Any time you fancy egg and chips,I’m your man.

…And I certainly wouldnot want to be a woman.

If it wasn’t for my Brigade of Guards training (I served in The 1st Battalion of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II’s Third Guards Regiment). I would not be able to get my head round it all, ‘no way Jose’.

But a woman, after all this…

At the end of the day hubby comes in from his hard graft at the office - and the first thing he wants is a pot of tea and a ‘table-ender’….And not necessarily in that order.com.

Alfred (Jon) Craft.

Written this day the fourth of August in the year of our Lord 2007