Not a good week for Eugene.....

Popped into the Cod's Head for a quick half and Eggy was on a bar stool staring gloomily into his pint. After our initial greeting I settled down with a foaming mug.  I asked him if he had any ideas for a new post for my blog, and turned my pocket recorder on.




"No I haven’t boyo, my mind is a total blank. It's been one of those weeks see. Awful it was."



"What happened Eugene?"



"Well, I don't want to bring you down like, but it started on Monday morning. Steve rang and asked me if I would like to help him out see? --- Would I like to deliver a car to that car auction place in Redding on Thursday. Said he had to deliver two and couldn't drive them both at the same time see, and anyway, he didn't much like driving a left hand automatic. Obviously some kind of foreign car I assumed, didn’t bother me.



Another pint here Brian!



I said I would coz I could do with a few quid. ----- So, I popped down here to get the documents and stuff and we had a pint each. Then we had a few more jars and I went home to finish painting the kitchen dresser. Thing was, I had not meant to be gone more than half an hour, and the dog had knocked the tin of paint off the table. I had left the lid off see. Bloody dog was always chasing the cat and knocking things over. Blue gloss paint everywhere there was! Dog had trodden it all through the house; blue paw-prints, on the rugs, on the carpet on the stairs, and even some on the sofa. That’s apart from the big pool on the kitchen floor.



Just as I was about to start trying to clean it up before the missies came back from shopping, in she bloody came! I needn’t tell you how ballistic she went. Gloss paint is the very devil to clean off a carpet or upholstery. ---- Still not right now.



Then Tuesday the dog kept being sick all the time because of the paint remover I had used on him. He kept licking it off see. The missies said I should take him to the vet but I told her it was too expensive and that he would be fine.



On Wednesday morning the kitchen was full of dog poo and the dog was dead! Missies went mad! Screaming and shouting at me that I was a murderer, that I had never liked the dog, which was true, and that I killed it deliberately. . I said the dog was insured and that she could get another one and that made her even madder.



Then Thurday morning I walks to the garage to pick up the car. Turns out it’s a pink 1963 Cadillac DeVille Convertible, that once belonged to Liberatchi. Remember Liberatchi, the pianist? Well, he left it to a friend it seems and recently the garage conned it off him, poor old bugger. Told him they would do him a favour and take it off his hands. Been in a barn down in St Just for years, but almost mint condition, except for perished white-wall tyres and a knackered battery. Steve reckoned it was worth a few hundred thousand pounds, having belonged to Liberatchi and that.

So anyway, I gets in, roof up coz of the rain, and she starts up beautiful, beautiful! Seven Litre Vee Eight, with a three speed automatic gearbox! I know that my mate Griff would like to see this, and I want to show it off a bit see? So I goes and drives it up to Longdownes first. I was just going through that narrow bit by Pulnnugo farm when a bloody great tractor with a trailer load of spuds comes round the bend. Well, the brakes were not that good on the old bus see, so I tries to go between the tractor and the hedge like. No good! (Nb, to those not familiar with Cornwall, hedges are made of granite). Have you noticed how big tractors are getting nowadays? They can hardly fit down some of these lanes.

(Eggy takes a long pull at his pint)



Turns out it's crushed on both sides. Terrible sight it was. Worst of it is, the garage didn’t get full cover for it so it was only insured third party, fire and theft! Steve's not speaking to me. He says the garage won't give him any more work delivering cars for them, or even cleaning them, and he relied on that to supplement his old age pension.



The missies not speaking to me over the dog and I still got to paint the dresser. Come on, lets have another one while we’re still alive!”

Take care all you good people, and be kind to yourselves.

The Leg.