Been an interesting couple of days..
I had visitors this weekend - a friend, and her dogs.
On Saturday, we all drove out to the Elveden Forest and walked for miles. The younger dog is called Els ( she is Belgian ), a rather lovely liver coloured German Pointer and she was dashing all over the woods, bouncing along and having a whale of a time.
The older dog is a big old Fox Terrier, named Alfred. He is very old for a dog - sixteen - and . he sort of pootles about, sniffing, weeing on anything upright, so one may imagine how slow progress was in a forest!
He is also suffering from Canine degenerative myelopathy, more of which later.
My friend was very honest with me - I spent a lot of the day rapidly cycling through the various emotions, although it seems I didn't shake too much.
She said how difficult it was to know what was actually going on in my mind at times - apparently the 'tone' of my conversation doesn't match the expression on my face.
She also said I have times when I simply ' look through ' her and appear not to be connected at all.
Ho hum.
I lost my temper over something trivial and punched a door - not a recommended exercise, since the door is solid wood and I am not Bruce Lee.
The door won the bout on points, and I have very sore knuckles.
On Sunday, I did my exercises and slightly hurt my right knee - I have an old injury there, the result of an incident involving a motorcycle, a fence and my apparent inability to fly, which flares up sometimes and I think the kick boxing routine, which, although good for the aggression and the heart rate, is perhaps not the best thing for an aging crock such as myself.
After a shower, and a light and partially liquid lunch ( it numbs the pain in one's patella ) , it was politely suggested that we go out for another walk, a course of action indicated by the human female politely insisting 'it would do me good ', and by the canine female battering the furniture with her tail, whilst holding a bright red lead in her mouth.
Gene Krupa would have had trouble keeping up with the tempo of extemporised furniture drumming.
And so.....
One must be polite and amenable to the suggestions of one's houseguests, despite the urge to throttle them with a bootlace, so, fighting the urge to sit and read six and a half metric tonnes of Sunday Times supplements - amazing how interesting articles reporting the discovery of a cache of neanderthal tea cosies in Botswana can suddenly appear when one is attempting to give the impression of being perfectly comfortable in one's armchair for the forseeable future - I agreed,slowly rose into a more or less vertical state and grabbed the housekeys and Barbour.
I am very fortunate in living in a part of the world where a short drive will allow oneself to be transported to any number of forests, woods, fields and parks, full of wildlife and free of human beings, so we piled into my friend's strange little Citroen Berlingo - it is apparently the bastard offspring of the Popemobile and a stunted Transit - in order to have another long walk through a different part of the woods - which turned out to be rather nice, as the weather was warm and the sun filtering through the trees was lovely, striking exactly the right balance between too hot and too cold.
As mentioned earlier, Alfred has Canine degenerative myelopathy, which doesn't cause him pain, but does affect the use of his back legs a little. He drags one paw, and is not always aware of the position his hind legs, so he sometimes stumbles and makes heavy going of hills or upward slopes .
I realise readers from the less level counties may be surprised to find that Suffolk has hills at all, but trust me, it does.
They just aren't very big.
Or steep.
Or particularly hilly.....
Anyway, I digress.
Alf is an old fox terrier, with gammy back legs, I am a grey haired, bearded, heavily moustachioed man with a limp and a neoprene knee brace.
One may imagine the comparative comments made by the slim, lithe, energetic female members of the party.
When we eventually arrived home, via the supermarket ( visited to buy a bottle of something white and chilled for Madam ( neither a solid Medoc, nor an exuberant Chianti fulfilling the feminine alcoholic requirement, for some unfathomable reason ) and a half pound of sliced liver sausage for me ) , the male members of the party groaning with exertion, the females barely warmed up and positively fizzing with energy, one half of the male contingent curled up on the club chair and went into a deep, snoring sleep.
Sadly, it was Alfred that nabbed the chair, so I went into the kitchen and made us all some dinner - one thing I have not lost is the ability to cook, my only trouble is in not being able to go to the shops in order to buy ingredients, unless someone comes with me and escorts me around the shop.
If people didn't support me, I'd starve, because although I know my way around a kitchen, I absolutely freak out in busy public places and supermarkets are one of the worst places of all.
One would imagine a football crowd to be worse still, but, since I have always considered soccer to be a game played by twenty- two morons for the entertainment of twenty- two thousand morons, that particular scenario is unlikely to arise.
On that subject, how the hell does Snooker manage to be classed as a sport?
Or synchronised swimming, for that matter.
Mysteries.
The evening being still yet young, it was suggested an early night would be a very good idea, as plans were afoot to visit the coast in the morning.
This not being a bad idea to my mind, I nodded my assent.
A day of loafing in the sunshine, on a beach located a mere stone throw from the Adnams brewery, sounded like the ideal method of spending a Bank Holiday.
I agreed to an early start, made a picnic lunch utilising the aforementioned liver sausage, tomato and some bread and retired for the night, tired by my strenuous Sunday activities and looking forward to the excursion planned for the morrow.
When I was married ( I am a widower ), my wife was always complaining about how I never listened to her - or something like that, anyway - and this habit would seem to also apply to the conversation of my friends.
I was wakened at approximately 02.30 hours, by a cup of tea and the syncopated rhythm of Pointer tail against doors, furniture and bed head, to be informed that I was to shower, dress and present myself as ready to move out by 03.30, in order to 'catch the sunrise' over Walberswick.
Even the bloody birds were still asleep.
Lucky feathery little bastards.
Thanks to the best efforts of Messers Benson and Hedges, another cup of Yorkshire tea and the ' rejuvenating' effects of resting my head against the tiles of the shower, whilst tepid water streamed over my body, I eventually achieved a state of conciousness not entirely unlike being awake.
Once again, the Berlingo throbbed ( and I mean throbbed ) into life, the headlamps cut through the dark and we set off for the coast, the ladies in an ecstacy of excitement, the menfolk with an enthusiasm roughly approximating that of the Kitchener battalions going over the top on the second day of the battle of the Somme.
As I mentioned earlier, I live in a part of the world where the country is a two minute drive away.
The seaside, however, is about an hour and a quarter away by Berlingo.
Well, the drive turned out to be beautiful, the dark slowly turning to the kind of predawn that manages to be both cool and warm at the same time, the faint glow of the sun ( getting up even more slowly than I usually manage ) spreading in the East and a ground mist covering the fields as we drove along the A1120, through the little villages and towns along the way, racing ( insofar as one can race in a Berlingo ) to get to the coast before the sun came up.
It was touch and go, but we arrived at Walberswick ( selected for its dog friendly beaches ) just as the sun came up over the little pier.
It was bloody gorgeous.
I've been to a fair few places in my time, but there is a special something about the East coast of England that is quite unlike anywhere else in the very early morning.
The four of us made our way down the beach, Alf and I shambling along in the fashion of extras from a George Romero movie, Els rocketing along the sea front simulating a liver- coloured, four legged missile and my friend striding along, with the easy gait of a woman not carrying a daysac full of Thermos flasks, packed lunches and doggy accoutrements.
We walked with the sun at our backs, towards the setting moon, which still hung in the clear, blue, sky, stopping while Alf sniffed, pissed and shuffled along, his dragging back paw leaving a distincive three paw- print and one scuff mark in the sand.
The sea actually managed to look blue, the sky even more so, and apart from one seriously grumpy looking man walking his dog ( might be a male thing, this pre noon grumpiness ) , stomping in the opposite direction, there was not a soul in sight.
The tide was going out as we made our progress down the beach, Els discovered that electric fences are effective in preventing German Pointers from causing mayhem on bird reserves, Alf discovered that sand is the ideal surface for an essentially three legged dog to achieve the giddy speed of nearly three miles an hour, and I discovered that liver sausage sandwiches and strong, sugary coffee are probably the best breakfast foods on the planet.
The sea looked beautifully inviting, blue and clear and cold enough to completely shrink the testicles of those male humans unwise enough to attempt a swim.
There were seabirds, ranging from the ubiquitous gulls to the kind of unidentified feathery creatures of such rarity as to explain why Minsmere is a nature sanctury - I haven't the faintest idea what they were.
The wind along the shore was cool but not cool enough to stop the warmth of the sun from easing the aches and strains, and, by the time that we got to the Flora Cafe, it was clearly going to be a beautiful day.
We'd been mooching along for about three hours ( not covering much ground, due to the ambulatory issues of the male section of the party ) and I was suprised to realise that it was only eight o'clock.
We debated whether Alf would manage walking all the way to Sizewell, the decision was made to turn back towards Walberswick, because;
A: Alf looked tired ( Stuart being especially forceful in expressing concern about Alf's inability to walk much further, whilst surreptitiously rubbing his knee and looking brave )
B: Sizewell has a nuclear power station and the general consensus was that none of us particularly felt the need to grow an extra head
and
C: We still hadn't seen another human being apart from grumpy- dog - walking - man, and it was starting to make us wonder whether an outbreak of anthrax had caused the area to have been evacuated by the army. I commented on the situation's similarity to a John Wyndham novel, but, since we hadn't had a meteorite shower in the night ( of which I had seen more than I would necessarily cared to see ) and due to the paucity of Triffids in the immediate area, this line of explanation was quickly discounted.
So we started the tramp back towards our starting point.
Now, I don't know if you have ever walked along a beach and then faced the return trip.
If you have, you will realise that distance, like time, is relative.
I think I will write a treatise, to be called 'Palmer's Law of Inverse Distance', in which I will prove that the distance of a return journey is equal to that of the outward journey divided by two and multiplied by four.
The sun had fully risen and had become quite warm, outer layers of clothing were discarded and somehow found their way into and,become attached to, the daysac, which was, itself, attached to my back. Alf had slowed to a speed whereby he couldn't have caught a snail pulling a locomotive with its teeth, the sandwiches had been eaten, coffee reserves were low, and Els had apparently only just started to burn off her energy.
Have you ever seen the film 'Lawrence of Arabia?'
The opening scene involves a shimmering, impossibly distant image, backlit by the sun, of something slowly coming into focus, seeming remaining static on the horizon, until it materialises into Omar Sharif and a horse.
I'm not sure Omar would appreciate the comparison, but Walberswick pier had precisely the same ability to remain visible in the distance, without ever coming any closer, despite our best efforts to move steadily towards it.
We still hadn't seen a soul.
Finally, after a march that would have made the Jews' exodus from Egypt seem like a stroll around the garden, we arrived back at the car-park.
It was ten o'clock.
And suddenly, there were people.
Lots of people.
Families abandoning their people carriers in order to trek the hundred yards to the beach, the fathers laden with enough luggage to suggest the entire family was setting out on some sort of month long safari.
Young men in long shorts and baggy t shirts, carrying beer coolers and gas fired portable barbeques.
What appeared to be the Leiston chapter of the Hell's Angels.
Wiry looking people with mountain bikes and lycra.
Not so wiry looking men, also wearing lycra, whom my friend refers to as 'Mamals', which apparently is an acronym for 'middle aged men and lycra' - this is a derogatory description applied by women to these chaps which causes women to literally fall about laughing.
A couple of those insane people who like to run along beaches, clutching a bottle of water in one hand and a stopwatch in the other.
Young women, almost wearing clothing cut in a fashion cunningly designed to appear to be two sizes too small for the wearer, all of whom seem to have contracted some hideous disease which makes their faces go a strange, orange colour, whilst simultaneously draining all colour from the rest of their bodies.
We loaded the dogs into the Berlingo, bought two ice- cream cones from the van which had magically appeared in the centre of the car-park and drove home at a steady forty miles per hour, going in the opposite direction to the static eastbound traffic queues full of eager Bank Holidaymakers frying in their cars and breathing diesel fumes on their way to the beach.
What a bloody perfect day it had already been and it wasn't even yet lunchtime.
My friend departed with Els after we had all enjoyed a short doze and a spot of lunch.
Alf was left with me, since we were both quite obviously going to sleep well, and would make good company for each other.
He is asleep on my chair as I type this, smelling slightly of the seaside and other doggy odours ( Alf, not me, I just smell of cigareete smoke, as ever ) and he hasn't moved for the last three hours, except to get a little bit more comfortable.
He is being collected tomorrow morning, so I have his company for the rest of the day.
We might go out for a walk, later.
On the other hand, we may not.
.
I was there in every faltering step of the way! you write so well. 
Picking GOOD Friends? 
I am broken and don’t know what to do. 
We All Need a Special Friend
Appointment soon, not feeling good 
Male 56 in Deep Anguish
