I filled the tartan shopping trolley with provisions from the Tunnels last night, as planned. It's hard work dragging it home over the moors all by myself and the balaclava doesn't help. If Geoffrey and the T-G are still hors de combat I might try to rig up some sort of motor and attach it to the trolley for next time. And I'll certainly need one of those lamp-style things that you tie round your head, because despite knowing the moors like the back of my non-existent hands, I kept falling into peat hags. How I'll square that with not being spotted by some random noseyparker with nightvision goggles, I haven't yet figured out. I could also use a bigger trolley; there are several boxes of crisps down in the Tunnels at the moment - smokey bacon flavour, roast chicken, and sizzling steak - and I'd like to nab a few before they disappear. It's just a matter of time until the Rats get them. They would have been destined for the Puff Inn only it's shut at the moment due to the lockdown. Preparation is everything, as someone very smug but probably annoyingly correct once said.
Tuppence hasn't returned yet from his shopping expedition to Speedispend Hypermarket and Compulsory Screening Centre. I hope - oh no. He's back.
'Uncle Tuppy! I've got toilet paper! Reams of it!' he struggled through the hole in the wall clutching a multipack of Speedispend 'own brand'.
'I don't care Tuppence. As I told you before, we don't actually need it. We're sheep. We do it where we stand. We don't have to wipe our bottoms.'
'And as I told YOU Uncle, I've started wiping mine, and what's more I'm going to be using a proper TOYLET and not doing it where I stand any more. Alexa says - '
'-' I opened my mouth to say that Alexa was a supercilious prig, and to remind him that in any case there are no such things as 'proper TOYLETS' hereabouts, and then I remembered that Tuppence is only a youngster, and that it would be wrong to be cruel and churlish just because I'm older and know so much better due to my mature, super-developed brain, with an intellect honed to a fine edge over a lifetime's practice arguing with Geoffrey and the T-G about the comparative merits of crisps and the finer points of tiddlywinks. So instead I said, 'Did you get any Hobnobs?'
'Only the plain kind. There weren't any chocolate left.'
'This is a disaster.'
'Don't be ridiculous Uncle. You're overweight and you know you're at risk of the sugar diabetes. Val Nark says - '
'Oh for the love of crisps.'
'No hear me out. Val says if your waist measures more than thirty four inches you're a walking time bomb.'
'I think mine's thirty two. Last time I checked.'
'When was that Uncle? Nineteen fifty three? Luckily I have a digital measuring tape and all I need to do is point it at the relevant area and HOLY SHIT!'
'Yes?'
'The digital measuring tape just went into the red zone then burst into flames. It wasn't able to cope with your vast waistline. Uncle Tuppy, you must take immediate action.'
'A-a-action?'
'Yes,' said Tuppence firmly. 'Val Nark is doing virtual fitness sessions via Skype. Dave's adapted their bikes and mounted them on stands and they're renting them out during the lockdown to people who are self-isolating or can't be arsed going out. I'm going to get you one and you can take part in Val's sessions. You're stronger than you know Uncle T.!'
next time - the comparative merits of composting TOYLETS versus the flushing kind versus doing it where you stand. Also - Tuppence and his prog friends finally release his charity single.
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